Well, what a week this has been for South African internet consumers. We have literally gone from 0 to hero in 1 week, no thanks to the likes of Mweb, FNB, Afrihost, PayPal; only to mention a few.
Last week this time we were all raving about how we could now get uncapped ADSL for R219 a month. That was big news. We now can use the internet to its full content. I’m not talking about torrents and downloading of dodgy programmes. We can now, view Youtube without having to click pause, we don’t have to check our cap every 3 and half minutes, and moan when on the 15th of every month, we can’t check our internet banking. Now, we can surf without any worry. This is huge in our country, and with Telkom doing tests on 8MB ADSL lines, we will soon start seeing a shift in the way we work.
But today, for me, was one of the biggest achievements in our internet history. The fact that now we can receive money, without complications, and have the ability to sell products on the web without having to apply for merchant accounts. We can now use PayPal. We can now receive money, flawlessly & securely, which we can then deposit into our bank accounts, and withdraw from an ATM. This is a huge step. This now allows Tant Sanie from down the road to sell those delicious jams she has been making for jarre. She can now market her goods across the world, and become that super jam star she always wanted to be :)
In all seriousness though, I am excited to see how we going to progress in the next 6-12 months in South Africa. I think we in for a brilliant ride, and I reckon the competition from broadband providers is going to force the mobile operators to drop their data rates too much much lower than the R2 a meg we seeing now. Yes, they have the advantage of being able to connect remotley, but sooner or later they gonna have to come to the party. I’m predicting 50c a meg before the end of the year :)
A big big big thanks to FNB & Paypal for the invite today to the PayPal event. I am honoured to be part of this ground breaking initiative in South Africa. Also a big thanks to Vincent from Cerebra for the invite and help with the flights etc. Finally a HUGE massive thanks to eBucks who sponsored me a Avis Point to Point chauffeur from the Airport & back to Centurion. I think without dear Andries my driver this morning, I may have gone a bit mental in that silly silly Joburg traffic :)