Zoopy Goes International

Posted on 05 February, 2010 | 4 Comments

Last year November, Zoopy decided to make a bold move in moving their locally hosted videos to a server overseas. This came after the exhorbitant bandwidth that South African businesses are subjected to.  According to Jason from Zoopy, the average bandwidth costs amount to more or less R50,000 per terrabyte of bandwidth. And when you own a website using in excess of 8-10 terrabytes of bandwidth monthly, it seems the logical business sense to cut costs and find a cheaper alternative.  Unfortunately for South African businesses, cutting bandwidth costs requires a move outside of our borders. $100 per terrabyte on an international hosting platform is a far cry from the R50,000 we are forking out here in South Africa.

But it seems that South African internet users are just not seeing the sense in moving overseas judging by the comments on the My Broadband forum.  I was just reading through the posts on the forum and I simply cannot fathom the narrow-mindedness of our internet users.  Most of the users complaints comes down to them being up the miff pole because they cannot watch Zoopy videos using their local ADSL bandwidth (which is free in most cases). With the videos being hosted internationally, it now takes a small chunk out of their paid for bandwidth. I understand their dilemma and the source for their dismay at the move by Zoopy, but one seriously has to look at the bigger picture.  The average business model of any company simply cannot sustain the costs when local hosting costs exponentially more than international hosting.

I have also noticed that the people complaining probably have small ADSL bandwidth packages and others are local hosting companies.  The latter are obviously cheesed that they are losing local business to overseas business.  Well, I tell you what.  If it upsets you that much, then drop your prices, and if you cannot do that, then get all the hosting providers in SA to stand up to Telkom’s ridiculous bandwidth costs.  Don’t blame Zoopy for something that we all knew would ultimately take place.

Get off your high horses, think about the bigger picture, think about what it costs Zoopy to provide a FREE service to you.  And also remember that South African website generally dont attract as much investment as an overseas companies do.  And quite frankly, if an investor came to Zoopy offering money, the investors initial requirement would be to reduce costs, namely bandwidth.

So, you tell me what Zoopy should do? Stay local and destroy any hopes of a sustainable future, or move overseas, still delivering the same content at relatively the same speeds?  And at the same time, hopefully showing the powers that be that their local hosting prices are stupid.  Remember that Zoopy contains local content.  That is why I use Zoopy.  Not because they are locally hosted.  I personally only use a 2Gb ADSL package, and I have been using Zoopy just as much and I haven’t seen much change in speed.  If Zoopy usage is going to eat into your monthly bandwidth costs that much, then you should look at using your time more constructively.  Like I don’t know, how about thinking of a way to get Telkom to reduce their costs, and DOING something about it?

On a side note, Privateproperty.co.za are the biggest user of Zoopy videos.  All their Video Tours are hosted on Zoopy and they embed the videos on their property listings.  Tests have been performed between YouTube & Zoopy, and at the end of the day, it was found that Zoopy was slightly faster than YouTube, and particularly on slower connections (GPRS) Zoopy outshined YouTube.

4 Responses to “Zoopy Goes International”

1. Brent says:
   February 5th, 2010 at 1:32 pm

   Is Zoopy not owned by Vodacom these days?

2. Justin McCall says:
   February 5th, 2010 at 2:11 pm

   Yes, I am not sure about wholly owned, but they do have a significant slice of the company. But even with the special rates that Vodacom Business were giving them, it made more sense to head international.

3. Jason says:
   February 5th, 2010 at 2:25 pm

   Thanks for putting yourself in our shoes Justin – it has been quite a hot seat recently Hosting at a massive scale is a complex task, with many considerations to take into account. The costs for local bandwidth are decreasing, but are still 100 times away from international alternatives, and as connection speeds increase, the perceived loading speeds of media and content online will decrease to an almost unnoticeable difference. That said, we are always re-evaluating the local environment and as soon as a door opens up that makes sense, we’ll be thrilled to add a local presence to our hosting network.

4. Justin McCall says:
   February 5th, 2010 at 2:33 pm

   Of course Jason. I have to be honest and say that I am dumbfounded at how narrow-minded people are this country and how they cannot see the that if you carried on with local hosting, that there simply wouldn’t be a Zoopy in the future. But, those that are on the outside always have the biggest say. And let’s be honest here, those people griping are simply selfish. I guess one cannot please this critical nation. Kudos to you.

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