[Buenos Aires] Broadband in Argentina 100x slower than Japan and Sweden
Upstream? We've heard of it...
By Fernando Cassia:
29 December 2003
[FAC: OK, this one is from 2003. However, with so little news concerning connectivity coming out of South America, and given this reporter's sense of humor, I couldn't pass it up. Besides, it demonstrates the commonality of all humankind when it comes to complaining about local service providers, right? I was reminded by this piece of a tag line that Dirk van der Woude of Amsterdam, NL attached to a UK Broadband Requirements Report yesterday. Given BT's intransigence concerning sticking with copper, he quipped, "No broadband please, we're British."]
theinquirer.net
TWO FULL-PAGE ADS on the major Buenos Aires newspapers of Dec 24th shocked locals as we prepared for the Yuletide celebrations: they announced a 1Megabit ADSL service.
When I wrote my first dual-wan router review I said "In my home city/country, for instance, providers of all three available broadband service types (cable, DSL, fixed wireless) seem to have conspired to offer 512 Kbps as the fastest speed".
Well, that seems to be over. The ads were from the largest ISPs in Argentina, CIUDAD INTERNET -owned by the local Clarin media group and ARNET - ISP of the incumbent operator, Telecom Argentina.
This move makes ADSL take the lead with regards to speeds available for home users, as both CATV ISPs' in the metropolitan Buenos Aires area are as now still announcing 512 Kbps as the fastest speed available.
In an interesting twist, only half of Buenos Aires city - the one covered by the Telecom Italia-owned Telecom Argentina as the incumbent telco - will get megabit speeds. The southern half of the city -and the country- is served by Telefonica, the company owned by Spain's incumbent telco bearing the same name. And so far, Telefonica has not announced faster speeds than their current 512K offering.
Need for Speed
So, if you live down here or arrive along the tourists flood, at least you now can contract a one-megabit ADSL link. Aimed at business, only one fixed-wireless provider is currently announcing 1Mbps and 2 Mbps service using 28 GHz LMDS technology, but at certain locations and with prices not disclosed at its web site.
The only other fixed-wireless provider in Buenos Aires and several other cities, and which is using 5-Ghz WLL technology continues offering 512K as their fastest offering.
To be fair, these services cost an arm and a leg, but are currently the only way to get symmetric broadband.
Upstream? We've heard of it
According to friends right across the Andes, people in Chile enjoy 256K upstream when contracting 512K broadband and higher speeds. There, some cable ISPs offer 384K of upstream. Why is it impossible here, and why are local users subject to 128 K as the regular upstream speed is a question worth asking.
The most distressing fact about broadband down here is the incumbent telco's refusal to accept that people actually DO upload files frequently and they would appreciate having a bit more than the current 128 K. The conspiracy theorist in me thinks this is done on purpose to prevent people from hosting their own mail servers and web servers at home or in small business, making them pay through the nose for the Telco's hosting and housing services instead.
Only the wealthy need apply...
The recently announced megabit speed comes at a hefty price. One such link through Ciudad Internet will set you back $313 pesos a month (this is more than double than what the unemployed get from the government per month, and slightly less than the minimum wage, recently set at $350 pesos). Converted to greenbacks, that amounts to $104.46 a month for 1 Mbit ADSL service in Buenos Aires. And still, you get only 128 Kbps of upstream.
>From the same ISP, Ciudad Internet, you get a 512K/128K link for $48.76 a month. So you actually get more bandwidth by purchasing two 512Kbps links and teaming them into a single big pipe, with 256Kbps of total upstream bandwidth, than by contracting one single 1Mbit connection. Insane!.
But the ISPs are not to blame. It's the Telcos - Telecom Argentina in this case - that establish the service levels. It's their copper wiring and IP backbone that ISPs use, after all. And I'm certain there will be no positive change until the government takes control of the local loop away from the incumbents and place them in the hands of the phone subscribers -in other words, the process known as "local loop unbundling" and hailed in the EU and everywhere when governments want to force competition into the otherwise locked-in customers served by the local telcos.
Conclusion
A one-megabit ADSL offering is finally available, and that's certainly better than nothing. But if you need more upstream you might be better evaluating having two 512Kbps links teamed with a dual WAN router.
In other news, the most affordable broadband option in Buenos Aires continues to be Ciudad Internet's cablemodem offering, sadly available only in a small subset of lucky middle class neighborhoods where CATV provider Multicanal has extended its two-way network. They provide you with a 128Kbps cable modem connection for around $24.15 dollars a month, 256Kbps for $28.19 USD a month, and 512K for $32.22 a month. Upstream is 128Kbps in all instances. (21% VAT taxes included, and assuming a $3 pesos per dollar parity).
Ironically, my Cisco 677 currently reports the copper line I have is trained at 5 megabits downstream, and 800 Kbps of upstream, yet the connection is capped at the contracted 512Kbps/128Kbps. Remember, currently the rule down here seems to be "you can download but you can't share much". Stay tuned.
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Fernando Cassia is The Inquirer's South America correspondent. He's a 29-years old translator, freelance writer, hobby programmer and computer-geek. He's also a Java advocate. He lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with his dog and surrounded by computers running Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Solaris x86 and IBM OS/2.
See Also
Full-page newspaper ads announcing 1-Mbit ADSL service in Argentina
Join two Broadband links to make a fat pipe
Japanese broadband prices make Sweden look dear
Swedish firm to offer 100Mbit/s broadband for £70/month
Swedes get 26 MBit/second broadband
Electricity company offers unlimited broadband shock |
