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Dear MTN Vodacom and Cell C: Is South Africa kissing cheap internet access good bye?

One of the greatest challenges in today’s Africa is presented by the advent of the internet.

For us the internet presents not just a means though which we satisfy our need for entertainment but it is now very instrumental in our fight against poverty, ill-health and miss-information.

The spread of feature mobile phones across most if not all of Africa has been good to us because it has made it possible to access cheaper internet. Unfortunately the arrival of Android smart phones is changing this chance and we are-all most on a daily bases finding internet  access more and more difficult as the value for a good data bungle is being devalued. The amount of time we spend on the internet is smaller than that which was the norm last year. You need not use statistics to prove this so. You simply have to go over your own memories and you will find that most of your friends were changing mobile phone networks almost on an hourly basis because the was a war going on between MTN, Vodacom and Cell C. Non of the afore-mentioned three can come out and claim itself a victor but I personally find it easier to point out Cell C as the better warrior-if not man of the match because it did manage to rake in a good number of fans who were attracted by the cheaper and longer lasting data bungles.

Vodacom and MTN saw this and were forced to rethink and restructure their data

Photo added from www.businesstech.co.za March 7 2013

packages. Always the more adept in strategy Vodacom began to add more buy options. They first brought us promotional data bungles which we bought by the numbers. The market was good for them so they upped their game by adding more options to their standard data bungles and extending their promotion times while laying in more lanes that catered not simply for the youth but went far enough to provide bungles accessible only to youth of specific ages.

MTN came in and adapted its data packages by offering its pay as you go customers’ data bungles that are bulkier than Vodacom’s but restricted by time. The thirty days data bungles are for example very small (5MB) if you low on cash (R3 to R5) but are much more reasonable if you have enough ( R35 for    100MB). They all last quite long enough if your internet experience is restricted to text based browsing.

Cell C managed to counter Vodacom and MTN by simply increasing its marketing space while balancing its data bungles against a very competitive price. They offered us 50MB for R7 and 100MB for R15. This was not just cheap: it was irresistible and thus made Cell C the carrier of choice even though its network coverage had nothing on both MTN and Vodacom.

The battle has now shifted and is very different from that of last year. Cell C seems confident in its market share. It now advertises not as aggressively as it once did. This is evident in its shift from serious pointy finger advertising to lets party slice of life advertising. Their bungles have gone up in price and they no longer give as many pecs as they did when you buy air time.

MTN is as expensive as ever when it comes to data, they still seem keen on relieving you off of your air time through sneaky services you joined with no consent from you and they are not lazy to let you “join” maybe two of these.

They now have very agreeable bungles if you using internet via a computer (R50 twenty four hour internet access unlimited, R10 1Gig Night express and

R5 250MB night express). To top it all up their speed is the best I have by far experienced.

Vodacom has for a long time been perceived as a carrier for the moneyed-and old. In trying to change that image they have begun to again do what they do best. They re-imagined the company’s image by splashing our screens with beautiful baby faces we were powerless against. They made me a fan of the company again but it failed to make me leave Cell C and MTN (polygamy is natural to an African). I latter came across Vodacom’s other projects and fell head first into a dam full of remorse for I have not for a very long time known and therefore appreciated the effort the company is putting into making South Africa a better place for all. Vodacom Millionaire has sisters from both Cell C and MTN but I personally do not find then any closer to the value of Vodacom’s e-School.

What bothers me however is the question of whether or not any one bothers himself to learn from it and add value to his own living condition.

The internet is not just for porn. It is an engine for change. Its greatest appeal to me is that it needs no greater resource for it to provide Africa the change it needs. Only my time and my beautiful brain: Rise African.

Please note. The above article intends only to show one man’s own hopes and frustrations about his need for internet access. He views it as a human right, values its contribution to his country and continents food chain and understands, appreciates and encourages the mobile network’s efforts to make internet accessible in Africa and South Africa specifically.

He is however worried that these efforts are becoming more and more profit driven and doing so on a continent still not well placed for humane profitability. 

Playing pick-a-booh with the sentiments of color : Black or white we never chose to live like this!

The trouble with being today's African is that often, we today live in a way we as Africans-white and black-never chose. It was chosen for us by our ancestors who no longer now care about the mess of life they left for us.

Life with good neighbors is sweet; life with bad neighbors is bad but life with indifferent neighbors worse. You do not know where you stand with them. South Africa and indeed southern Africans are a divided people. There is this thing they are calling social cohesion(in South Africa) but this thing is-if at all working-rather too slow. To some of us and especially me, it is an even stranger animal than the segregation (apartheid). The problem is not really that I am bred-as some would put it-to hate my European neighbors. Rather, it is that I am afraid of them because I, as a person, do not know where I stand with them.

I do not fear their rejection of me as an individual but I find it hard to stand in front of them for if I do stand in front of them, I as a person-the most intricate part of me will be judged and the judgment will scale my being as somehow very lacking.

To me, my skin color should be very unimportant. My lips and my buttocks shape should not be a bother. The shape of my hips and penis' measurements should never be a thing of question. What I miss about apartheid is that I knew where I stood in their eyes. Yes it made me angry but at least my anger was not unjustifiable because I and my white neighbors knew the reason. There was no elephant waiting to crush any person in the room.

In today’s southern Africa my being is the source of my every day fear. I as a person am forced to, every minute of every day evaluate my own value against theirs. It is as if they are normal and I am somehow inadequate and as such must strive to fit or be ejected.

The advent of social media and TV is to my dismay only helping to make things worse. The white neighbor called Penny Sparrow is a good example of this. The woman, somebody’s mother, actually went onto facebook and posted the whole thing (she called black beach goers monkeys). What bothers me is that this happening made me ask myself “am I still so much less in the Europeans eyes?” Do these people, our own brothers (1640 is a long time ago) still believe in this social programming…Were their long dead ancestors so thoroughly brain washed that it is effective even today?

The USA has been free from racism for over fifty years now-well at least that’s what you would be led to believe if only your country’s US embassy had its way. Look at the news however and you will soon discover how racially charged the USA is. South Africa is no better and they keep quiet about the whole thing only to raise it up again come elections. The Afrikaner supported Afriforum speaks as would a highly censored convict. Everything they say must be clean of racism and racial undertones. They represent not just the average white South African but the Afrikaner. And that is itself the beginning of their greatest of challenges come elections.

The EFF being young and all has the luxury being the only clown inside the ANC palace. They are therefore not at all shy and can point every other person’s flaws and never get punished for doing it.

The ANC and the DA are the main contenders. The DA represents both white and black-well at least that’s what we are told. They speak out very boldly against the ANC but their angel status is falling apart. This is because Lindiwe Mazibuko’s departure from parliament left many questions in our minds. The girl was no fan of Zuma but she latter begun to be not so friendly with Helen Zille. ANC was once a god but that day is long gone. They speak for blacks but we do occasionally hear Britain speaking. The Guptahs made matters worse. We have long suspected a third force in the country but we did not for a minute think they would be powerful enough to bring the ANC such an embarrassment. 

What bothers me however is not what happens in parliament but rather the ignored mess that we face because of it. Twenty one years from 1994 we South Africans are still verily a divided people.

I have for years dreamt of going into a white suburb and be accepted there as a person not just as a legal entity as is currently the case. My way of life allows me to go over to my neighbor’s house ask and be given a cup of salt whenever I find myself lacking. It is not that I cannot do that here. It is rather that I cannot afford to do it. The risk is too much. You see, my being in the suburbs means that I am now an ambassador on behalf of every other black man a white man who is my neighbor will meet out there. My going over to ask for salt will not serve any good to bring us together past our geo-location. What it will do is rather to reinforce an over a century old stereotype. You see we blacks are thought of as a people who cannot take care of themselves. This is a half a millennia old false stereotype and asking for salt from my white neighbor in today’s South Africa doesn’t help remedy the belief at all.

What’s even more depressing is that being white in black South Africa can be even much worse.

Did you know there are white squatter camps in South Africa? I know there are some of you who believe this thought. You even go so far as to even ask why not? Well I’ll tell you why. Being a white person in South Africa means being rich, period. A toilet cleaning Indian South African is toleratable but a white person doing the same thing is plain right depressing. Very depressing. There are a number of factors that could explain why this is but the most obvious one is the perception whites inspired back when they made themselves a better people than the black man. They were elevated over us black folk and the result is a divided people to such a degree that even though a poor black brother can go ask salt when in lack a white brother cannot. The white man who happens to be poor is frowned upon. Even by the people he deems his own. The misfortune of being a poor white South African is not viewed as a matter of misfortune but is taken as a sign of personal failure. Failure not born of ill luck but rather lazy born of failure to take the chance at wealth apartheid afforded the white South African at before 1994. How then can I being such a person be able to ask my black brother to help me?

Social racial separation in South Africa is everywhere. It is not institutionalized-there is no need for this-but is rather psychologically ingrained in our psych. It is able to automatically show itself in almost everything we do and everywhere we are. The sad part is that those of us who grew up seeing segregation will go on seeing it even when there is no need for us to see it any more. We-both black and white-grew up being taught to see it. Perceive it even in its subtlest form.

I have had the rare chance of being in to a University. They are on the main still very much segregated to an extent but I have seen the hardest crossover take place right in front of me. I have seen black boys go up and pursue the heart of a white woman and actually win it. I have seen them marry and have seen them integrating into each other’s families with no major hiccups. You might think I am a sucker for white men’s company but I assure you that that is not really the case. I simply do not hate them. I love them as would any other man love his fellow citizen. I do not want to see the obliterated or chased away from their country just because some hateful man sees not fully African enough. I would also hate to see my child being denied an excellent western education just because the color of his skin is not pale.

If we go on harboring the sentiments of color will not ever get to realize the fruits of the peace we South Africans enjoy. We will never see the end of White privilege and we will go on hearing foul cries over the presence of policies akin to Affirmative Action. Black privilege will rise and South Africa will fall into a war of the races. I do not want to see this. What I want to see is a country bound by common interest, interests that will advance the peace and the beauty of this country.

Playing pick-a-booh with the sentiments of color will not help us. What will help us is to have our politicians stop raising up the race card whenever things fail to go their way. This is the main reason we fail to truly reconcile with one another. The day we remove such politicians is the day we will move forward and prosper peacefully as a nation.

                  

Playing pick-a-booh with the sentiments of color : Black or white we never chose to live like this!

The trouble with being today's South African is that often, we today live in a way we as Africans-white and black-never chose. It was chosen for us by our ancestors who no longer now care about the mess of life they left for us.

Life with good neighbors is sweet; life with bad neighbors is bad but life with indifferent neighbors worse. You do not know where you stand with them. South Africa and indeed southern Africans are a divided people. There is this thing they are calling social cohesion(in South Africa) but this thing is-if at all working-rather too slow. To some of us and especially me, it is an even stranger animal than the segregation (apartheid). The problem is not really that I am bred-as some would put it-to hate my European neighbors. Rather, it is that I am afraid of them because I, as a person, do not know where I stand with them.

I do not fear their rejection of me as an individual but I find it hard to stand in front of them for if I do stand in front of them, I as a person-the most intricate part of me will be judged and the judgment will scale my being as somehow very lacking.

To me, my skin color should be very unimportant. My lips and my buttocks shape should not be a bother. The shape of my hips and penis' measurements should never be a thing of question. What I miss about apartheid is that I knew where I stood in their eyes. Yes it made me angry but at least my anger was not unjustifiable because I and my white neighbors knew the reason. There was no elephant waiting to crush any person in the room.

In today’s southern Africa my being is the source of my every day fear. I as a person am forced to, every minute of every day evaluate my own value against theirs. It is as if they are normal and I am somehow inadequate and as such must strive to fit or be ejected.

The advent of social media and TV is to my dismay only helping to make things worse. The white neighbor called Penny Sparrow is a good example of this. The woman, somebody’s mother, actually went onto facebook and posted the whole thing (she called black beach goers monkeys). What bothers me is that this happening made me ask myself “am I still so much less in the Europeans eyes?” Do these people, our own brothers (1640 is a long time ago) still believe in this social programming…Were their long dead ancestors so thoroughly brain washed that it is effective even today?

The USA has been free from racism for over fifty years now-well at least that’s what you would be led to believe if only your country’s US embassy had its way. Look at the news however and you will soon discover how racially charged the USA is. South Africa is no better and they keep quiet about the whole thing only to raise it up again come elections. The Afrikaner supported Afriforum speaks as would a highly censored convict. Everything they say must be clean of racism and racial undertones. They represent not just the average white South African but the Afrikaner. And that is itself the beginning of their greatest of challenges come elections.

The EFF being young and all has the luxury being the only clown inside the ANC palace. They are therefore not at all shy and can point every other person’s flaws and never get punished for doing it.

The ANC and the DA are the main contenders. The DA represents both white and black-well at least that’s what we are told. They speak out very boldly against the ANC but their angel status is falling apart. This is because Lindiwe Mazibuko’s departure from parliament left many questions in our minds. The girl was no fan of Zuma but she latter begun to be not so friendly with Helen Zille. ANC was once a god but that day is long gone. They speak for blacks but we do occasionally hear Britain speaking. The Guptahs made matters worse. We have long suspected a third force in the country but we did not for a minute think they would be powerful enough to bring the ANC such an embarrassment. 

What bothers me however is not what happens in parliament but rather the ignored mess that we face because of it. Twenty one years from 1994 we South Africans are still verily a divided people.

I have for years dreamt of going into a white suburb and be accepted there as a person not just as a legal entity as is currently the case. My way of life allows me to go over to my neighbor’s house ask and be given a cup of salt whenever I find myself lacking. It is not that I cannot do that here. It is rather that I cannot afford to do it. The risk is too much. You see, my being in the suburbs means that I am now an ambassador on behalf of every other black man a white man who is my neighbor will meet out there. My going over to ask for salt will not serve any good to bring us together past our geo-location. What it will do is rather to reinforce an over a century old stereotype. You see we blacks are thought of as a people who cannot take care of themselves. This is a half a millennia old false stereotype and asking for salt from my white neighbor in today’s South Africa doesn’t help remedy the belief at all.

What’s even more depressing is that being white in black South Africa can be even much worse.

Did you know there are white squatter camps in South Africa? I know there are some of you who believe this thought. You even go so far as to even ask why not? Well I’ll tell you why. Being a white person in South Africa means being rich, period. A toilet cleaning Indian South African is toleratable but a white person doing the same thing is plain right depressing. Very depressing. There are a number of factors that could explain why this is but the most obvious one is the perception whites inspired back when they made themselves a better people than the black man. They were elevated over us black folk and the result is a divided people to such a degree that even though a poor black brother can go ask salt when in lack a white brother cannot. The white man who happens to be poor is frowned upon. Even by the people he deems his own. The misfortune of being a poor white South African is not viewed as a matter of misfortune but is taken as a sign of personal failure. Failure not born of ill luck but rather lazy born of failure to take the chance at wealth apartheid afforded the white South African at before 1994. How then can I being such a person be able to ask my black brother to help me?

Social racial separation in South Africa is everywhere. It is not institutionalized-there is no need for this-but is rather psychologically ingrained in our psych. It is able to automatically show itself in almost everything we do and everywhere we are. The sad part is that those of us who grew up seeing segregation will go on seeing it even when there is no need for us to see it any more. We-both black and white-grew up being taught to see it. Perceive it even in its subtlest form.

I have had the rare chance of being in to a University. They are on the main still very much segregated to an extent but I have seen the hardest crossover take place right in front of me. I have seen black boys go up and pursue the heart of a white woman and actually win it. I have seen them marry and have seen them integrating into each other’s families with no major hiccups. You might think I am a sucker for white men’s company but I assure you that that is not really the case. I simply do not hate them. I love them as would any other man love his fellow citizen. I do not want to see the obliterated or chased away from their country just because some hateful man sees not fully African enough. I would also hate to see my child being denied an excellent western education just because the color of his skin is not pale.

If we go on harboring the sentiments of color will not ever get to realize the fruits of the peace we South Africans enjoy. We will never see the end of White privilege and we will go on hearing foul cries over the presence of policies akin to Affirmative Action. Black privilege will rise and South Africa will fall into a war of the races. I do not want to see this. What I want to see is a country bound by common interest, interests that will advance the peace and the beauty of this country.

Playing pick-a-booh with the sentiments of color will not help us. What will help us is to have our politicians stop raising up the race card whenever things fail to go their way. This is the main reason we fail to truly reconcile with one another. The day we remove such politicians is the day we will move forward and prosper peacefully as a nation.

The present day South African never chose to live like this. Why must we not throw it away.

                  

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