Damn the Man!

WARNING: Rant ahead.

This is life in South Africa. We have one, yes one single, telecomunications company, named Telkom (see telephone on image). Since they have no competition, they simply screw us with telephone call prices and internet pricing, because we have nowhere else to go. Example: Since we have nowhere else to get internet access from (not talking ISP here, talking actual lines and whatnot, all the hardware stuff you need), they simply charge us something like 300-500% of what other countries charge, and you still have to pay them for the telephone line usage and ISP services.

Then, 2-3 years ago, they finally brought out DSL connections, to the joys of many, since phone-bills were through the roof. Now you can pay a fixed amount (still costing something like $200) for "unlimited access". The catch: you are only allowed 3 Gig of bandwidth usage, uploads and downloads. For those of you, like me a few months ago, with no clue about what this is, it means you can only surf/download a (very) limited amount.

No one can do anything about it, because they are The Man, and The Man calls the shots. Any other company that wants to come into the game has to either lay out an incredible amount of capital, or use Telkom's lines, and be subjected to Telkom's pricing.

As if that wasn't bad enough, their simple call service is still somehting like 300% more than the rest of the world has to pay, analysts say. I haven't actually sat and worked out how much different countries charge for their calls, so I'll take their word for it.