2009/10/26 ndungu stephen <ndungustephen@gmail.com>
I bought two scratch cards for Ksh. 200..
Then I decided to download "star trek TNG season 3" - I was told its 8.88 GB, so i figured with 3G speeds, I should be able to get the whole thing in about 8800 seconds.. [i.e putting it at an optimistic 1mbps to 500kbps]
Which is about 3 hours...... to 6 hours...
So, I washa the 3G card, load my 2 soc at around Saturday midnight, and I imagine that the speeds will be so good then, I will have the whole file by Sunday morning...
Shock on me...
I started with speeds on 0 - 12 kbps ... I waited it out for an hour without improvement... I began to wonder, do we really have the right to say we have high internet speeds in Kenya, or it a myth based on network usage ? What about capacity and dimensioning ?
Because I would have thought, that if we as a network has N - number of subscribers and we need each guy to have 1 mbps, then we will get a little over 1xN mbps from the fiber holders... But this seems not the case...
I woke up at 3 am, things had improved a little, it was around 150kbps, but still not good enough, because the file had only done 2.2%.. That meant I was to get the whole file in 24 hours..
So I said, ooh well, they said 14 days, so I can let the computer run as I await the file..
In the morning, I had 7.1%...
I went to church, visit friends, zurura town, got back home at around 9pm ,iT HAD REACHED 7.7%.. It had only done 0.6% AFTER 12 HOURS !!!!
Now that is what we call glacial progress in this age of Kenya being connected right at the heart of internet...
In south africa, if they tell you that you will get 3.6 mbps - you really get 3.6 mbps, but you also get a low of around 2.4 mbps, which is very acceptable... but 0-12 kbps,,, for 3G ??????
Anyway, I decided to discontinue the "star trek TNG' download for a few minutes so that I could do other things, before resuming... and thats when the SMS came:
"Your 14 day unlimited internet access has just expired, to continue enjoying the 'free' services, please load another Ksh. 200"
I THOUGHT THEY SAID 14 DAYS !!!
==== So, lets do the math.. 7.7 % of 8800 MB = 680 MB [approximately]
200 divide by 680 = Ksh. 0.3 per MB
Conclusion : I guess in the end if I want that "star trek TNG" it will cost me Ksh 0.3 x 8800 = Ksh. 2640.... And it will take me 13 days to get it, barely making the last 14.
Have we got free unlimited internet ?? At what cost ?? _______________________________________________ Skunkworks mailing list Skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke Other lists ------------- Announce: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks-announce Science: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science kazi: http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/admin/kazi/general
Hi Ndungu, I am sorry for your disappointment. I am sure you had hopes of watching some good old star trek this week. I can not confirm this but I think suffericon are throttling on torrents or shaping (really don't know)...this is I am assuming your were downloading from a torrent. However have you tried the http downloads? Do you still receive the same inept speeds? Regards, -- Lusiola Brian Everyone has photographic memory, not everyone has film though.