Monday, June 19, 2006

Cybercaff blues

Unless you're lucky to have VSAT in your office (costing your company around US$1000 per month for most often pseudo 'dedicated' bandwidth of 128kps), getting internet access in Abuja is increasingly difficult. Nitel's internet (both dial-up and ISDN) is out of action, with no solution in sight. The Internet cafe on Gana street many used to use has closed up; NIIT keep having problems with their server. Apart from a handful of cluttered/dilapidated rooms full of old boxes here and there about town, the only 'serious' cybercafe (uncluttered, you can use your laptop etc) is Cool Cafe. Owned by Lebanese, Cool Cafe takes the piss when it comes to service. It is N350 per hour (about £1.40 - which is v expensive by Nigerian standards). If you stay for an hour and ten minutes, they charge you for two hours. The staff are offhand and dopey. Its annoying that as they have no competition there is therefore no incentive other than to provide the atrocious service they provide. And its annoying to think the owners would never get away with this level of disdainful service back in Beirut. You are lucky if you get 20kps bandwidth. It took me two hours on Sunday to download all my emails. If only we had something similar to Accra's Busy Internet with a relaxed restaurant, broadband wireless, good quality printing services, meeting rooms for hire etc etc. One crummy cybercafe in the capital of a nation of 140 million! Its puzzling to think that with such huge pent-up demand for internet access, no serious entrepreneurs have stepped in with an Easy Internet or Busy Internet type model.

Meanwhile, the latest target for armed robbers in Lagos apparently are the mainland cybercafes. The '19 boys' like to parade their wealth (watches, chains etc) as they tap merrily at their caps-lock letters of help from Miryam Babangida etc. And so the armed robbers have spotted easy pickings. What comes around goes around.

6 comments:

St Antonym 4:32 pm  

I wonder why Abuja's having such a bad time of it.

Lagos is very well watered, and is thriving, as far as public internet access goes.

Chxta 11:45 pm  

Meanwhile, the latest target for armed robbers in Lagos apparently are the mainland cybercafes. The '19 boys' like to parade their wealth (watches, chains etc) as they tap merrily at their caps-lock letters of help from Miryam Babangida etc. And so the armed robbers have spotted easy pickings. What comes around goes around.

Interesting bit that...

Ebere 12:16 am  

THIS IS A BIT OF A SURPRISE, 2 HRS TO DOWNLOAD EMAILS KE?
Na wah o!

Nigeria expensive shit,  11:17 am  

I live in Abuja and it sucks when it comes to internet connectivity. Cool Cafe is a joke. they need competition. But we have no choice. nitel have yet to reconnect the internet, so for those who cannot afford VSAT we have to rely on the cyber-cafes. In two days I spent N5000 browsing at Cool Cafe. 2hrs is nothing. don't know how small biz like us suppose to do it. In Lagos cyber-cafs are climbing over each other's head. Give me the grim and noise of lagos any day.

Jeremy try Le Meridian and Sheraton hotels.
I can't imagine what it must be like for you Jeremy when you are use to high speed internet. And we are suppose to be proud of Nigeria. Hell no

Anonymous,  6:59 pm  

try dolman cafe on lobito crescent off adetokunbo ademola wuse 2

Anonymous,  11:54 am  

guys!!
i used to use Cool Cafe, and for me, they're ok. right now, i use their Fixed Wireless Broadband.....costs me like N35k monthly (for 128/64 kbps)....for me that's cost effective.the service is perfect-fast & reliable.
i recommend it for everyone instead of the 'fake' VSAT we have around.my contact's gsm number there is 08036687163.u can call for further info

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