Tag: internet

On EDGE

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Towards the end of last year, Vodacom upgraded the internet service in Suiderstrand from EDGE to HSDPA. That was great, although quite why they didn’t go all the way and make put an LTE connection in, I don’t know. But perhaps that’s because I’m not a mobile telecommunications expert. Maybe there’s more to it than just plugging in one ‘magic box’ instead of another. Who knows?
(Obviously, mobile telecommunications experts know, but I’m not one of them.)
(I may have already mentioned this.)

The whole HSDPA thing is great. It allows Skyping, blogging and Flickring without the constant frustration of waiting. For.

Things.

To happen.

But sadly, today, it’s gone away again. And we’re back to EDGE. Once more, I don’t really understand how this can happen. Surely you either have a connection or you don’t?
The strength of the signal remains solid – it’s the speed that isn’t there. S’odd.

Still, recognising the need of my readers, I did manage to upload some pictures to flickr. <~ That’s the link, right there.

17015976046Of course, it hasn’t cost any more to upload all those photos, since we’re charged by MB and not by time for our internet these days. It did take nearly two hours though. And that’s easily enough time to get through a nice bottle of red wine, I have discovered.

On Edge

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“You don’t know what you’ve got ’til you lose it”, said Phil Collins.
To be fair, I’d never paid much attention to Phil, but suddenly, I’ve realised that he was right all along. Because being without decent internet having had decent internet is driving us slowly mad.
True, we’re here to chill out, kick back and relax, but the internet can be used as a leisure thing too. It’s not all work, work, work, you know? Except that it becomes hard work when it doesn’t go very quickly.

Thus, popping into the metropolis of L’Agulhas, with its HSDPA connection, and pizza, and beer on tap seems like one of the best decisions we’ve made recently.

Later, back to pre-history and something-only-ever-so-slightly-better-than-dial-up.
But first, beer and pizza, obviously.

How to be outraged on the internet

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With much kerfuffle and outrage around the kerfuffle and outrage on the internet at the moment, The Pessimist has come up with a great list which you should consider as the gold standard of how to be outraged on the internet.

It’s called How To Be Outraged On The Internet and it hits the nail squarely on the head, with helpful tips to remember, such as: It’s All About You and the essential three stage programme of Constantly Threaten to Quit Social Media, Quit Social Media (In a huff. The huff is vital. Do not forget the huff.) and Rejoin Social Media (preferably around 2 days later).

If you’ve ever spent any time watching people being outraged on the internet, you will immediately recognise these traits and therefore thoroughly enjoy the post. If not, it’s probably a good beginners’ guide, which will almost certainly put you off going near the internet any time soon.

Unchanged exchange

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As if the constant rain, cold temperatures and miserable grey sky wasn’t enough today, I have just learned that my internet connectivity here at Chez 6000 is so slow because the local exchange simply can’t handle the amount of traffic going through it. Thus, while paying for a 4Mbps line, I’m generally very lucky to get 500kbps. And that’s a bit rubbish to say the least.

When SEACOM landed and when I got the 4Mbps line, I did think that we were beginning to approach some sort of semblance of First World connectivity.
How wrong I was.

Of course, all parties involved (save for me) are protected from any liability for this, thanks to the convenient (but standard – I’m not blaming Afrihost for this) “best effort” service clause in the terms and conditions:

Due to the fact that Telkom cannot guarantee the bandwidth throughput achieved when subscribers access the Internet utilising a DSL access line, Afrihost can likewise also not offer such a guarantee.

Interestingly, paying R200 less per month for a 1Mbps connection gives me around 350kbps. Slower, and arguably even more frustrating, sure, but with an extra R200 to spend on Carling Black Label, it might work out better overall.

The fact is that the exchange in question will definitely not be upgraded this financial year and there’s no guarantee when, if ever, it will be upgraded. Any alternative, not using Telkom lines (and therefore the same exchange) seems prohibitively expensive. Decent speed uncapped wireless offerings come in at a hefty R819pm, plus a R2000 set up fee.

If anyone has any brilliant ideas, or a money tree that they’re willing to lend me, please get in touch.

All in all, it’s pretty depressing, and if it’s holding me back, heaven only knows how the local SMEs are coping.