Bottlenecks For Bits and Bytes

IN Europe one can be connected to a private IT-company for 20.- Euro (N$230)/month. You get for that amount access to free and unlimited phone calls within the whole country over your fixed line as well as a fast and continuous connection to an internet provider without any download restriction.

The Highway system (Autobahn) is designed to lead the heavy trucks and other road users around the cities, towns and villages. It has no cross points and leads from border to border to all neighbours.Television reception for all the public as well as many private channels over satellite is not encrypted and can therefore be received by everybody without extra costs. One has to pay however a license fee for the public broadcaster like in Namibia.The situation in Namibia is quite different. Here, proper planning, maintenance and capacity enlargement concerning the infrastructure -schools, railway, hospitals, electrical power generation and so on, are neglected.The existing IT oligopoly is overcharging the unprotected consumer for an unstable, unpredictable and sometimes a criminal internet service. Some of my e-mails were intercepted and altered by employees from my former provider. Nobody knows if the culprits and their henchmen who profited from this criminal acts are still active.Telecom as an example offers for N$349 its customers a fast 256 kbit/sec DSL-connection for an internet portal without any other condition except the download amount. However, this offer can never be realised. If you check the speed on your computer by using the website www.speedtest.ipb.na:8080/myspeed/test/mssvoip you find that it never reaches 256 kbit/sec as offered. This website is used by Telecom technicians to show their customers how fast, or better slow their connection is. The maximum download speed you get is about 215 kbit/sec. The upload speed maximum is considerable less. Unfortunately this is only half of the story. The measurement is only showing the internal speed up to the handing over point at Windhoek. At this point the service is transferred to the real net over a satellite connection. If one measures the real speed of a connection with www.dsl-speed-messung.de one finds out that the real value during a 24 hour period is oscillating between 40 kbit/sec (less than an analog connection) and up to the above mentioned 215 kbit/sec. During the day it is really bad and improves during late night hours. But it is never 256 kbit/sec as written in your contract.If you want to know the speed for the other providers MTC and Cell One with their G3 service, just ask them. Their answer is wishy-washy, meaning plain rubbish. The bottleneck for everybody lies obviously in the up/down link capacity in Windhoek.The Transkalahari Highway leads from the port of Walvis Bay to the neighbouring countries. Unfortunately it stops before Swakopmund and resumes its way only after the town. Within Swakopmund it just does not exist. To pass this bottle neck you have the choice of driving over bumps with a traffic light between the old age homes or a dirt road with no bumps in the middle or a parallel tarred road. All roads are used day and night by heavy traffic with the known side effects.The NBC-TV license payer is only able to view the channel he paid for through a terrestrial connection. The signal by satellite which can be received in the remotest area in Namibia is encrypted. To receive NBC in this way you have to pay as a Namibian an additional subscription fee to another service provider who produces in Namibia nothing but bills. Are the responsible persons in the Swapo Government aware that they are in fact sabotaging the information policy of their own country? The situation in the neighbouring countries is quite different. Botswana satellite TV is free. SABC1,2,3 and ETV can be received more or less free of charge as well as some other channels. By the way, they are also free for Namibians.If one tries to confront the responsible authorities with their questionable handling of the infrastructure, you get the following responses. At Telecom Namibia they ask you -fair enough- to cancel your contract in writing. From the Ministry of Roads, I Way and NBC you get no response at all. They sweep their problems under the carpet. They just do not care about the rights of customers or the citizens of Namibia. The inhabitant has no (legal) power to enforce the service he should be entitled to. The politicians are busy to level the playing field for their own private sustainable development and their protection as stakeholders in their milking cows (MTC, Iway, DSTV, Telecom). This is called Black Economic Enrichment or BEE through public (to) private partnerships without any practical input from their side except cashing in cheques. The recent decision about the IT-tariffs are a proof of that thesis. Unfortunately, the milk cow is fed in the end by the helpless customer of these companies.Japie Van WykWalvis Bay