Monday, August 16, 2004
Olympics, IS and Google
Hello, good morning and how do you do - this is Cybersurf - your weekly window on web matters. I am your faithful Cyberhost, Steven Lang. Today's program is choc full of the good, the bad and the ugly news so let's get the bad out of the way.
Last week, huge numbers of South African Internet surfers could not use foreign sites for several hours at a time. There was clearly a big problem in accessing international bandwidth - and when we have a problem of such magnitude - we really have to find someone to blame. In searching for scapegoats, cursors were instinctively pointed at Telkom or IS - the Internet Solution - or both.
ITWeb says that IS had suffered its third unplanned outage in three weeks. IS sent letters apologizing and explaining the problem to its customers - of which the SABC is one.
Telkom said nothing. Having great difficulty understanding all the technical jargon - I gather that there was a problem with the SAT three cable that connects South African Internet users to the rest of the world - and some of the blame rests with Telefonica SA - a Spanish company that manages the cable.
Personally, I believe that both IS and Telkom should build in more bandwidth and more redundancy so that when there is a problem with one cable, then Internet users should have access to other cables, other ISPs, other phone companies and maybe a satellite or two – but I don't think that the department of communications is keen on opening the market to competition.
Next on our list – the ugly news – ugly is the spat concerning two web sites and Telkom. The two sites in question – hellkom.co.za and telkomsucks dot co dot za are both what I call venting sites – places where you can go and vent your anger at some large organization – in this case both sites – Hellkom and telkomsucks - vent their bile at the country's fixed line telephone monopoly.
Now this is ugly because both sites are quite nasty, but on the other hand, it is really ugly that Telkom should threaten to sue Hellkom for R5 million on the ground that it constitutes "hate speech" – Come on Telkom – you are the big boy on the block – no need to get upset if a few kids call you names.
Now for the good news – The ICT empowerment Charter is moving ahead well and should be released sometime this month. The aim of the charter is to empower more black people in the information technology sector. It has long been recognized that the IT sector is very much
the domain of the pale male – the new charter aims to correct this imbalance to achieve a more representative sector.
The new BEE charter will most certainly be in place by the target date of March first 2005.
To round off with some more good news, Doom Three, the computer game that everyone under the age of 25 has been waiting for was finally released at Northgate on Friday. According to gamers, the most eagerly anticipated game in history has lived up to expectations and everyone
seems to be very happy.
And there you have it – the good, the bad and the ugly – not necessarily in that order. That's it for today, please tune in to Cybersurf next Monday and do remember – to keep on surfing………..,
Last week, huge numbers of South African Internet surfers could not use foreign sites for several hours at a time. There was clearly a big problem in accessing international bandwidth - and when we have a problem of such magnitude - we really have to find someone to blame. In searching for scapegoats, cursors were instinctively pointed at Telkom or IS - the Internet Solution - or both.
ITWeb says that IS had suffered its third unplanned outage in three weeks. IS sent letters apologizing and explaining the problem to its customers - of which the SABC is one.
Telkom said nothing. Having great difficulty understanding all the technical jargon - I gather that there was a problem with the SAT three cable that connects South African Internet users to the rest of the world - and some of the blame rests with Telefonica SA - a Spanish company that manages the cable.
Personally, I believe that both IS and Telkom should build in more bandwidth and more redundancy so that when there is a problem with one cable, then Internet users should have access to other cables, other ISPs, other phone companies and maybe a satellite or two – but I don't think that the department of communications is keen on opening the market to competition.
Next on our list – the ugly news – ugly is the spat concerning two web sites and Telkom. The two sites in question – hellkom.co.za and telkomsucks dot co dot za are both what I call venting sites – places where you can go and vent your anger at some large organization – in this case both sites – Hellkom and telkomsucks - vent their bile at the country's fixed line telephone monopoly.
Now this is ugly because both sites are quite nasty, but on the other hand, it is really ugly that Telkom should threaten to sue Hellkom for R5 million on the ground that it constitutes "hate speech" – Come on Telkom – you are the big boy on the block – no need to get upset if a few kids call you names.
Now for the good news – The ICT empowerment Charter is moving ahead well and should be released sometime this month. The aim of the charter is to empower more black people in the information technology sector. It has long been recognized that the IT sector is very much
the domain of the pale male – the new charter aims to correct this imbalance to achieve a more representative sector.
The new BEE charter will most certainly be in place by the target date of March first 2005.
To round off with some more good news, Doom Three, the computer game that everyone under the age of 25 has been waiting for was finally released at Northgate on Friday. According to gamers, the most eagerly anticipated game in history has lived up to expectations and everyone
seems to be very happy.
And there you have it – the good, the bad and the ugly – not necessarily in that order. That's it for today, please tune in to Cybersurf next Monday and do remember – to keep on surfing………..,
