Olympic Media Village – Most Expensive Internet In the World?

An anonymous reader writes "Working for the Olympics as an IT contractor, I recently moved to the Media Village (where all of the reporters live) and was surprised the there was no free internet. BOCOG (Beijing Organizing Committee of the 2008 Olympic Games) is charging a ridiculous amount of money for ADSL service: for 512/512 it costs 7712.5 RMB (1131.20 USD); for 1M/512 it costs 9156.25 (1342.95 USD); for 2M/512 it costs a whopping 11,700 RMB (1716.05 USD). That is for only one month! For extra features like a fixed IP? That costs an additional 450 RMB (66 USD). I just can't believe that not only do I have to deal with the Great Firewall of China, but also pay through the nose to use it!"

I see no comments...

Possibly because at those rates, nobody can afford to comment! Media censorship has succeeded again!

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Not So Expensive for Normal Folk

Internet connections in reasonably developed cities (Beijing, Shanghai [shanghaiist.com], Chongqing, [thechonx.com]Dalian [daliandalian.com], run around 600 RMB for 512kbps for a year, around 1100 for 1Mbps. Not too bad.

As for the Great Firewall, well if you want to read (in English) what the mainland Chinese netizens are doing on blogs and forums there is only one excellent resource: EastSouthWestNorth [zonaeuropa.com]. Check it out. It has regular citizens burning down police stations, reporting on blogs with Chinese characters upside down, using 'corrupt American administration' for certain stories as an synonym for 'corrupt Chinese administration' (especially this post [zonaeuropa.com]).

Dunno if it's censorship1

Dunno, it seems to me more like good old, capitalistic smelling when you can fleece someone. Just like, say, buying stuff on an airport might be more expensive than at the mall down the road.

Basically, those journalists don't have many other choices, since their readers and viewers expect coverage of those events. So as long as you price it just high enough so it's not worth it to find some other way, they'll pay.

Plus, it might come as a shock to some people, but some resources do cost more in other countries. I'll take a guess that China's broadband infrastructure is _probably_ in an even worse state than the USA's. So to give a few thousands of journalists 512 MB/s full time, no throttling, they have to throttle the already poor connections of a few million other people. It will cost you.

The great firewall

I just can't believe that not only do I have to deal with the Great Firewall of China, but also pay through the nose to use it!

As far as I remember, it is a specific requirement from IOC that the journalists have full access to the entire internet, so probably the connections go past the firewall. That said, it is still ridiculously expensive ;-)

Re:The great firewall

As far as I remember, it is a specific requirement from IOC

Inversion Of Control? Huh? What's that got to do with it?

Oh wait, I need to get out more.

Try Dubai..

Oh please.. I pay about $6k/mo. for my business's Internet connection (2mbps).

I am not an Internet company. This is for our office of 17 employees.

SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS A MONTH!

And yes, they do block things at will here too. They didn't in the past (at least not for the businesses in the free zones). Now they do.

So, sorry.. no sympathy here.

Luxury!

You kids today don't know how good you have it. Why, back in my day, I paid ONE WHEELBARROW FULL OF GOLD, every week, for a 75 baud line that I shared with my two hundred employees, their families, and their in-laws.

Oh, and it was half duplex! Every time we were done sending and wanted to start receiving, we had to climb a ladder to the top of the building -- which was an 80 story skyscraper, mind you -- and switch the wires around. Even during a thunderstorm.

And mister, you better believe that when we finally got an MP3 downloaded, we cherished it. We didn't just cram it in an iPod Shuffle and forget about it like these hoodla do now.

Re:Try Dubai..

Same goes for most of Africa, where Internet costs upwards $10,000 a month for a 256K link by fiber (if you're in one of the eight coastal cities that get it) or by VSAT. Typically a 256K link is shared by 10 cybercafes, each with up to 50 users at once. Note also that average earnings are 20-40 times lower than in the USA or Europe, making the Internet about 40,000 times more costly.

This is not because of any technical difficulties, it's because of cartel pricing that keeps competition out.

Re:Try Dubai..

You live in a desert in the middle of a fucked up shithole wasteland.

This [wikimedia.org] is Dubai. Notice anything, moron?

Re:Try Dubai..

Notice anything...?

Everybody's driving on the wrong side of the road...Definitely photoshopped.

Re:Try Dubai..

Notice anything? Hmm, I notice a bunch of buildings built upon the backs of slave labor in the middle of a desert with zero natural resources.

No natural resources apart from... oil! Or do you believe that trade should be banned and things built only with the resources already local? The Middle East may also find itself a natural location for solar energy should it ever become viable (which bit by bit it starts to look as though it might). And before oil, Dubai has been also been an important trading point for centuries due to its prime location. Dubai has many reasons for existing, not the least of which is that people in that part of the world would like a city to live in. Or would you have them scattered about in tents, culture stifled?

Now the slave labour issue you are right to comment on. Immigrant workers in the UAE get a dreadful deal and this should change. However, I said nothing about this, only that the GP was talking out of his or her bottom when they called it "the middle of a shithole wasteland" where camels drifted randomly about the place eating copper wiring. Clearly this person needed educating as to the actual size and level of technological development of Dubai and I was happy to oblige - graphically.

Now you come at me with what I can only take to be some sort of condemnation of the existence of the city. Certainly if you're willing to put 2,000,000+ people up at your place you might be justified in suggesting getting rid of the place, but for the meantime, I think it's a bit wrong to condemn it for being there. As to the slave labour, I hope that improves but, assuming you are from the USA, it's worth pointing out that your country has its own slave labour industry only you call it "prison labour." Used in such stalwarts as Toys-R-Us, Honda, Konica, Microsoft where people have been paid as little as $0.50 per hour. Prison is profit in the USA. No wonder you have the highest incarceration rates in the World.

Obviously I'm not saying two wrongs make a right, but pointing out a false sense of superiority is a useful step toward improving things. And besides, my sole point was that Dubai is a big, highly-developed city and the OP is crassly wrong to think it is some wasteland.

Re:Try Dubai..

Imagine that stretch of land without petro dollars. Would you see it and say to yourself: "This is where millions of people should live", or would you leave the place like any other desert?

Dubai has existed for centuries as a thriving port city and I don't remember there being a massive automobile industry in the 1700's. It has an excellent location for trade. But what, anyway, is the point of saying "yeah, but if it wasn't for the oil industry it wouldn't be like that..." It does have an oil industry and the people who live here are justified in using it to improve their living environment, are they not? Or perhaps you feel that they shouldn't. This is shifting, by the way. Dubai is now one of the worlds financial capitals. Not all business needs to be pulling things out of the ground and sticking them together anymore (thankfully).

As an IT contractor ...

how comes your company doesn't pay for it?

Keeps the "illegal" bloggers at bay...

It's like any other event of this nature, everyone gets put in the vice for money. For example, apartment rentals near the Democratic Convention in Denver are topping out at (yes!) $30,000. But I'll bet it will keep the "illegal" bloggers down...

There is no free lunch

I remember getting insulted at a hotel because they wanted to charge me $10 a day for internet access. I certainly sympathize...

...However, one must also understand the economics of the situation. For our cable modems and DSL lines, the long-term subscriptions allow the initial investment to be recaptured over time. Does the same apply at the Chinese Olympics?

Of course it costs.

deep packet inspection and analysis for all your communication is expensive.

some unkind words

you went to the Olympics as a contractor to make money. now you find out tool you need for the job actually costs money instead of being free, a lot of money. well, so you assumed and fucked up. Are we learning yet?

Just like buisness hotels

Every single person in the media village is attached to one of the media organizations covering the Olympics. That means every penny they spend will be 100% reimbursed by the corporation that has them out there. The company's already spending millions to send the manpower and equipment over there, what's an extra $1k here or there? And of course it's only for 1 month, that's how long the Olympics are.

This is the same as all business hotels. Your run of the mill Best Western, Days Inn, etc family chains all have free Wifi internet. Minute you go to any "business class" hotel or go within a block of a convention center, you start getting charged $10/day to $10/hr. It's all reimbursed through their company so the person staying doesn't care, and a company's not going to reasonably tell employees not to pay $10 to access their e-mail and work an extra hour from the hotel when they're paying $200/night anyway.

International Youth Hostel Backpackers' Club ISP

In Beijing across the street from the train station, you'll find the International Youth Hostel. On the third floor there's the backpackers' club where they have six machines hooked up to the internet.

They charge 3RMB an hour. If you book it for the entire month, I'm sure it would cost much less than 7712.5RMB :)

For your information, a hostel room with two beds costs 180RMB and you share the shower/sinks/bathrooms. I stayed there for a couple of days. It was worth every penny and it was impeccably clean. I highly recommend it.

It's just the olympic village

Internet cafes are still only 1 dollar an hour, and our office here in Beijing's connection with 2MBps up/down and 4 static IPs is about $130/month.

LS

It's just the Olympic Media Village

I work in Beijing and the internet costs there are pretty reasonable, closer to the general costs in Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, etc.) than anything else. You can step into most Starbucks and use the free wireless in there. Even the hotels like Hotel 81 have free internet (LAN wire provided).

As a foreign Chinese, I mix alot with the locals and some of them treat me as one of themselves though others not so much. They have a big in-joke amongst all of them about ripping off foreigners especially whites. Of course, they also complain all day about whites taking away their girls. Not my opinion, theirs.

You'll be able to find reasonably priced stuff all over Beijing outside of the expats' area (Chaoyang) and the Olympic areas.

Re:In communist China

in addition to this, some of the hotels have VPNs to Hong Kong so get around the firewall and are therefore a bit faster and mostly uncensored. Win/Win!

Re:In communist China

I can do you ONE BETTER.

While I was in China for 3 weeks I visited over 20 cities (I think, it was mostly a blur) and had CELLULAR INTERNET the entire time provided by a local friend. I had a HELL of a time getting the right drivers to work on my laptop, especially since I could not read Chinese websites and instruction manuals, but I got it done.

It was fast and I never found a city without service. Ummm, actually... I had better service than I do with Verizon here in the US, and Verizon is pretty GOOD.

So I am just dumbstruck that these people have not found a way around these providers that are clearly "butt raping the tourists". I can see them getting together in a private room at a restaurant getting drunk of the local alcohol (which can be REAL strong) and laughing hysterically.

I would suggest he strike up a friendship with a local and get a card through them. I think I remember that it was around 100-150$ USD per month, which is pretty competitive and even close to prices here in the US.

The strangest part is that the card is provided through the "postal service". They get it at their version of the post office. Maybe it was a translation error, but it was a strange deal. In any case I did not have to rely on the wireless in the hotels :)

If I remember correctly these cards should be compatible with certain 3G routers too. In any case, since the guy is supposed to be an IT guy I am sure he could find a way to share and even bond a couple of the cards together.

Re:Capitalist China?

News flash: China has spent the last 15-20 years transitioning to capitalism.

Depending on how you want to look at it, they're almost as free (some would say more free) in that respect than we are in the US.