Sluggish Internet infuriates St Lucia businesses
St Lucia residents and business owners are paying monthly premiums for high-speed lines, but are receiving only a fraction of the line speed.
GOING online has become frustrating in St Lucia as residents and business owners battle with Internet speeds a fraction of the high-speed lines for which they are paying.
Owing to St Lucia’s location and its ‘tourism hub’ status, most residents run accommodation businesses from home, or indeed work from home.
The Internet revolution made this easy, with work and conference calls only a mouse click away.
As with everything, however, an Internet-reliant business is only as productive as its Internet connection which, in turn, is only as productive as the infrastructure in place.
A recent survey, undertaken for purposes of this article, revealed that all St Lucia business owners and residents are grappling with agonisingly slow Internet speeds of 0.04 Mbps (megabytes per second) while paying for 4 Mbps ‘high-speed’ lines.
After spending four hours on the telephone to Telkom and Mweb, one business owner, who asked to remain anonymous, was informed that ‘there is just no way we will be getting 4meg speed on data because the St Lucia exchange cannot handle the amount of data required by the town’.
It was later confirmed that Telkom had never upgraded St Lucia’s exchange to cope with the faster line speeds it advertises and charges people for.
‘All the businesses and home owners who are paying for 4 meg lines are just wasting money. Until the exchange is upgraded we will only get the speeds that we are currently receiving,’ said the disgruntled business owner.
An IT professional living in St Lucia confirmed that Mweb is not the problem, but rather Telkom and its inability to supply the capacity required for St Lucia.
Meanwhile, the telecommunication company continues to advertise ‘Faster ADSL up to 4 Mbps’.
While residents in South Africa’s urban areas and cities may well enjoy Internet speeds for which they pay, others, such as in St Lucia, are paying monthly premiums for high-speed packages they may never receive.
Telkom is fully aware of this, but its representatives fail to advise customers before signing up to a high-speed package.
One Telkom business customer was informed in August that upgrades to the St Lucia exchange have been approved, but could not confirm when such work would take place.
Telkom has been contacted, but the company’s media officer declined to comment.
