Download/upload speeds

Satellite?

Is it the speed tests I've found here ? http://www.speedtest.net/global.php#0

I agree completely. My office is in Ebene, the "Cybercity" if you may. But there nothing "cyber" about the internet connection here, it's slower than the connection I have at home. and yes they say that because everyone else is using the internet at the same time during the day time that makes the connection peaks. Well in that instance may be they should should provide enough bandwidth to cater for the rush hours (just like our roads). I can't imagine how the govt can spend huge sum of money to build the "Cyber towers" and call Mauritius the "Cyber Island" and yet they don't invest in the infrastructure to do so. I was in a hotel in China last year and I downloaded a 1.2gb movie in a matter of seconds, it was so fast that I thought I clicked on the wrong link. Theres a lack of professionalism in the public sector, people are getting jobs not based on qualifications but connections. Bottomline, I don't see anything change anytime soon...

Mauritius received a line of credit from the Indian government for the construction of the Cyber City at Ebene.  The project was then implemented by Indians in the main to the best of my knowledge, so to say the government had significant sums of cash to spend on the project is not quite accurate.  This was very much a project where Mauritius was aided by its partners.

With respect to the Internet speeds, I don't think people appreciate just how difficult it is to measure Internet connection speeds.  Where the types of connections compared identical?  Were contention ratios the same?  Were the speed of connections the same?  Did they connect the same destination server?  Use the same operating system?  The same TCP/IP stack implementation? They are dependent on so many variables, so until Warmup reveals the source of these measurements and the methodology for these experiments are revealed, I will take these results and conclusions with a pinch of salt.  If it is the speednet results, it's hardly scientific enough to draw any worthwhile conclusions from.  It's where Mauritian Internet users go to show off how slow their connection is, and to consequently complain about the ISP, so not the best sample.

Internet connectivity in Mauritius is incomparable to that of developed nations, this much is true and at times it can be awfully slow. For residential connections, with a population of 1.2 million, the economies of scale and even the market for super high-speed internet do not exist.  If you Rs10000 or less, to spend up to say 1k of that on ADSL is hardly a priority.

Finally on people getting jobs in the public sector due to connections, well it exists everywhere.  Preference based on race, gender, age, and other properties will always exist.  This holier than thou attitude is bizarre when Mauritians and expats are all it.

Hi there, appreciate your reply to my posting. I just want to clarify that I knew about the Indian govt providing a credit for the project. What I meant was that the MU govt shouldve planned the project better including enhancing the internet connectivity. I do appreciate the fact that we are not ready to compare with the likes of Europe or USA or even China for connection speed (why not? if we're to call ourself the Cyber Island). I can also appreciate you mentioned the complexity of how the internet connection and the speed works. But I do personally think that all the short comings are the results of poor planning due to under qualified people handling the tasks. Take a look at the road infrastructure, parking spaces, dirty and wrecked side walks, wild grasses up the wazoo at Ebene for example.

I also appreciate the fact that corruption and govt connections are present everywhere in the world. But just because it's everyhwere doesnt mean that it's right. And since Im a mauritian, a registered voter and actually live in Mauritius, I believe I earn the right to complain about it.

forgot to point out that there's a HUGE difference between "spend huge sum of money" and "had significant sums of cash to spend".

Oh no! I play World of Warcraft!

I can confirm my source of information as http://www.speedtest.net/global.php#0, though for reference the item was also featured on the BBC News website yesterday.

As much as Stephenn may want to be a government apologist for the paucity of decent internet provision in Mauritius, and refute the findings of the speedtest report in techno-babble, I'll take my cue from Richdaddy who has the unenviable task of actually working at the coalface in "Cybercity". Richdaddy, my commiserations!

Hi Warmup,

Having lived and worked in the USA & China, I'm sad to see that we're still lagging behind so much in this area. I work in the financial sector, and communicating with overseas clients are crucial for my business. Yet I can't remember the number of times where the internet connections were broken during conference calls with clients using skype. I guess the govt doesnt want people to rely on skype for overseas calls because Mauritius Telecom would have a lot to lose.

I also work with potential investors setting up companies in Mauritius, and intentional ommission about internet connection has become a strategy in my presentations. Some of my chinese partners often make jokes about our roads and internet connection, they say that even in small chinese villages the infrastructures are better. For most Mauritians who have never been overseas, they don't complain cause they don't know better. For those of us who have been around, this is unacceptable.

I look forward to the day when someone proves me wrong and I don't have to bitch about all this anymore...

A government apologist, no definitely not, but I am fully aware of the wonderful legacy left by the British in 1968.  Of course, as a Mauritian I am deeply proud of what has been achieved in such a short time from such a desperate position. Our democratically elected governments have certainly played their role.

I don't feel any need to justify my comments, they are just that, nothing more.  I also don't feel a need to disclose my role to you, for you would probably find a way to belittle that too. You are, however,  perfectly entitled to disregard my comments in their entirety, but I would emphasise that it is not techno-babble, feel free to trawl through the literature on this subject.  In my domain, slick powerpoint presentations, fancy marketing and a little flash don't mask vulnerabilities or errors in methodology though I do realise it works in the business and media  worlds very well. We all love a great headline.

@richdaddy I don't disagree that it is not a problem, but comparing the infrastructure available in countries such as China and the USA to what can be achieved in Mauritius seems a little too much.  Consider the location of the island, population size, the cost of laying further backbone cabling on the sea bed to points in Europe or Asia, and I'm sure you'll appreciate the costs are prohibitive.  Perhaps we need increased corporate taxation to pay for improved connectivity? Or maybe, the private sector wants to take on the millions of dollars worth of costs directly by implementing a new backbone project?

Stephenn,

I'm not directly comparing Mauritius to China or the US, it's not comparable anyway. I'm not even talking about internet connection in general, but if the govt "had" the vision of calling Mauritius the Cyber Island of the Indian Ocean, then they have to live up to the standard. As I mentioned working in "CYBERCITY" at Ebene with slow internet connection is ridiculous, even laughable. My internet connection of 512m at home is much better than the 1gb business connection at my office.

I'm sure there are private companies who would line up to invest in this venture if the govt allows them. But this is a lucrative business and being the monopoly they control everything. Increase corporate tax? How would that help? I don't think it's a lack of money, but more of a lack of political will. They keep changing strategy every 5 years and now we're supposed to go GREEN because it's cool. But with no longtime commitment, it'll go way of the dodo just like our "Cyber Island" or "Duty Free Paradise"... c'est un plaisir...

Hi Richdaddy,
I concur, and therein you've described the crux of the issue: the disconnect (sorry, couldn't resist) between what the government will have people believe re investing in the island; and then the real politik of the situation on the ground.
A model which I suspect is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Very sad.

Ok, What about a sat? Has anyone seen this, used it? My husband too needs this for his job, we don't mind paying for a good service. Pls advise?
Mom

I've used it in the past, it's pretty good, but pricy. You have a download limit (or allowance) and once you go over, the clock starts ticking. However if your job depends on it, then you should get it. I heard the Emtel one is quite good...

I landed from India 4 months back, and I used to think internet speeds in India were slow! My line of work depends entirely on High speed Telecommunication lines, n we r based in cybercity! though we have our networks across the world, the Mauritian one is smaller, but still the most expensive. Gotta do with remoteness and also fact that it is not in the line of the Main intercontinental undersea cables.!!
But the reliability of the so-called USB plug-ins or the normal internet connection (which requires a waiting of 2 months after gettin a landline, in some cases 6!!) surely needs to be worked upon! Orange-Mu have monopoly and have not been customer friendly. Same goes for the cell phone operators, I work in the building next to EMTEL's HQ n struggle to get more than 2 bars of Signal!! I agree with others that it is not a criticism of Mauritians, but We definitely need the Govt to pay serious attention to this as most businesses today are critically dependent on the internet!!

Cheers
Musheer

stephenn wrote:

I don't disagree that it is not a problem, but comparing the infrastructure available in countries such as China and the USA to what can be achieved in Mauritius seems a little too much.  Consider the location of the island, population size, the cost of laying further backbone cabling on the sea bed to points in Europe or Asia, and I'm sure you'll appreciate the costs are prohibitive.  Perhaps we need increased corporate taxation to pay for improved connectivity? Or maybe, the private sector wants to take on the millions of dollars worth of costs directly by implementing a new backbone project?

Stephenn

Thanks for calling a spade a spade :-)
In addition, no one is paying attention or mention on the cabling systems in the house or hotels or offices. Sometimes they are using only plain twisted pairs in lieu of good telephony  ( dial-up) or data (broadband HSI) cables like the cat 5 or 6 for example. So every one in biatching but no one considers the physical layer on the customer premises, let alone speaking about higher layers  of the OSI  or the backbone technology used.

So I am a photographer.  In the course of a week I might upload 100 x 16 meg images to my stock agency in North America.  It's an automated process and can be done while I sleep to take advantage of quite times re shared bandwidth, but how long is this realistically going to take given the upload speeds on the island?

FWIW: mauritius versus continental Africa wrt submarine connection
http://read.bi/bIulow

The Bloomberg article is very interesting:

That map is very encouraging.  That huge "pipe" between India and Europe is also interesting.

JohnMartinB wrote:

.  That huge "pipe" between India and Europe is also interesting.

Except when someone decides to "tamper" with it once  in awhile for geopolitics reasons but that's for another discussion ( and not on this blog for that matter)

Part of the problem may be the government, but the biggest part of the problem are the people in charge at Orange and Emtel and their lack of technical skills and understanding.  Both Orange and Emtel are using very outdated technology and methodologies to run the networks and manage the limited bandwidth they offer their customers. 

Our company uses both Orange and Emtel because we need the redundancy to try to ensure that we will always have connectivity so we have experience with both providers.  While we usually always have access to the internet, the upload/download speeds are still painstakingly slow most of the time. Do not even get me started on the horrible customer service if you do want to report a problem or would like to add a line or transfer service to a new location.

A few of our team have held very senior IT / Telecom networking positions all across Africa and have set up huge networks and managed ISP's and other related jobs and had been able to get much better performance out of much more inferior infrastructure so we know what is and isn't possible in Mauritius.

We had some of the senior Orange and Emtel engineers in our office at different times about a year ago to try to "educate" them and bring them in to this century technology-wise, but most of what we tried to explain to them went over their head and they did not want to listen.

There are simple things they can do to improve the performance of the networks to the benefit of everyone on the island, but I believe part of the problem is the senior people at Orange and Emtel are scared of technology past about 1970 as they do not understand it and do not want to admit they are not up to speed on current practices and are therefor fearful possibly about losing their jobs. 

The younger or more junior people that may know what to do are probably scared to take the initiative and make a recommendation to their superiors because that will then make their boss look bad and again jeopardise their career.

Some of the things that can be put in to place do not require a huge capital investment and only a few weeks of time at most by a few people that actually know what they are doing in the modern world of technology.

@bunkoma,

I completely agree with you on this one and it extend to Nomad which I personally had the "pleasure" of using them. I took the 512k connection, one of their relay antenna was close to my house. So you would think I my connection speed would be flawless right? Wrong! I constantly got disconnected and whenever I was online, my friends dial up was faster than mine (true story). Then one of their technicians told me the truth behind, whereby they did not upgrade their equipment eventhough the subscribers were growing. I evetually cancelled the service and use MT instead, and I'm surprised that they're still in business. At the end of the day, everyone is trying to take us Mauritians for a ride. It's easy money and the average mauritian wouldnt complain too much... And if they're politically connected, they're almost untouchable. Go figure...

@richdaddy,

I have heard similar horror stories about Nomad including how they have recently upgraded their equipment and rope people in with a short "trial" period where everything goes great, but once the trial period ends and the client is locked in to a long term contract everything goes pear shaped and it is almost impossible to get a satisfactory response from any one at Nomad. 

I personally haven't dealt with Nomad in the capacity of being a customer, but I have spoken with a couple of their sales reps who have called our offices and they sound great on the phone and on paper, but I have heard too many negative reviews from people that have actually tried Nomad to even want to try Nomad services.

Not sure how or if anything will be done any time soon to improve things in Mauritius, but as you pointed out previously, for Mauritius to call itself a "Cyber Island" and to have a "Cyber City" and this sort of inferior service is pretty embarrassing.

Yup unfortunately I was one of those dumbasses that got scammed by one of their trial thingy. The funny thing is that it was already bad during the trial period, but the technicians keep promising that they are upgrading the equipment and would be better soon. Nothing changed one month after the trial period and that's when I decided to cut my losses. I refused to pay the bill (it wasnt much, but I didnt pay out of convinction) because I personally think they didnt keep their end of the bargain by providing me with a 512k connection. They keep sending me the bills and even called me, and everytime I told them the same thing. They eventually stopped, I would have taken them to court if they kept it on. I aint no pushover... I think the Consumer Protection agency should do more to protect the average consumer from unscrupulous companies like that...