Lower cost bandwidth on the cards

Could it be that we may well have cause to thank the Square Kilometre Array
telescope project and the minister of science and technology, if this comes
off...?  Why is my sceptical soul only mildly stirred? Mmm...

rgds,
DaveG

Lower cost bandwidth on the cards

By Paul Vecchiatto 
Posted: 1 December 2004

Cheaper Internet bandwidth will probably be regulated in a new Bill before
Parliament or as an amendment to the Telecommunications Act, says minister
of science and technology, Mosibudi Mangena. 

"Some people say bandwidth in SA costs 13 times more than other countries
and this is not good for the overall development of science and technology
in the country," the minister told ITWeb at Microsoft SA's Project Firefly
software competition in Port Elizabeth this week.

Mangena says his department, along with the Department of Communications and
the Department of Trade and Industry, are co-operating with each other to
find ways to reduce the cost of bandwidth in the country.

"It is critical the cost comes down. One very important science project is
the Square Kilometre Array telescope project that we are bidding for, and
that will need a lot of bandwidth."

Re: Lower cost bandwidth on the cards

I got excited until I read the article. Wouldn' it be ironic if bandwidth
pricing was reduced, not due to lobying, consumer pressure, business
interests, or broad economic policy, but a large science project.

Lol, those crazy South Africans..

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Gale" <daveg@...>
To: <ioz@...>
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 3:58 PM
Subject: [IOZ] Lower cost bandwidth on the cards

Could it be that we may well have cause to thank the Square Kilometre Array
telescope project and the minister of science and technology, if this comes
off...?  Why is my sceptical soul only mildly stirred? Mmm...

rgds,
DaveG

Lower cost bandwidth on the cards

By Paul Vecchiatto
Posted: 1 December 2004

Cheaper Internet bandwidth will probably be regulated in a new Bill before
Parliament or as an amendment to the Telecommunications Act, says minister
of science and technology, Mosibudi Mangena.

"Some people say bandwidth in SA costs 13 times more than other countries
and this is not good for the overall development of science and technology

Re: P2P issues...

Roland Giesler wrote:

> I don't buy your argument.  It doesn't make sense.  I'd be quite happy to
> have 100% bandwidth all the time and when a worm really hits the system and
> it takes a few hours to sort out, I can live with it.  The problem is that
> many so called experts don't know what to do is such an emergency.  Case is
> point was our national carrier not being able to reroute traffic via
> alternatives when 9-11 happened.  The fact that the lines to the US were
> down or really slow for almost a week, had little to do with the event that
> started, but a lot with the ability to configure a network.  Right or wrong?
> (I think I'm letting myself into trouble here...)

I'd say spot on.

Another example is how not one staff member at Sentech could operate the 
Network Appliance proxy cache's web interface enough to solve their open 
proxy problem reported in the press.

Or IS, who would repeatedly lose "3 out of 4 lines" recently (resulting 
in 100% packet loss, no idea where that 4th line was) due to the same 
hardware failure in Spain, and who at the same time claim "we have 
redundancy".

Regards,
Graham
--

Re: P2P issues...

William Stucke wrote:

> In the Real World (tm) if you want real bandwidth, get a real connection.
> ADSL in SA doesn't qualify, and you're fooling yourself if you think it
> does.

I think the key thing isn't what's been implemented (a cheapie 
crippleware only ADSL service with no alternatives even if you had the 
budget to spend on a more expensive bandwidth offering), but what 
potentially could be implemented (an 8MBps leased line over an R800/m 
ADSL VLAN connection, instead of R12000/m x 4 (or whatever it is now, 
been a while since I looked) for 4 Diginet/E1 connections.

The biggest issue is the local loop, not the downstream bandwidth. My 
choices as a customer are:

- A cheap[1] local loop, but with crap bandwidth/services option only.
- A ridiculously expensive local loop, with a real internet connection.

Seems if I as a customer have more needs than the ADSL crippleware can 
provide, am screwed either way.

[1] Cheap as in cheap compared to other local products.

Regards,
Graham
--

Re: P2P issues...

Ivan Groenewald wrote:

>>Worms don't attack random backdoor ports - they target specific flaws in
>>specific services, usually well known ones like SMTP, HTTP or HTTPS,
>>ports that usually get first class priority.

> You're really good with assumptions.

> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=worms+%22random+destination+ports%2
> 2
> http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=worms+%22random+ports%22

Sorry, but the second Google search just gave me back lots of pages with 
the words "worms", "random" and "ports" scattered around the results 
pages. What point are you trying to make?

>>Email jumping up to 95% isn't a disaster, your network management would
>>have picked it up and you would be able to take action. Hiding network
>>problems behind shaping means you're unlikely to notice the problem -
>>until your users started complaining. Sweeping network problems under a
>>carpet doesn't keep customers happy. :(

> It's called proactive network monitoring and management. I do it every day.
> Putting precautions in to safeguard against potential disaster is good
> network management.

It's really simple. The customer comes first. If you have not met the 
customer's needs, then your network does not deliver on it's purpose. If 
your "safeguards" get in the way of the customer, then your safeguards 
are broken.

Re: [SPAM] Lower cost bandwidth on the card

On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 15:58, Dave Gale wrote:
> Could it be that we may well have cause to thank the Square Kilometre Array
> telescope project and the minister of science and technology, if this comes
> off...?  Why is my sceptical soul only mildly stirred? Mmm...
> 
> rgds,
> DaveG

 Have a read through http://www.ictroadmap.co.za/ .
 It's not bad considering it's source.

 --Daniel Schroder
   National Astrophysics Space Science Programe
   http://www.star.ac.za

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Interesting (correct) FCC ruling

Re: [IOZ.legal] VANS regulations for comment

Bretton Vine wrote:
> I'd theorise that it was the efforts of extensive lobbying by the big 
> players that resulted in the rather expensive requirements to 
> participate in the VANS market sector.

I think you'd be very wrong. I do not believe that any big players
lobbied ICASA to increase the cost of a VANS licence. Frankly, big
players have far more important things to worry about than scheming
to increasing market-entry costs for potential competitors.

> I'm annoyed that the costs for registering as a VANS are so high, but 
> logically I can think of no reason for why govt would want to make it 
> so. The only other possible reason I've mentioned above, unless someone 
> can enlighten me otherwise.

Previously, ICASA has stated that the VANS licence application fee
is supposed to be based on ICASA's cost to process that application.

One argument in favour of an increase from ~R6000 to R30000 is
that ICASA will have to spend additional resources dealing with
interconnection issues and provision of numbers to new VANS,
which will increase the cost of processing a licence application.

Another argument in favour of an increase is that in comparitive
international terms, given all of the services VANS are now entitled
to provide, R30000 is extremely *in*expensive for a licence.

A strong argument against the increase is that it will have a
significant negative impact on SMME's applying for licences,
since most SMME's do not have R30000 to spare.

Another strong argument for maintaining a lower application fee
is that many VANS will /not/ require complex interconnection
arrangements or numbering support, and that a higher application
fee creates a barrier to entry for any company (but particularly
an SMME) that (say) just wants to provide Internet access.

But the most important thing is that these regulations are a
draft *for comment*. This means that critics of the regulations
still have an opportunity to have their say to ICASA, and
influence the final regulations.

If you don't like the 30% HDI requirement, or the higher
application fee, then let ICASA know. It'll take you less
than half an hour to write an email to ICASA outlining your
concerns (click here to start: mailto:AMatthysen@...),
which is much less time than some of you spend each week posting
to IOZ lists...

Please feel free to cc your responses to IOZ 

Ant.

--

-- 
Pibsbury (n.): The little hole in the end of a toothbrush.

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Re: Lower cost bandwidth on the card

I attended the ICT Roadmap presentation at the DST exhibition about a month ago.  
Not sure that they really should be playing in the space they are attempting to.

Their bottom line message seemed to be that the DST was trying to create a roadmap 
for industry to follow, which sems to me to be a bit general in nature and may well be 
counter to what commercial interests might decide to do given that they look for 
untapped niches from which to make money.  A two year project to map out an ICT 
roadmap started in 1981 wopuld probably have missed out the Internet, after all Big Bill 
stated in 1983 that the Internet was just a fad and would hold no commercial 
opportunity, or words tothat effect.  Of course six months later he changed his mind but 
that's the perogative of business.  Governments take a bit longer! 

On the subject of the SKAT, DST has been active in the specification of a National 
Research and Education Network (NREN) modelled on and seen as an extention of the 
GEANT system in Europe.  Basically this is Internet II for researchers and comprises 
large bandwidth pipes mainly unused but available for immediate use to transfer data 
and information between researchers.  So called normal traffic would not be permitted 
to use it.

A major driver in that project has been the possibility of SKAT but there are other 
research projects that could benefit from such a service.

Duncan Martin of TENET issued a public statement on the subject of the NREN 
recently which I seem to have deleted but I am sure its available on 
WWW.TENET.ac.za 

What impact this will have on driving down the cost of commercial or personal Internet 
access I can't say but I fear, not much.   Telkom, you know!!

Henry Watermeyer 

On 2 Dec 2004 at 7:29, Daniel Schroder wrote:

> On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 15:58, Dave Gale wrote:
> > Could it be that we may well have cause to thank the Square
> > Kilometre Array telescope project and the minister of science and
> > technology, if this comes off...?  Why is my sceptical soul only
> > mildly stirred? Mmm...
> > 
> > rgds,
> > DaveG
> 
>  Have a read through http://www.ictroadmap.co.za/ .
>  It's not bad considering it's source.
> 
>  --Daniel Schroder
>    National Astrophysics Space Science Programe
>    http://www.star.ac.za
> 
> 
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> with "unsubscribe ioz" in the body of your message
> ==================================================
> 

-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
Henry Watermeyer

Gentel (Pty) Ltd
Box 89 1143 Lyndhurst, 2106, South Africa

Phone (+27) [0] 84 800 8862
Home and fax (+27) [0] 11-882-7251

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SA to host top-level domain server

SA to host top-level domain server
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/internet/2004/0412061106.asp
BY PAUL VECCHIATTO, ITWEB CAPE TOWN CORRESPONDENT

South Africa will host Africa's first top-level domain name (TLD) server as 
part of a strategy by domain name server manager UltraDNS to mitigate 
denial-of-service attacks.

UltraDNS is a US company that manages domain name servers on behalf of 
organisations that are responsible for various TLDs. It supplies the 
back-end support to .uk, .info and .org among the 25 other TLDs it supports.

UltraDNS chairman and CTO Rodney Joffe made this announcement at the 
conclusion of the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and 
Numbers) meeting held in Cape Town during the past five days.

According to Joffe, this will be the ninth server UltraDNS is to deploy 
worldwide, with others already located in Asia, the US and Europe.

“No decision has been made yet on where to locate the South African server, 
but that will be done with the Internet Service Providers Association of SA. 
The cost of installing the server will be about R1 million and it should be 
working by the end of December.”

Joffe adds that the access speed experienced by South African Internet users 
should also be improved by the installation of the server. It will also help 
to contain some of the access costs, as local users will be able to find 
some of the TLDs in the country, rather than making an overseas call, he says.

“Our system encourages a user's machine to go to the nearest server, rather 
than merely a randomly selected one as is the normal case,” he says.

Joffe says security and stability for South African Internet users will be 
enhanced as placing such a server in the country allows for local Internet 
access, even if it has been disrupted elsewhere in the world.

“DNS servers are the targets of choice for a distributed denial-of-service 
attack,” he says.

Joffe, a former South African, emigrated to the US in the early 1980s and 
was one of the original members of the Commercial Internet Exchange, which 
was the forerunner of the modern commercial Internet.

--

-- 
Bretton Vine :: gsm:+27.82.494.6902 :: http://bretton.hivemind.net

"Woman begins by resisting a man's advances and ends by blocking his 
retreat." - Oscar Wilde

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