   Chocolate rations have increased from 6g/week to 3g/week(MAJOR RANT)
  Note those who would like to keep in a good mood should skip the entire rant and go straight to the end.<rant>First, let me apologise for the outburst, but the truth must be told.South Africa has one of the laziest and most useless government's in the world. Consumer's are allowed to be shunted left, right and centre. Our broadband, if you can really call it that, prices are among the highest in the world. And not only by just a bit, by a lot. For a 384Kb/s(barely reaches 40KB/s) line and a 3GB cap we are charged approximately R600 per month. That's around $90 per month. Increasing to a 30GB cap, you are charged approximately R3500 per month.This charge is basically made up of three recurring portions. A line rental, an internet access charge and a usage charge. The first two are paid to Telkom, our telecommunications monopoly in South Africa, while the third is payed to an ISP which pays a portion of that money to Telkom.Capping here is at R99 per gig! Almost $20. It is hard-capped so once you hit your specified amount, you are disconnected from the IP network completly. Not even local surfing.Recently, during an ADSL hearing IS(a company which opposes Telkom and is also being side-lined by them) calculated that the line rental portion of the should only cost the company about R40 and is ONCE OFF. They also said that the price per gig of international bandwidth is most definitely not that high. Telkom's lawyer's told them to shove it!Now this is what really gets on my nerves. Today Telkom released their annual profits. 6.8 BILLION RANDS!(About 1 Billion Dollars!! Also, another source I have says it could be as high 9.3 billion rands. So I have quoted the lesser). This is up almost 50% from last year! How did they acheive this massive profit. They announce a decrease in prices in some obscure product no-one uses, while subtly increasing prices in another area(like telephone lines). They disconnect telephone lines from poor areas. They stop rolling out new telephone lines to poor areas. They retrench half of their workers and cut wages on the rest of them.Today, they pulled the ultimate sleaze I have ever seen. They announced a 'massive price cut.' Sounds good, right? WRONG! Bald-faced lie! It's actually a 2.1% price cut on average. Still that must be good, right? STILL WRONG! The decrease is only for 'line rental' on the ADSL product(and other things no one has). Nothing else. Price per gig is still the same. Access charge is still the same. IE: The most expensive part of it has STAYED THE SAME and the part we should not even by paying has DECREASED.This makes the 192Kb/s ADSL just a bit more affordable for 'the lesser priveledged of the priveledged few that can afford ADSL.' So Telkom comes up with a brilliant way to combat this. They say that 192Kb/s is to PHASED OUT. All 192Kb/s subscribers will be upgraded to 384Kb/s. But, even with the price decrease of the 384Kb/s product, the 384Kb/s product is still more expensive(by about R20 or so) than 192Kb/s originally was. So people who bought 192Kb/s due to budget reasons now have to fork out even more money for an already over-priced product.In fact, the media had such a field day mis-interpreting the lies they got from Telkom that they had headlines such as: 'Huge price relief for SA.' Some didn't even bother to put in an article about Telkom's record through-the-roof profits.Telkom have stalled and kicked and screamed when faced with allegations about their anti-competitive behaviour. I hope someday that Telkom will somehow fizzle out of existence. That's never going to happen because the government owns 40% of Telkom. It's in their best interest to not do anything!Crime is another big issue that government does nothing about. Not only do have one of the highest telecomms costs, but we have the highest rapes per capita and the rapes overall and we have the second highest murders per capita. The saddest thing is that a lot of these rapes are the result of misinformation spread by certain people in the government. For instance, a few years back, our president said: 'HIV does not cause AIDS.' And recently, the deputy president was accused of raping a HIV positive woman without protection, even though he was the head of an AID's campaign! He was acquitted because the judge ruled that the sex was consented by the woman. Some of the rapes have been to baby's as young as 18 months. (This is also probably due to the misinformation about AIDS. IIRC, it was that having sex with a virgin will cure HIV/AIDS. ABSOLUTELY NOT THE CASE.)As soon as I possibly can. Perhaps after my degree and honours, I would like to completely leave South Africa behind me and go somewhere else. I can't see any progress being made in the next 4-5 years.My advice to anyone looking to go to SA to start a business or just to live here: DONT! At least don't even think about it until the government matures enough to not thoroughly screw you around.</rant>I feel better now.[smile]On a good side-note, I think I might participate in the 4E5. Anyone heard of this FastCap software and how good it is.   
  The internet isn't really a necessity, you know. I mean, it's useful and entertaining, but you won't die without it. If you and thousands of others continue to pay for the service at those prices, then supply and demand dictates that it's worth what they're charging.   ;Quote:Original post by Nomad010In fact, the media had such a field day mis-interpreting the lies they got from Telkom that they had headlines such as: 'Huge price relief for SA.' Some didn't even bother to put in an article about Telkom's record through-the-roof profits.It's surprising that any mentioned it at all. ;  The original quote had figures of 30g and 20g.Also, the president being a dumbass has nothing to do with a telco being greedy. Both these things are normal for countries with presidents and telcos.   ;Quote:'HIV does not cause AIDS.' I thought HIV...WAS AIDS.   ;Quote:Original post by skjinedmjeetThe internet isn't really a necessity, you know. I mean, it's useful and entertaining, but you won't die without it. If you and thousands of others continue to pay for the service at those prices, then supply and demand dictates that it's worth what they're charging.It's a government-enforced monopoly, from what it sounds like.  As in: it's illegal to compete with that company.   ;Quote:Original Post by skjinedmjeetThe internet isn't really a necessity, you know. I mean, it's useful and entertaining, but you won't die without it. If you and thousands of others continue to pay for the service at those prices, then supply and demand dictates that it's worth what they're charging.What's more important is that only 10% of everyone in South Africa have landlines. In 2000, that figure was closer to 12%. Poor people are forced to use Cellphones which are still quite expensive in South Africa.That being said, if internet and other basic telephony was more affordable, the economy would inevitably pick up. Things in SA have gotten so out of hand that it costs more to phone a cell-phone from a landline in South Africa than it is to phone someone internationally from a landline!   ;Quote:Original Post by ZahlmanThe original quote had figures of 30g and 20g.What? Where?Quote:Also, the president being a dumbass has nothing to do with a telco being greedy. Both these things are normal for countries with presidents and telcos.Really? So, if the all the ISP's in America were to increase their profit mark-up on all their products over-night, don't you think the president would do something and if not the president then the competitions comittee.The fact of the matter is, is that our President said telecommunication prices were too high, 2 years ago! To date, nothing has adequetely being done.Even more important is that they are allowing the country to decay. The Minister of Safety and Security said that people should stop whining about the high crime rate in South Africa or move to another country.clickEdit: Added article,   ;  doesn't sound to bad for a country at the end of the (3rd) world.   ;Quote:Original post by Daniel MillerQuote:Original post by skjinedmjeetThe internet isn't really a necessity, you know. I mean, it's useful and entertaining, but you won't die without it. If you and thousands of others continue to pay for the service at those prices, then supply and demand dictates that it's worth what they're charging.It's a government-enforced monopoly, from what it sounds like.  As in: it's illegal to compete with that company.If everybody currently using broadband in South Africa stopped paying for (and using) the service prices would either be forced down, or the government would lose money keeping all of their gear operational. But since people are willing to pay whatever the set price is to get broadband, it only makes good business sense to set the prices as high as they can get away with. Sure, it's underhanded and shady, but since people are willing to pay, why shouldn't they take advantage of the situation?I'd be more enraged if it was food/water that was subjective to that sort of price manipulation. When it comes to products that people need, such exploitation is decidedly unfair. But when it comes to something like broadband access (which is a non-essential item) I think it comes with the territory.Besides, it wasn't that long (relatively speaking) since broadband here was $90 per month. Even as it stands, I tend to average around 16-18kB/s (unless it's late at night and nobody in the neighborhood is eating up bandwidth) and it costs more than $40 per month.  So it sounds like the OP pays a little less than twice as much per month as I do, for approximately twice the bandwidth.   