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That's a rather odd title... Isn't it? It is, however, indicative of the relationship most South Africans generally have with anything to do with the World Wide Web...

The seemingly daft title: "Openserve fibre 30 days free price," is optimised for a popular Google search engine phrase, which basically means this is what people are typing into Google! Adding "price" at the end implies that people are skeptical of the offer for a free Openserve 30-day free trial of 50 Mbps uncapped inteet, which includes free installation and a free WiFi enabled device -- with no contracts involved.

Surely there's a catch... most likely in the form of some suprise price to pay? I suppose the fact that I headlined this post with a picture of the apparent, freely-installed, free WiFi-enabled device in the backdrop of a R200 note rather cheekily adds fuel to the skepticism fire.

The truth is there really is no catch, despite what your intuition might rightfully be suggesting to you is cause for some suspicion, given how some people come across this offer via door-to-door sales representatives dropping-in, in some instances multiple times! The suspicion is perhaps even further aggrevated by how it tus out that the sales representative who appeared to be touting the offer is then part of the team of technicians who go on to come and exectute the installation...

Well, there wouldn't be any money in MY account to debit if they somehow managed to sneak in some hidden terms and conditions which would have somehow granted them access to my bank details and subsequent account. So I figured there's really nothing to lose!

The technician-cum-salesman who dropped-in here by us, for the second time (he'd first found my uncle, whose intuition duly had him dismiss such a too-good-to-be-true offer), simply required of me my mobile number and just an oral communication of the official address.

Top fellow is Sipho, who assured me they won't be taking any banking details or doing any credit checks.

So, it was indeed a case of there being nothing to lose, and when Sipho seemingly ghosted me after the initiation process he'd explained to me didn't go as outlined, I wasn't disappointed. I was supposed to receive a One-Time-PIN for him to log on the system and get the green-light to come out and do the installation, but by the time he'd called I hadn't received anything.

I like people like Sipho, because when he DID eventually get back to me further, he announced that he'd be by in about 30-40 minutes, TO INSTALL THE 30-DAY FREE OPENSERVE FIBRE!

Agora mesmo* - 21:36, Saturday 16th November 2024, marks the fifth day of enjoying uncapped connectivity, with somewhat of an "I-knew-it" moment unfolding this afteoon when my much-needed, pleasantly-developing afteoon cat-nap was disrupted by a knock on my (my late grandparents') bedroom door, with the message that "The WiFi people are outside, looking for you."

It tued out to be a third Telkom guy, re-iterating their particular offer of an ISP you'd subsequently have to sign up to to keep enjoying a service similar to the fibre connectivity Openserve is blessing you with, after the 30-days of free connectivity lapse.

They're doing this as perhaps the best form of marketing. Their uncapped fibre service (Telkom), which would then subseuqnelty run on the same network/equipment installed by the Openserve guys, starts at R315 per month, with the cheapest alteative being one from what I believe they referred to as High Fibre.

High Fibre's cheapest option goes for R299... Maybe it's HiFibre, because I can't find either of these spellings for it via a quick, quick online search.

That probably speaks to the implicit resolution not to go with any Inteet Service Provider at the end of the 30-day trial period, because of, well, no budget.

Consequently, I'd rather resolved to push really hard over this free trial period, with regards to my budding Digital Nomad exploits.

I'm on what the Americans refer to as Social Welfare, with my only source of income being the monthly SASSA (South African Social Security Agency) R370 Social Relief of Distress Grant. R295.50 of that goes towards banking fees plus the overheads to run my Web Hosting Business, which you can check out the details about in the video below, as I won't go into too much detail about that here.

The remainder of the 30-day FREE FIBRE MURDERING terrace

This reminds me of me of the South African Digital Nomad Dream lifestyle finger-snack platter I've had a taste of up to this point, albeit in Phuket, Thailand I did indeed stay a full 15 months, so I guess THAT bit qualifies as a South African Digital Nomad Dream lifestyle feast! I need to go back for some dessert, though...

Anyway, it reminds me of just delighting in being able to utterly murder the complimentary WiFi, coming from a country where inteet has pretty much always been quite costly.

Right, so where are we now? What am I going to be doing with this free high-speed, uncapped fibre connecivity for the remaining 25 days?

Working on Growing My YouTube Channel

The last video I uploaded to my YouTube Channel was one documenting my move from Patong to Kamala, as Kamala is a quieter, calmer part of Phuket Island, especially during what was the developing high season. Patong, the central party spot of the island, was getting as noisy as it was getting expensive with the growing demand to accommodate the December party crowd.

That last video was published nearly three weeks ago, on October 23 (my sister's birthday), making for a modest 18th video of a channel I officially started up on March 24th, this year. If you know anything about the roadmap to get one's channel pushed and monetized by YouTube, that knowledge will likely include awareness of how its algorithms love and reward consistency.

I used the silly excuse that I only have a headset with only one functional earplug to take a break from uploading videos, along with the justifiable fact that the longer videos I'm generally going to start uploading will pose a serious challenge, as I've been barely managing to upload smaller, shorter videos out on the street, up the road and in range of the Wi-Fi the people over at Royal Funerals are fine with the local community using.

Not to mention that that singular headset with only one working plug is hanging onto the jack by litteral wire, so I was under the impression that it would finally give-in, any moment going forward from about those three weeks ago+. On its own, it's a lousy excuse to stop editing videos, but it was kind of compounding the more justifiable excuse of not having enough laptop battery power to upload videos using the Wi-Fi I was mooching off of.

So, the videos will continue, as part of the more organic strategy with which to grow my channel, in contrast to the growth strategy I'm employing via my GWAPSA (Generational Wealth Actualisation Parties of South Africa) website.

Doing Web Development Work (Including Prospecting)

1,125 is my Daily Freedom Number, which is the number of websites I need to have clients each paying me R39 (US$2.40) per month for, as a Web Hosting Service Provider. I'll make a detailed post (or video) about this, so look out for that or get in touch with me to ask about it if you're really interested right now, but otherwise I'm currently on 6 out of the 1,125 Web Hosting clients I'm chasing.

It's then naturally a matter of marketing and prospecting, part of which entails offering the design & development of the website itself for free (worth $65 or R1,200) and then only collecting the monthly Web Hosting fee of R39.

So, if I'm not busy working on an actual site that's in the pipeline, I'm then doing some marketing and outreach to try and land new clients.

Leaing Brazilian Portuguese*

Finally, having visited São Paulo as my very first DN trip, back in 2016, I've since resolved to retu to Brazil and LIVE there for at least a full year, as I did in Phuket, Thailand. The plan is to base myself there and go on trips around the world flying from there and back, probably extending my transitions through my home country of South Africa.

I managed to get by with my "survival Portuguese" over the two weeks that I was there, to watch the Olypmic Games, but as my Brazilian friend Frederico advised, I'm leaing Portuguese properly so as to "[You will]enjoy better Brazeew." It's visa-free-access country for us South Africans, and you get three months as a visitor, with no stupid questions asked.

You can do business there as well, because on the landing card you fill in, you just indicate whether you're there for Business or Leisure Tourism.

*I wrote the phrase agora mesmo, earlier on in this post, as a silly hint that I am indeed on a Portuguese-leaing terrace, which is one of the things I'll be using the 30-day free Wi-Fi for. Agora mesmo means "right now."

I mean- I have indeed been leaing, slowly, with some videos I downloaded and material another Brazilian friend gifted me, but it'd help being able to add something like Duolingo to the euqation...

My brief period there had me sample two of the main reasons I'd always wanted to visit Brazil, which are the gorgeous (and oh-so-friendly) women, and football! My spirit yeas for me to spend at least a full year there again, as an eligible bachelor.

Wrap-Up

So this free 30-days uncapped fibre offer is totally LEGIT, with those of you who don't get sales reps popping into your home with the offer not left out in the cold. Just go to Openserve's official website and you'll come across some information about how to go about securing it for yourself.