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What’s your gig?

What should a gigabyte cost us in Africa? According to a recent podcast that we listened to, by Marshall Brain, a gig of data should realistically cost us around 8c. Yup. 8 measly cents!  To put that into perspective; if you were on a 10mb per second line and consume 20gb of data a day (about 600gb a month) you would only be paying around R50 a month for your bandwidth. Right now, for that quality of service, you are probably paying 50 times (plus) that.

In a nutshell, his estimation is calculated off of the info published on Discovery Magazine’s article ‘Massive Undersea Cable Connects Africa’. The article relates to the Seacom cable which supplies bandwidth, from Europe, to Africa. Using underpinning business values – supply and demand and all of that – as well as a pinch of romantic intent, Marshall works out a realistic cost of an African gig.

He mentions that the 8c a gig does not account for the congestion factor that ISP’s have to deal with when sharing out their bandwidth. Taking this into account Marshall goes on to apply a worst case scenario cost of a gig and still only comes up with an extreme 65c a gig.

Some serious factors come into play in calculating this and you have to keep your focus to grasp what Marshall laying down. Nevertheless, we rate that it is worth the listen.

In South Africa, we have come to accept paying more for those first world luxuries and service. But according to Marshall, in an ideal world, when it comes to forking out for your internet bill, it shouldn’t have to be.

Click here to download Marshall’s podcast.

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