The Shocking True Truth…

19 June 2009 in Project TOTO by Stilgherrian | 2 comments

It’s D-7 for Project TOTO, and I’m stressed beyond all belief. It’s now less than a week until I leave for Africa, and my Farewell Party is tomorrow. Meanwhile, the astoundingly clever First Dog on the Moon at Crikey has contributed a morale-building cartoon.

First Dog on the Moon cartoon for Project TOTO

Click through for the full-sized image.

Yes, I still have thousands of things to do. But it’s Friday night and I’m exhausted, so I’ll tell you all about it in the morning. Probably.

Meanwhile, I’d live to know what you’re thinking about Project TOTO, so have a look at the previous posts and say stuff and ask questions and things.

And if you’re wondering who the people quoted are, try @mpesce, @snarkyplatypus, @kcarruthers and @apostrophepong. And also click through to ActionAid Australia for The Good Cause.

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  1. yewenyi’s avatar

    yewenyi on 22 June 2009 at 11:21 pm

    today I was reading that the median price for an E1 (2 MB/s) circuit from London to Johannesburg is $13,000 USD and that the median price for 1 GB/s circuit from London to New York is $14,000. I would expect that anything to Tanzania will be more expensive still. So not only do they have a low income, but the cost of their internet bandwidth is very high.

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  2. Stilgherrian’s avatar

    Stilgherrian on 23 June 2009 at 7:50 am

    @yewenyi: Fibre runs down the east coast of Africa, around the south coast and then up the east. However the spur inland to Johannesburg is over land, which is more expensive to lay than an underwater spur to Dar es Salaam. So the international costs would be presumably be a little more, yes. Also, there’s be extreme competition for the London – New York link, bringing prices down.

    Here’s an example, Vodacom Tanzania’s mobile broadband rates. In Australia we can get 5GB/month of mobile data for AUD 39 ($39, for those not used to international currency notation). In Tanzania that’s TZS 200,000, which at the current exchange rate is about AUD 210.

    Note that the plans go all the way down to offering as little as 10MB/month for TZS 2000, or AUD 2.10.

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