Power cuts make for a real freezeout!

[jetset]

POWER CUTS DRIVE ONLINE POKER FANS WILD

'Freezeout' takes on a whole new meaning as power cuts bedevil South African online gamblers

One of the frustrations online gamblers would rather do without are power cuts which kick the player off the Internet, and in South Africa the phenomenon is becoming increasingly frequent, thanks to an inefficient utility company and its rolling blackouts.

Increasing numbers of regular Internet users are having to buy backup power systems that allow them to exit work or play in progress in a controlled manner without losing the fruits of their labour when their screens abruptly go blank. This can be for anything up to 4 or more hours at a time as a result of what the power company euphemistically calls "load shedding."

Bad advance warning of planned power cuts in individual regions exacerbates the situation.

But getting shunted out of an online gambling site is a minor irritation compared to the damage that a lack of power capacity is causing in a country with an otherwise sophisticated industrial, telecommunications and financial infrastructure.

The national power supply company is being accused of a lack of advance capacity planning and maintenance which has endangered the further development of the economy. This week a senior executive in the power company made the extraordinary suggestion that attempts to attract industrial investment be minimised until 2013 to enable capacity building to catch up!

The Public Protector has started asking for answers from the beleageured executives supposedly managing power generation and distribution as public, business and political criticism grows.

Online gamers and gamblers have been hard hit by the extensive and frequent cuts across the country, and complaints from the gaming community are starting to appear in online forums.

Online poker players may however have much more to lose than reputation or points, reports a local newspaper. Some poker tournaments carry price funds of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Rands, and a prolonged power outage will inevitably lead to elimination from the tournament.

The financial impact of power outages on the local IT and Internet industries is difficult to measure, but economists are talking in the hundreds of millions..... and there does not appear to be any immediate solution.

[LOOKAWAY]

Wowser i would have to throw the towel in if i was south african i hate getting a slight disconnect and not hitting my bonus round.

[Solitude]

Hmm my first post here. Sorry that I skipped the 'Introduce Yourself' section of the forum. I'll post there at some stage.

I have been a bit of a lurker here for a while and I didn't think I would ever post but then I saw this. I am also from South Africa and the power cuts are a lot worse than some of my friends overseas can even begin to imagine. I'll keep this post on the gambling side however.

In South Africa we already pay way too much for Internet usage, especially broadband. With the broadband available to us (mostly DSL), we are limited by caps. Hence the reason why many of us do not play at Microgaming casinos since it's a huge download in the end.

As for the poker and the power cuts, well I have a temporary solution. Even though I normally use DSL, I have been using my cellphone as a modem when playing poker online. Oh and I have a laptop so the battery lasts for about two hours. I tend to play SNG's.

If you don't have a laptop then get a UPS (I think that's what it's called) for your computer. Data on a cellphone does not cost that much if you do not use it for downloading. Just buy a small bundle. At MTN you can get a 10mb bundle for R10. The bigger the bundle the less you pay. Your cellphone should have a manual to explain how to set it up as a modem.

However if you are in an area that only offers GPRS then I think it will be too slow. Only do this if you live in an area that supports EDGE or higher. 3G is fine.

It's not a very elegant solution and you won't be able to cook your food with this solution, but for making some money playing poker online it works quite well.

I can write a more detailed tutorial on how to set up the whole cellphone modem thing but only if anyone actually needs the information.

Have a wonderful time everyone.

[jetset]

Welcome, Solitude - I can see you're going to be making more useful and constructive contributions here, for which thanks in advance!

Because this power debacle is clearly going to haunt us for years ahead, I've purchased a Telkom UPS so that I can at least have time to save work when these unpredictable outages strike.