OmanTel has launched a new campaign to market it's high speed 'broadband' connection in the Sultanate.
One of the captions on one of its advertisements was "There are 100,000,000 songs that can be downloaded with a high-speed internet connection". Anyone else reading that caption would have gone 'wowsers'. But if you were someone who has been reading the news lately on the 'net and different media sources available otherwise, you would know that more than half of that number of songs is shared through peer-to-peer programs such as Kazaa, Edonkey, and imesh. And just sharing that music on the 'net is a clear violation of international copyright laws. So you ask yourself this; do you really want to get involved with an organization that encourages you to act unlawfully?
The broadband connection was intitially brought in to Oman because there was a tremendous surge in the number of users on the dial-up program that OmanTel had started off with, plus the fact that it enabled users to be connected on a 24/7 basis proving to become more popular with businesses that needed such a connection.
But at a price of 39 Omani Rials per month as a maximum charge and 12 Rials monthly fee (wonder why we pay for it?) and an installation fee of 25 Rials; not to mention that the consumer will have to buy the special modem from the service company at unspeakable prices, it will be a long way away from making it popular amongst the folks who are drooling just over the speed they only can dream of but that too is a current unachievable task with a top download speed of only 384 Kbps.
Most people in Oman have different opinions about obtaining connections, among them is this writer. To what degree would someone such as a normal citizen would anyone need such a fast and unaffordable service not forgetting the fact putting their own privacy, security and personal data bank at a risk with the all day connection?
How much does anyone of us really need it?
Monday, September 19, 2005
Broadband: How much do you really need it? And is it really all that affordable?
Posted by Sleepless In Muscat at 23:34
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6 comments:
Over here in UK, we get 2Mbs connection for £15, which is less than RO 12. Plus the cable modem is free.
Do you really need it, yes you do. Its fast, really fast....
well, needless to say it has become currently more of a trend than of a need, nash. especially here in Oman.
But the prices that OmanTel are offering are preposterous..
25 Rials instalation?
12 Rials monthly rental?
1 Gigabyte = 1 Rial?
ADSL Modem = over 50 Rials?
Demand is still very high despite the price. In fact in some areas they've reached capacity and now they're scrambling to add more lines.
I think other than the installation fee, the price is ok. The modems aren't 50 rials. And 12 rials a month isn't bad. For most people the monthly bill comes out to less than 20 rials which isn't bad. My bill used to be 18 to 20 rials a month back when I used dial-up. Now I'm downloading more than ever and the bill's less than 20.
I hope they upgrade the network and give us more bandwidth for the money though.
Is the RO 12 a fixed fee, or do they charge for downloads? If they do, whats the charge?
nash..
the 12 Rials is a fixed fee and you get 1 Gigabyte free to download I think, unless someone can correct my information. After that, every Gigabyte you download you are charged 1 Rial
This is good news for me. I am facing so many net speed problems for compare broadband download. yeah it is so special for me
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