Episode 21: Bandwidth Cometh
Listen (25 min, 18 seconds)With bandwidth in South Africa being a consistently sticky point for many South African's, the winds of change are coming. Internationally a 50 Mbps connection which also pipes in 1000 television channels is fairly standard. Locally 4Mbps is the fastest available consumer connection, at a cost of around R600 for the line alone. When ADSL was launched in South Africa in 2002 we were told that the average user only needs a three gig cap but unfortunately, seven years later we're stuck with the same artificial limitation. The simple fact of the matter is that due to geographic distance, there is only a finite amount of bandwidth available to reach international servers. What this means is that South African’s have had little satisfaction with Internet connectivity due to speed and pricing issues. SEACOM, a new cable connecting Africa to the rest of the world aims to change that.
Listen as we take a trip down to the Mtunzini landing station for the media launch. We speak to various journalist, bloggers and other digerati that found themselves in the sweltering humidity of Durban in the winter. We also field some questions to SEACOM CEO Brian Herlihy but first we speak to Anthony Brooks from the ISPA to get his take on the SEACOM cable and how it will affect ISP's around the country.
We also speak to Walter Pike of the AAA School of Advertising's Digital Marketing Academy to see how he's training the digital agency staff of the future. Our top ten this week is ten reasons to get broadband read by David Perel and in our tips and tricks section we speak to Rob Stokes of Quirk to get his tip for search engine optimisation. Before all that we're joined by Kerry-Anne Gilowey from Cape Town Daily Photo as well as Uno De Waal of 10and5 to bring us all the hipster news.
Guests:
Anthony Brooks:
Anthony Brooks is the Co-ordinator of Internet Service Providers Association of South Africa; an active industry body, facilitating exchange between the different independent Internet service providers, the Department of Communications, ICASA, operators and other service providers in South Africa.
Walter Pike:
Walter is currently the Head of Faculty: Marketing and Advertising at the aaa School of Advertising in Johannesburg. He is also the founder and thought leader at PiKE a marketing and social media consultancy.
Rob Stokes:
Energetic, inspired and dedicated to motivating people and empowering them - especially whilst wearing the famous (or is it infamous) tight white cricket shorts - Rob manages to bring these qualities to both clients and staff. He has filled the QuirkStation with Stars who have created a formidable eMarketing machine with an international client base.
Uno De Waal:
Uno is a Digital strategist, technologist and futurist. Right now his interest is on branded web applications and how brands can move past traditional banner/click/microsite advertising towards experiental sites that offer a richer experience and utility.
We also get opinions from Minaar Pieters, Nic Haralambous, Mike Stopforth, Aki Anastasiou, Dee Chetty, Steven Ambrose, Hilton Tarrant, Marc Forrest and Patricia Peterse.
Links:
SEACOM: http://www.seacom.mu/intro.html
ISPA: http://www.ispa.org.za/
Quirk: http://www.quirk.biz/
Digital Marketing Academy: http://www.digitalacademy.co.za/
Cape Town Daily Photo: http://www.capetowndailyphoto.com/
10and5: http://www.10and5.com/
Jarred Cinman: http://jarredcinman.com/
Saul Kropman: http://saulk.co.za
Comments:
Awesome segment on Seacom, thanks guys! Nice production work in general too. Subscribing now.
by John on June 02 2009, 18:35
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Will give it a listen!
by Minnaar Pieters on June 05 2009, 15:28
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