Archive for category ISP

6 Signs Fiji is nearing ‘Civilization’ Quality

Posted by Wilson in fiji, history, internet, ISP, lifestyle, television, Tourists on September 9, 2008



Having come in contact with several tourists over the past few weeks and hearing their impressions of Fiji, it dawned upon me how far we’ve progressed from its days of head hunting, neighbour eating, and selective afro growing. A simple stroll through town will reveal important looking businessmen sealing important deals on their important cell phones, while children hum along to the latest hip hop/pop/reggae tunes with the help of their iPods. Giggling teenage girls compare their latest trendy buys from fashion stores around the corner, and in the midst of this all, various street modded cars zoom around, blaring ‘Gasolina’ through their daddy bought speakers.


Sure we see these things everyday, but to the first time tourist, first impressions last. Out of curiosity, I decided to take a look around and tried to see things from their point of view. When a tourist first sets foot on our land, he/she would run through a mental checklist that may include whether or not the locals have electricity, (running off assumption here folks, feel free to think otherwise) running water or anything that represents said ‘civilization’.
Of course, as all locals know, Fiji passed that test a long time ago, and then some. While I’d like to think that we’ve come a long way, lets take a look at exactly how much has progressed since good ol’ Bligh set sea-weary eyes upon our infamous shores.
1) We got McDonalds

Nothing says global commercialization like Mcdonalds. When you can open up a small version of 1st world ideals in the remotest parts of the world, Fiji doesn’t seem that far off from everyone else. Considering the fact that the first branch was opened in Nadi, the gateway to Fiji (thanks in no small part to their airport), the golden arches are a welcome sight to all incoming tourists familiar with fast food and the slightly creepy mascot. When the second branch opened in Suva, we knew they were here to stay.

2) We got Internet


The world became that much smaller when the internet was brought to Fiji. From that fateful day when Telecom introduced the concept of shared communication, we were never the same. Imagine – now we could keep in touch with the rest of the cool people from around the world via MSN! Now we could read the latest news of what was going on continents away and not have to wait for the 6pm local news! Email made itself at home with both business houses and private homes alike, spam and all. Porn was no longer restricted to the tattered, well thumbed magazines that were a few years old, but was readily available in all its full, DVD quality glory! Of course, the hourly disconnects were a pain, as were the high phone bills due to the numerous reconnection attempts the computer modem made to the overloaded telecom server, but it was a small price to pay for downloaded seasons of The Simpsons and Takashi’s Castle.

3) We got MTV



Albit on a pay channel, but still! To prove that Fiji is up-to-date with all that is ‘hip’ and ‘cool’ (makes alien ears sign with fingers), we brought MTV to our shores, and the corruption of the future generation began anew. To be honest, it was (correct me if I’m wrong) the Coca-cola Power Jammer that started it all, but the influence of MTV cannot be denied. Even today, we can see the influence of such a life style, with krump and local hip hop in full bloom. Where will this all go from here? Who knows?

4) We get Movies before Australia and New Zealand (sometimes)

For serious? Well…to the best of my knowledge, yes. We, the little country in the middle of the pacific, constantly pushed around by the upper powers of the 1st world country watch dogs (or so the left wing conspiracists would like to believe), by some strange powers that be, have Hollywood movies that open first at our beloved Damodar Village cinemas first, before they even see the light of the projector in Australia and New Zealand. I may have to check now to see if that still happens, but when I was growing up, it was common knowledge to people who had just arrived from Australia or New Zealand that movies that had already run their screening course in Fiji were just beginning to open there. This, I believe, is something worth investigating :)

5) We got more than one television channel

The ultimate pointer when deciding whether Fiji is still in the dark ages or has settled amongst the stars. One locally produced television channel in a country is mandatory, when the infrastructure has been set up by the local government and set in motion. We were there once. Fiji One Television dominated the … television landscape for so long, it seemed almost blasphamous to even think of having an additional station take up space on our local tv screens. Who out there was brave enough to take on the titan that was Fiji TV? Not only did they bring us ER, Seasame Street, and X-Files, but for a time (all too brief in my opinion) they provided BBC free to air during off peak hours. That was awesome. However, after showing Hercules reruns again and again, another channel didn’t look so bad, and with the government breaking open the tv market, it was only a matter of time before Mai TV stepped in to provide an alternative. And we were happy.
6) We got four two lane roads (corrected because I’m a noob)



This particular point is something close to my dear heart. In the dark ages of single lane roads between Suva and Nausori, traffic jams were such a common occurance that I began to believe that all of civilization ran on roads such as ours. Seeing multi-lane roads in the US through movies was an eye opener to what we were missing out here. Then, lo and behold, the government (then :P ) stepped in and began the arduous task of building a highway that had – what? 2 lanes? No. Way. But it happened! Now queues are a thing of the past (in the old queue places, but with poor planning, bottling up of traffic happens else where now =_=)! Now we can speed through certain parts of the Kings Road on our superior 2 lane road, confident in the knowledge that this is how it’s done overseas. This is how Uncle Jone in California drives to work. On a road with more then one lane. Beautiful.
Bear in mind though that this post doesn’t reflect the real thing when it comes to Fiji and its development pace. We’ve still got a long way to go if we want to look anything like Australia/New Zealand in terms of the advancement of society. Look at this as merely an observation more tongue in cheek then mirror reality, and make your own hypothesis from there.
Agree? Disagree? There’s the comment button ;)
PS: I’ve posted a poll on the right, asking you people what you think was the most important development that brought us in sight of being nominated as a country that isn’t missing out much on some of the creature comforts easily afforded by our neighbours.

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12 Comments

God’s Internet Line

Posted by Wilson in chat, internet, ISP on July 24, 2007


2:51 PM
Keith: HOLY SHIT http://www.thelocal.se/7869/

2:52 PM Sigbritt, 75, has world’s fastest broadband

Wilson: what?

Keith: Sigbritt will now be able to enjoy 1,500 high definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Or, if there is nothing worth watching there, she will be able to download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds.

Wilson: i check now

2:55 PMholy fuck shit on a sunday afternoon with the simpsons

3:02 PM Keith: indeed

2 Comments

Finally. We get Internet TV?

Posted by Wilson in ISP, television on June 26, 2007


When it comes to entertainment in Fiji, options are far and few between. Besides the usual clubs and movies, there’s precious little that can keep you occupied on the weekend, save for rugby matches and pirate pr0n dvds from your mates.

As for free to air TV, because there’s only one channel, the ‘channel up/channel down’ buttons on your remote are pretty much useless. The paid channel Sky TV has its moments such as MTV, though why they don’t have a dedicated music channel and instead only show MTV at certain hours of the day is beyond me.

An alternative is in the works however, with the announcement that Unwired Fiji, one of the local ISPs here will be offering Streaming Services that essentially is streamed TV along a broadband connection.

Now while the article paints a rosy picture of the future of Streamed TV, forgive me for not jumping up and down with joy. I have about as much faith in local ISPs as I do in Paris Hilton being a virgin. I’m just not buying it.

From my previous posts about the local ISPs (Connect, Kidanet) it’s obvious how much I love these guys.

And what of Unwired Fiji? What about them?

I like their adverts thats for sure :) Classy, to the point, and obviously of overseas standard. Though I guess I needn’t mention the fact that Unwired is in-fact an Australian company.

Their bandwidth however, leaves much to be desired. During peak hours, connection is somewhat of a hit-and-miss affair i.e. you’ll be so pissed at not being able to make a connection that you’re more then likely to take pot shots at your $99 modem with whatever you can grab hold of.

It’s ironic that as a company with the catch phrase “No Wires, No Wait, No Worries”, they actually do have a waiting time when using the line during peak hours. Go figure.

Each modem from Unwired also comes with a hidden mini-game that starts when you hook up the modem to your pc, and discover that the receiving signal isn’t strong enough for you to make a connection.

Thats when stage 1 starts. The quest to find the mythical pedestal on which to place your modem to get that link. Bear in mind that the whole game is pretty much a stage 1. If you’ve found the sweet spot, but your pc is in another room/doesn’t have enough line, then you can pretty much say you’re fucked.

After which you’d go buy a signal booster.

So if Unwired does actually bring their streaming services to Fiji and along with it a fatter bandwidth, then great. No more “Hunt for the Golden Pedestal” games.

But for now, I’m better off being stuck with them pirate lovers, Connect.

13 Comments

Kidney-net…

Posted by Wilson in internet, ISP, technology on May 1, 2007

Now, Fiji’s ISP market has pretty much been dominated by Connect and their good ol’ buddies Telecom. Unwired came along and has tried to revitalise the market, but their bandwidth isn’t as fat as they’d like it to be.

Behold, the entrance of a new player…Kidanet! Which is owned by none other then Fintel. Who are in the same circle as…Connect/Telecom. Don’t know how that quite works out…two competing companies under one umbrella company. Wish I hadn’t skipped Economics back in high school…

These guys would have slipped under my radar if it wasn’t for the fact that their adverts basically screamed three magic words:

No. Download. Cap.

At first I was like…bull. No chance in hell is an ISP going to put that kind of advert without that little niggly fine print.

A quick check at their website reveals that yes, they do have a freaken no download cap no limit package! That was almost too good to be true.


Oh well. A good friend of mine once told me that “If it’s too good to be true, it usually is.” And in this case…it was :(

At the bottom of the page was a link called “Acceptable Use Policy”. What the hell was that? The link was basically self explanatory…

Now, I know I’ve ranted on about how Connect basically provided for pirates and sucked when it came to bandwidth provision but this is a new low.

I mean when Connect says “Go above your download limit and we will severely cut down your Internet speed to 56k!!….but you can still surf” thats fine. That I can deal with.

But when Fintel says “We have no download limit mate! Download away! Please! But uhhh…should ever the case arise that you are clogging up our lines with your multiple downloads of Grey’s Anatomy season 1 as well as the latest pr0n, then we will bring the mighty hammer of corporate doom down on your ass via a nasty sounding letter. And thats not all. If, by some twist of fate, you happen to be in Lautoka visiting your maintenance girl, and miss the letter…then you can kiss your Vivid subscription goodbye.”

Now that, I’m not cool with. Not the vivid subscription. Just the whole “its up to us when you step over the line, you won’t know it, but when it happens…we’ll let you know” thing. I don’t know, I’m the type of person who likes to make sure that everything is laid out in black and white before I sign my life away.

By now you’ve probably figured out that I ain’t jumping on the Kidanet bandwagon. Ah well. If any of you have a better picture to paint of Kidanet and their infamous “Acceptable Use Policy”, then let us know :P

PS: I was browsing their page where they were offering ZOMG A FREE EPISODE OF THE FORCE!!!!1!1! -_- The thing I don’t get is…apparently the website spell checker was sick on the day that the body text was typed up…and seems to be still sick till now…

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