We have come a long way since the beginning of dialup connectivity with our 300bps connection(0.375k/sec) - current broadband connections in South Africa are up to 1MB/s with iBurst or 512k with ADSL. In the UK 8MB/s ADSL is the maximum, France, 20MB/s with ADSL2+ and South Korea even faster!

The internet is constructed out of a vast interconnecting network of data pipes. The main connections are like wide rivers, carrying lots of information, these divide up into smaller rivers and again smaller to millions of destinations and billions of people around the world.

The future holds faster connections allowing on demand movies, programs and any convievable content service. A TV quality broadcast requires 4MB/s. However, faster connections cannot guarantee you improved performance. If theres a bandwidth drought, there is no water to fill the riverbed. So if the server on the other side cannot provide you with the information fast enough, it doesn’t matter how fast your connection is.

The South African broadband situation
South Africa is inhibited from this high permforance broadband connectivity with high costs from the incumbent telco monopoly, Telkom. Future growth and large scale job opportunities can be acheived in the call center and high tech arena with deregulation of the telco industry, reducing costs and making South Africa more competitive. High speed cheap broadband will drive growth in South Africa, but will this ever happen?

iBurst broadband wireless internet is now available in South Africa, introducing more competition. Telkom responded by reducing ADSL line prices by about 15%. iBurst is a great alternative to the Telkom monopoly.

New ADSL services that are available in South Africa is an unlimited ADSL service with 5 static IP addresses which is a great alternative to 64k Diginet leased lines.

Article written by Mark Slingsby, RSAWeb Technical Director