Guilty as charged!

Ok, we're guilty as charged. We've definitely neglected the ADSL South Africa blog over the past month. In our defence we will say we were busy with stuff the average Joes do this time of the year. Visiting family and friends and just having fun (and doing some work of course).

Well, that's it for now. Enjoy your weekend and have a splendid holiday and festive season. :-)

The ADSL South Africa Team

Hell Week for ADSL South Africa!

The past week can at best be described as 'Hell Week' for ADSL South Africa. This is the reason we left the blog unattended for some time.

If it was not hackers that tried to bring the site down or post obscenities, we had endless problems with Microsoft's infamous operating system, VISTA.

We don't want to focus on the hackers or wannabe hackers but on VISTA, the wannabe operating system or whatever you want to call it...

We bought new hardware recently and VISTA was included as part of the package. We didn't want it but decided to give it a test drive and see for ourselves if its really that bad. What an eye opener, Windows Vista is probably the biggest pile of sh%te that hit the shelves in a million years. It has the capability to slow the fastest and meanest machine down to a speed not even comparable to the time it takes an ancient mummy to crawl from a burning tomb while under fire from the biggest cannon in the world. It slows broadband connections down to a point that even dial up can beat, it takes ages to open a simple MS Word document, et cetera.

At some stage we thought it were viruses or spyware that's slowing down the system but a thorough test revealed that the problem is with VISTA itself. Needless to say we're in the process of switching back to Windows XP Professional. Windows XP Professional is probably not the best operating system in the world but at least we will have our broadband connection back.

It is really beyond believe that the likes of Incredible Connection and others don't have the balls to stand up and tell Microsoft where to stick Vista. Sorry, we forgot, they don't really care about the average Joe like you and me but only about the profits they can make.

It makes one sick to your stomach when you realise Microsoft and some dealers are actually making DOUBLE the profits with VISTA. Most people switch back to older operating systems after they discover how bad VISTA really is, unfortunately in many instances people have to fork out extra money to switch because the dealers will as sure as hell not give any refunds, even when someone was forced to buy VISTA as part of a package. It won't surprise us at all if people shop around for illegal copies because who is really prepared to spend their hard-earned money on a 'scam' like this?

This is just another example of how a monopoly can messes things up for decent people. If it's not Telkom and their buddies screwing us over, it's Microsoft and their 'little whores' doing the rounds.

Have a splendid weekend and be sure to try VISTA out when its out of the 'DEVELOPMENT STAGE'. In the meantime, stick to your money and your guns. :-)

The ADSL South Africa Team

A light goes on

Telkom Media made it clear during the recent Media and Broadcasting conference in Sandton that they ‘…will need far higher bandwidth and higher usage limits to provide users with the services they envisage’ (Telkom Media looking for higher ADSL caps, MyBroadband, 6 November 2007).

Well, we honestly can’t say that’s groundbreaking news. Why don’t you go to your parent company and tell that to them? We can certainly not help you and we’re definitely not daft enough to think that you can run any decent IP-TV service via your parent’s pathetic excuse of a service currently.

Of course, your parent is upgrading its ADSL network to ADSL 2+ which promises speeds way over 10 Mbps, but it’s not the point we want to make here.

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) can’t help to bite at anything Telkom related. We suppose it’s a bad habit that will blow over one of these days. :-)

The ADSL South Africa Team

Long live ADSL Broadband!

One can't help to utter the above phrase after one read the article: The future of broadband in SA can only be wireless (Hilton Tarrant, Moneyweb, 7 November 2007).

We tend to agree with one of our local heroes, Matthew Tagg , who said in a recent Newsweek interview that Web Africa ‘…has chosen to focus selling ADSL services as this is the technology with the most long term promise’ (Taking on the big boys, Ben Kelly, Finweek, 4 September 2007). Tagg ‘…does not believe that the wireless services, even Wimax, will be able to offer the speeds that customers will be demanding in the near future’ (Taking on the big boys, Ben Kelly, Finweek, 4 September 2007).

THE BIG QUESTION: Is it a FACT that WiMAX and other wireless services '...will be able to offer the speeds that customers will be demanding in the near future'? No, it's not a fact and therefore it's astonishing at best to see someone writing ADSL off just like that.

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa) believes WiMAX is a great means of getting connected but it was definitely not proven yet that it will offer the only or ultimate broadband Internet solution in the future.

The safest bet is to place one's bets on the future of both ADSL and wireless services...

For instance: WiMAX is a great alternative to ADSL in the country side because of old copper infrastructure relating to ADSL, et cetera but ADSL definitely has what's needed to bring super fast Internet speeds to people living in the city or metropolitan areas.

Well, that being written, it will be interesting to see where this will go since copper thieves, probably WiMAX's greatest supporters (:-), are definitely doing their bit to hamper the progress of ADSL.

Enjoy the weekend. Have lots of fun. :-)

The ADSL South Africa Team

ADSL South Africa starts blogging

Welcome to ADSL South Africa's first blog and our first post.

I can't figure out for the life of me why we decided to start blogging. Anyways here you will find our ideas and thoughts in its most primitive form. Not to worry though because it will not involve any cave crawling or sucking up to Telkom for that matter. In all honesty, despite the fact that one wonders some times if we're not still living in the Dark Ages where Internet access is of a concern in South Africa. Luckily we're starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel and would like all decent South Africans to join us for the ride.

There are still a lot of good guys left out there. People that are working hard behind the scenes to bring you bigger and better options. If I may quote one of the good guys: "Local bandwidth after the cap is going to be here very shortly. We already have a product operational, but have not launched officially yet."

We leave you with this for now. Be sure to come back for more. :-)