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Is the internet your lifeline, or your nightmare? People across Africa have been sharing their stories with BBC News.
Click here to send your own story.
STEFAN FERREIRA, CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
I live in South Africa and I am a online gamer (if I can be called that with the amount of LAG I experience). I also work a lot in the IT environment so I know that this country has a pathetic download and upload speed. It is insanely expensive just to have a 1MB line with a cap of 10GB per month - about £100 per month from the cheapest internet service providers. It is keeping the economy from growing and it is literally making people emigrate and base their business in a country with proper connections. Fun spoiled When it comes to the games... there are SO many I want to play. But really it is not an option because of the crap latency I am going to get - it will only spoil it for the other gamers. I do however play World of Warcraft on the European servers, because the latency can be managed. We even have some people who make the effort of setting up local servers (like a PC in their home) for games like Call of Duty, Warcraft 3, Crysis and so forth. We manage, but in the end why do we have to deal with this, when we are supposed to be able to play with the rest of the world? That is what the internet is all about and we just don't really have that option.
AKILAH SKEVINGTON, CAIRO, EGYPT
Believe me, the internet situation is little different at the other end of the African continent. I use the internet for MMORPGs (Massively multiplayer online role-playing games) and for my work as a language teacher. A download of just under 1.2GB that I made a few days ago took more than 10 hours to complete. This, mind you, is after the standard DSL speed was doubled a few months ago to 512kbps. This connection costs 95 (Egyptian) pounds per month, which in real terms, is equivalent to someone in the UK paying £95 per month for the same connection speed.
Do you play online games? Is your internet connection reliable? Send us your comments.
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There are SO many games I want to play but really it is not an option
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