Don’t sign any long-term internet contracts!
by Andrew Smith on 15/05/08 at 4:20 pm
1 comment
There are exciting times ahead for internet access in South Africa. Take this fairly small example from Cybersmart:
ADSL service provider Cybersmart is close to launching a new product called Nightrider, a service which will allow ADSL subscribers five times the typical bandwidth allowance when used between 1am and 7am.
Read the full article here. It doesn’t sound huge, but it shows that ISP’s are getting creative and slowly upping their offerings in preparation for a shifting playing field.
Then on MoneyWeb an interview with Jeremy Ord, Chairman of DiData:
JEREMY ORD: Well, you know, Alec, I was talking to some of my colleagues in London and in North America, in fact I was talking to some other telcos, and they’re busy rolling out 100 megs to people’s homes. So, you know, if we think we’re sitting with 256k or 1 meg, they’re rolling out 100 megs at $30/month. And that’s the effect, that’s what’s going to happen. As we deregulate, and hopefully that comes sooner rather than later, in South Africa you will get that demand and we’ll catch up with the rest of the world.
Read the full interview here. DiData is closely linked with Seacom, one of the undersea cables expected to arrive here next year. He’s confident that we’re catching up with the rest of the world.
My message to you: don’t sign any 24 month internet contracts! The offering will look appealing today, but in a year’s time it might be the equivalent of owning a floppy disk when everyone else is walking around with 100 GB USB drives.
Andrew Smith is the pedantic systems guy behind Live Alchemy, a SA e-commerce company. Andrew writes for Ideate in an attempt to make the world a more efficient place. View more articles by Andrew Smith.
John Joubert
May 15th, 2008
Nice article. Next couple of years are going to be very interesting!