South Africans in Cape Town and Johannesburg Pay Much More For Internet Usage Than New Yorkers

South Africa may have some of the world's cheapest cities to live in, but using the internet in Cape Town and Johannesburg is surprisingly expensive by global standards. From a report: South Africans living in the country's two major cities spend more on their monthly internet costs than people living in New York, Tokyo, and even the perennially expensive Zurich, according to a report by Deutsche Bank. When comparing life in the global financial capitals, most other things, from rent to the cost of a cappuccino, were far cheaper in Johannesburg and Cape Town, making the cost of getting online even more of a shock to the pocket. Out of 50 cities surveyed, Joburgers spent the second most on monthly internet, beaten only by oil-rich Dubai. The amount shelled out by Capetonians ranked seventh behind Dublin, San Francisco, and Auckland and Wellington in New Zealand, according to the report, which compared daily prices and living standards of cities around the world.

That's not saying much!

[b0s0z0ku]

Internet in NYC is cheap, like $42/mo for an unbundled 100mb Verizon connection. Many other parts of the US pay much more, or require bundling with cable/phone, for the same service.

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[ole_timer]

in Virginia I got Verizon fios 300 for $100

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[Mashiki]

You pay more for internet in Toronto then you do in NYC too. Figure it's around $152/mo($115USD) for 100Mbps service there. It's also $37/mo for 5/1Mbps with a 25GB cap, that's cable, basic DSL 5/1 is roughly $50/mo same city no less. The only way you get cheaper internet is going through a third-party(TPIA's) who leases the last mile from Bell or Rogers. TPIA's like teksavvy, electronic box, MTL, and so on are roughly half the cost of what's being charged, but the companies who lease the last line abs

Unsurprising

[ebrandsberg]

Switzerland has a 90% penetration rate of internet users, while South Africa has a 50% rate. Next, South Africa is connected to the rest of the world by relatively expensive internet connections on a per-user basis due to the position in the globe and usage. This results in a higher cost per user when actual expenses are accounted for as compared with a location like NYC or Zurich. This is simple economics.

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[polar red]

It isn't just number of users that count. It's also population density, average wage (of the provider's personnel). I guess hardware should cost about the same.

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[Anonymous Coward]

That's completely ignoring the fact that Internet access has been monopolised by the government-run telecommunications company Telkom for decades, and they've been milking people hard for all that time. Thankfully the introduction of fibre internet has seen a massive decrease in costs, since finally different providers are being allowed - I'm now getting 40Mbps fibre for the same price I was paying for 4Mbps copper - but it's still far from cheap.

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[smi.james.th]

1Gbps fibre is available from most providers but if you don't need it, why pay for it? 40 Mbps is cheaper. Most people have gladly jumped over to fibre when it's become available (though coverage areas are still small and limited to main cities), because then you can say goodbye to the aforementioned Telkom and their aging copper infrastructure.

FWIW, our internet certainly isn't the cheapest in the world, but for the past couple of years it's reached the point where it's not *that* expensive anymore. Gone a

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[Kjella]

40Mbps fiber? Sounds like shitty fiber to me.

Probably because they have real traffic costs. Take a look at the map, South Africa is south of Sahara and almost all international traffic is a long trip by undersea cable. And since most people there understand English they consume a lot of media that originate from the US/Europe which is far, far away. If you have fiber the "last mile" is no longer a problem, you have a dedicated 1 Gbps+ capable link if somebody installs the right box in each end. In fact, I doubt there's anything less than 100 Mbps capa

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[ebrandsberg]

All things considered, it would be more expensive simply due to the base infrastructure costs. I'm going to say how MUCH more it should be--it could be that the base costs, fully amortized across users could account for a $.10USD difference a month. Or it could be subsidized and you should be paying $100/month more. That would require numbers that I don't think anybody but the ISP has.

Reasons Why?

[Only Time Will Tell]

Are there reasons why the cost would be more in South Africa or Dublin? I could understand the argument in that they may not be as much demand (subscribers) in SA to spread the costs across, but Dublin? Installs should be relatively easy (no major geographic barriers).

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[Gavagai80]

Dublin is on an island. The ocean seems like a pretty big geographic barrier, doesn't it?

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[Green Mountain Bot]

50 miles of underwater cable is a whole lot less of a barrier than a bunch of sovereign nations, a huge ass desert, an assortment of mountain ranges, and a Mediterranean crossing.

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[smi.james.th]

Our cables going to Europe / the Americas / Asia tend to run in the sea. Telecoms doesn't go over those mountains / deserts / sovereign nations that you mentioned.

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[AHuxley]

History. South Africa had a set of different needs when building its communications networks over decades.
The POTS network had to be able to call for police, ambulance, fire service.
Let people make voice calls. Track people making calls quickly. Allow for rapid tracking of the location a call was made given data on one or both phone numbers used. The need for voice prints. The need to find any new voice conversation using a set of spoken words.
The BOSS/National Intelligence Service, Silvermine years

We found it!

[burtosis]

A single place where internet costs more than the USA for comparable service does little to help the fact the three American cities on the list are among the most expensive. Americans pay far more for slower internet than the vast majority of the world. The repeal of net neutrality just made overall costs worse, expect to pay even more for services in the future as companies take fast lane fees and pass them back to consumers.

Want to know the real reason?

[slashmydots]

This is going to sound impolite but it's because their government has absolutely no experience governing and has no idea what they're doing. They can't stop crime, inflation, grow food, or do basically anything. It's a complete free for all over there.

Re:Want to know the real reason?

[Gavagai80]

It's not lack of experience, it's too much experience. It's a one party state for the last 24 years, and that's long enough to corrupt any party into outright looting.

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[HornWumpus]

California residents agree!

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[HornWumpus]

'We' don't, that's the granola crew from west of the coast range.

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[HornWumpus]

The fact remains: CA has one party rule and has for long enough that 'outright looting' is SOP.

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[Ryanrule]

Yeah with zero experience. They kicked out everyone with knowledge because racism.

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[smi.james.th]

No idea why this is modded insightful. Yes, South Africa has its problems, but point me to the country that doesn't? The crime rates are kind of going down if you squint at the graphs, poverty is reducing (granted not very fast), there's food enough.There are lots of things that can improve but it's not a free-for-all.

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[thegarbz]

This is going to sound impolite but it's because their government has absolutely no experience governing and has no idea what they're doing. They can't stop crime, inflation, grow food, or do basically anything. It's a complete free for all over there.

What's that say about internet in the USA also being horribly expensive?

South African pays more For Internet than New York

[najajomo]

Reason being that as part of the deal to allowing Mandela into power, the ANC had to 'liberalize' the South African telecom market. Basically sell it off at bargain basement prices to foreign 'investors', who operate an effective monopoly. For example, the UK company Vodafone and 'Thintana Communications' out of Texas.

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[SEE]

Well, that's an interesting theory that has no resemblance to reality.

Over here in reality, South Africa's Telekom is over 50% owned by the Republic of South Africa (roughly 40% directly and 11% through the Public Investment Corporation), and no other shareholder holds more than 5%. And specifically, Thintana's minority stake was sold off back in 2011 and Vodafone's minority stake was sold off in 2016.

So, if the problem in South Africa is a telecom monopoly that exploits customers, the problem isn't foreig

I'm curious

[Hognoxious]

So how much do South Africans pay for New Yorkers?

CapeBurger

[TheStickBoy]

Listen, on a side note: if someone from Johannesburg is a Joburger then I think it just goes that someone from Capetown should be a Capeburger. It has a nice ring to it.

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[smi.james.th]

The accepted word is Capetonian. ;-)

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[TheStickBoy]

Well, if we throwing Capetonian into the mix...
then someone from Durban would be a Durbonian!

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[TheStickBoy]

HamburgBurger.
The rule does not discriminate!

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[TheStickBoy]

Durburger is an even better example!
nice :)

Seriously, who gives a shit?

[pablo_max]

How the fuck is this news?
When I lived in SoCal, I paid more that twice as much for internet service at half the speed than when I lived in Germany.
Is that in the news?
Seriously, what a stupid fucking story.

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[Anonymous Coward]

There's many persons of color in SA so yes it is news.

IT Admin in South Africa

[BuFf0k_SPQA]

Pricing here is a joke, if we are fair in our comparisons internet access here is even higher than it should be. 10MB ADSL here (which is mostly the best you get) for an uncapped connection will cost you around ZAR 3 500.00 or USD 258.76. For a 20MB Fibre connection to our office we were just quoted USD 2 217.90 for installation and USD 701.62 per month. This is for a 1:1 Uncapped Fibre 20MB with five dedicated IPv4 addresses. Taking into consideration that an average household income here is only about USD