The life (and death) of a South African ISP

I feel sorry for our local ISP’s. How can they compete with their international counterparts when it comes to hosting of sites? It simply does not make sense! SA web sites are jumping ship (and we are following soon!) and moving to international hosts, and who can blame them? It makes zero business sense to host locally for R4000.00 when you can do so for more features and bandwidth internationally at R400.00! That is: You get more for 10% of the price. Either my maths sucks or ISP’s are being ripped off / is ripping us off.

Lets face it, ISP’s HAVE to charge what they do in order to simply SURVIVE. Hellkom makes it damn difficult for these guys to stay competitive! Bulk of our huge hosting fees goes for bandwidth and that they have to pay over to Hellkom again.

Paul over at Wired Gecko and Max is talking action against the monopoly that is Hellkom… I guess the best starting point is to rally up all the local ISP’s since they are the ones that is getting the smallest of the hind tits (at least when you talk hosting!). They are being forced to offer completely uncompetitive hosting fees, while you can get 10 x of what they offer for 10% of the prices they charge!

For connectivity we all pay dearly. We do not have many choices. For hosting we do have choices, and most of us do choose to exercise our freedom of choice by hosting on overseas servers. All-in-all, we are all getting screwed one way or another! I hate feeling screwed…

technorati tags:hosting, isp, hellkom, bandwidth

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4 Comments to "The life (and death) of a South African ISP"

• Oscar Reitsma said: On 04/23/2007 at 2:31 pm

  The problem with local ISP’s going under is two-fold. Firstly the ISP’s themselves, the people that work there etc. Secondly its once again money leaving our economy. I wonder how much money is flowing out of the SA economy a year just for hosting costs? just my 2c

• Charl van Niekerk said: On 04/23/2007 at 4:05 pm

  I vote for a protest. I realize that all the “big guys” are over in CT and Johannesburg, but maybe there’s something we can do even here in George? Merely sending mails, making phone calls and that kind of crap is not going to help. We have to take serious action physically. I propose we hold a legal strike. If others agree, where in George will we gather, and what will we do?

• FeistyFemale said: On 04/24/2007 at 8:08 am

  Just thought I’d send you a link - http://www.frogfoot.com. Click on the frogshop - I have moved all my stuff there, it’s South African and really competitive pricing. (And I do, do my homework!)

• SA info Man said: On 05/20/2008 at 9:09 pm

  I was reading today on the net and found a company that sell to you your own VPS (Virtual Private Server) for hosting all branded under South Africa, then I found out they host all international, making me sick.
  Is there no law that can make ISP to inform clients that they misleading us, and they must inform clients that they host their servers in the USA and not in South Africa.

  I think we all had a bad experience with international hosting.

  I then found this company http://www.vpsinabox.com a local based company hosting in South Africa. and the prices are very good.

  Well done VPSinaBOX keeping traffic local and keeping the Rands in South Africa.

Spit it out!

Filed in: Business, South Africa by: Stii