Comments on: MTN to build rural broadband network

By: noah

noah — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 15:18:36 +0000

@gareth – if you build it they will come

By: Gareth McClure

Gareth McClure — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 17:13:31 +0000

I am neither black nor white there are rural areas that do not even have lights,water or toilets I rather have the basics sent out to the poor than setting up an expensive tower 1 person would use towers are not toilet paper somebody will pay for it. There needs to be a assessment done before laying out cables or hardware please try and not label me racist as I have being in many townships and my father lives on a farm in rural areas phone calls play a major role not internet.

By: dzasta2010

dzasta2010 — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 04:15:55 +0000

@Gareth
I live in a place called Nquthu (I doubt you’ve ever heard of it). It is about 40km from Nkandla and 70km from Vryheid. It is regarded as rural but and the population is 99.9% black (+-200,000) on average 8 members per family i.e. (25,000 families).
I can assure you that at least 30% of the families in the area have a computer or a laptop and 100% of those families have at least 2 cellphones per home, if not more, and they do buy airtime. This area has over 150 schools and most of these schools have a computer lan of some sort.

I find it disturbing that a lot of city folk, both black and white but esp. white still believe that people in rural areas just exist to buy bread. We’ve been neglected for too long and we’re not as poor as we’ve been made out to be. We are hungry, but more hungry for knowledge than for food, and with most KZN families in the rural areas there usually is someone working in the city (where did you think all those darkies come from) who still manages to send money home to subsidize here or there. So please don’t fool yourself into thinking that 3G or broadband is a luxury for the chosen few, it is a necessity for all.

We’ve been sidelined for too long. It’s about time, we’re tired of slow EDGE from MTN and CELL C (to Vodacom it’s almost like we don’t exist – GPRS).

By: Editor

Editor — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:04:53 +0000

@Marc: Yesterday was MTN’s results day. Expect similar saturation coverage when the likes of Vodacom and Telkom report

By: Marc

Marc — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:16:15 +0000

The “news” section of techcentral only has articles about MTN.
Is this site sponsored by MTN or are MTN the only ‘tech’ company in South Africa that publicizes its activities?

By: Gareth McClure

Gareth McClure — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:16:27 +0000

Its all good that Mtn laying its 3G network outside the metro cities there just one problem how are the people who cannot afford to buy a desktop never mind owning a dongle the internet is just far too expensive for the working class where will the people who just about make it to buy bread use internet.I know to build a network cost money it just do not make sense what they gonna do unless I missed something?

By: dominic

dominic — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 06:27:18 +0000

Excellent. Now Sentech won’t need to do it…..