Bandwidth in South Africa is increasing, and by the end of next year, we apparently are going to have lots of international bandwidth. The biggest problem at the moment is that Telkom controls the last kilometre or two from the exchange to your home or to your business, and until that is unlocked, Telkom can demand a high price for access to those wires.

At the moment networks are being built by Neotel, MTN and Vodacom following roughly the routes of the N3, N2 as well as the N12 and N1. Apparently, if you travel by car to Durban at the moment you can see the trenches that are currently being dug to lace South Africa with the fibre-optic cable. Good times are ahead for people who like the Internet and like it fast, but it is still going to take time.