Julie's Boggle

There is so much that is good in South Africa… and internet access for the masses simply cannot be put into that category.

Here ADSL is a rare and expensive luxury. Coming back to the good old US Robotics 56k fax-modem, connected at – wait for it – 33.2kpbs, I feel like I’m going slowly mad! All the buzzing, clicking, beeping and little donging noises as it connects – it used to be so much a part of life but I was never sorry to say goodbye to it.

I can only conclude that Telkom and the internet service providers here, have got it far too good.

One of the best options I’ve seen is a modest 1 meg connection with a 3 gig cap – and that will set you back R600 or £45! In the UK, we pay just over £20 for a 2 meg connection with NO cap! And that’s really just about the UK government saying “Hey, getting everyone connected is good for the country, lets make it happen”… It worked for them, if only the SA government would follow suit.

In the meanwhile, I’ve practically given up on reading my mail. Watching all these browser windows ticking over as their content trickles down would try the patience of someone a lot stronger than me.

On the plus side, we’re having a really great holiday. The weather could not be better, and all our boxes from storage have been delivered, and dealt with as per my original plan of fitting it all in within a week. Woo-hoo! As of today we have 24 boxes all packed and ready for collection next week (to be seen again in London in about 2 months) and now we can really relax and enjoy our next 10 days with family and friends.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 6:07 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.