Should I now bow on my knees for that they’ve kept the unlimited packages untouched instead of cutting the prices down for like 50% at the very least? the truth is that I wont, I’m being ripped off every month paying LE. 190 ($44) for a 512Kbps connection, while a buddy of mine living in Netherlands is paying €30 ($41) for 20Mbps, and that’s just one example.
The thing I’m sure of is that these guys (ISPs) are either just plain stupid, or they’ve studied marketing very well but the type which is not applicable in the third world! Marketing says that when there’s a commodity with no substitutability characteristic (in our case, ADSL service, you can’t replace it for anything else, say like mobile connections “it’s not yet as convenient”, we need ADSL), so in the eyes of ISPs there’s no reason to bring prices down, people will still pay for it either it’s for LE 10 or for LE 1000. But then say hello to illegal connection sharing world where more than 30+ individual in a neighborhood can share a single internet connection, now wont it be better if these individuals are subscribed to 30 different cheaper connections instead of a single expensive one? you do the math! In this particular case I’d throw away any marketing I’ve learnt and find creative solutions (and gathering public outrage isn’t one).
I wont go paranoiac like mesh-gayeb’s folks, but all I’m asking is to be respected! I know that I live in a poor third world developing country, but the government shouldn’t treat public as fools and promise something they can’t keep, and when they’re ripping me off for a low speed internet, with nonexistent reliability, they should admit it too, then we will be all slow but happy internet users!
Joke of the day: go to the ministry voting page, the result speaks for itself.
Source: Mohamed Tantawi's blog
