Focus on Africa #1: Internet Issues
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
For the past almost two weeks now, I haven't enjoyed using the internet due to some Internet issues from our network providers.
Sometimes, It works.., sometimes it doesn't.
Most times, it takes almost 20 minutes to open a page.
It frustrate me alot to view Steemit page. I can't even view "Steemworld.org" for the past 5 days now.
Facebook , Twitter, and other social media platforms are working well. But Steemit is a little bit difficult to access..., it affect other sites too.
The cause?
Whilst we are aware of what the Houthi are doing in the sea cutting the network cable, few days ago, my network provider posted a short information on their Twitter(X) page as indicated below..
Unfortunately, the information came in late because a lot of people were already getting annoyed with the whole situation. I have missed a lot of great contents in the blog because of this.
This internet failure is affected by many African countries, especially the western and eastern part of Africa.
Many Nigerians are affected. This could be a big problem to those who are handling the SC accounts. And so, I hope this message serves as an awareness to the Steemit community to understand what is going on in terms of activities within African countries.
Alas, I expect we will be seeing more of this if the situation deteriorates further.
Possible suggestions that works
Early hours surfing
However, I found out that the network is a little bit steady for browsing the internet during the early morning hours like the time I am writing this post now (1:25 am).
During this time, everything works and all sites open.
Whilst this is just a suggestion based on my little experiment, note that this could change if the situation gets worse, also note that this is just for the main time and I can't guarantee if this suggestion would still work in the future, but for now, it works.
By the way, this is bed time and 95% of Nigerians would be sleeping. Not everyone might want to stay awake by this time.
Using a VPN
During my research on a way out of this issue, I dicovered that few people are using a VPN which works for them. Unfortunately, about 65% of them doesn't know where those VPN are from.
While this might be useful, it is also good to know that your information could be stolen from using an unknown dangerous VPN.
Black Hat members are aware of this issue and at this moment, Nigerians are vulnerable in the cyber world.
Please, trade with caution! Use only known VPN if you discover one. When it is too good to be true, run away from it. All your datas could be lost in 1 seconds.
Using direct internet service provider
While this might be expensive, but this is the best option so far during this hard times.
There are alot of them that I know including starlink owned by Elon musk, mostly used by people in Lagos and Abuja.
But I'll mention just one that is very active and serving well in Uyo which is where I live.
COQUINA is one of the best and even more preferable in the city of Uyo at the moment. Their services is friendly.
And I have more than 30 different I.T personels recommending this to me.
Their monthly subscription is not that bad, even though it’s higher than my regular monthly internet subscription.
They have the economy subscription and the premium subscription which are fifteen thousand naira (₦15,000) and thirty thousand naira (₦30,000) respectively.
This is equivalent to 32 STEEM and 63 STEEM respectively using the current rate as at the time I made this post.
Normally, I spent 15 to 20 STEEM monthly on my internet subscription(using the rate at the moment).
One thing to consider is that, the expenditures involved is not just the monthly subscription but the installation of the network system which include...the antenna, router, cable and the manpower...etc.
I think, this is the main thing and where the heavy money comes in.
I would be going to the COQUINA's office today for further enquiries because I am interested in installing this at where I live.
I can't do without the internet as I have some roles to play here.
However, if you are living in Uyo and would also be interested in this, please kindly contact me through this post or Discord.
I would like to share the cost, so that we can share the internet as well.
I would need to make some enquiries in their office today, however, if such cost is above my budget or any reasonable budget at my level, I may not go for it.
If you have this install in your home and would like to share the monthly cost with someone, please kindly contact me.
This early morning, the internet is working well..., kindly browse as much as you want 😀!
 |  |
|---|---|
It's frightening to see the impact such conflicts have nowadays. It is no longer just the region where this is happening directly that is affected. People all over the world are affected... what would happen in the case of a nuclear conflict...
That impact is so strong negatively.
Imagine thousands of people that works online in Africa...
That would be disastrous.
The bottom line is..."damages comes with negative effects".
TEAM 1
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted through steemcurator04. We support quality posts, good comments anywhere, and any tags.Hi @o1eh, thank you for the support, I appreciate.