[SA_Dave]

lol@Maze?

We believe p2p networks (all the networks except dark-nets) do indeed represent the next distribution channel for digital media. That's an exciting proposition and I believe all the commercial companies are looking for ways to create a profitable business from this while providing users with something of value.

This just in : darknets are a p2p company's worst enemy!! Hold the presses...

We don't want to control anything but our ability to continue to make and bring technological innovations to market such as content agnostic general communications tools. But Morpheus strives to continue to be a leading contributing participant to the evolution of media distribution.

I love spyware!! Tux thinks it's yummy.

While you lucky Americans have to worry about IICA/INDUCE, PIRATE acts etc. at least you can be assured that your politicians get it right more often than not.

A mole in SA telecoms policy?

By: Tim Wood

Posted: 2004/07/22 Thu 15:00 EDT | © Moneyweb 1997-2004

NEW YORK -- It took the National Party a quarter of a century to allow commercial television to penetrate the boerewors curtain. By that standard, the mimetic ANC will liberate the local telecom market by 2021. Look on the bright side; five-sixteenths of the long road to consumer freedom has passed by.

Too cynical? Too harsh and judgemental? Let’s see what the facts tell us.

In 1998, relatively fresh in the Internet boom, SA was one of the world’s most wired countries. Growth was ferocious, driven by three primary considerations – a) high hopes for telecoms liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation; b) stimulative domestic tax and other fiscal reforms; c) globalisation.

SA used to be, by a wide margin, more connected than economies most comparable to it and even some further up the pecking order. How times change. Six years on, the annual Network Wizards survey shows that SA is stone last in its peer group when measured by relative growth, whilst it has slipped to a lowly fourth place in absolute terms (see table).

This decline in connectivity competitiveness borders on a threat to national security. The fact that it has been orchestrated via the tacit TelkomSentechEskomTranstelCosatuBureaucrat Protection Treaty makes it treasonous. Not only have the quislings throttled Internet consumers, but everyone who picks up a phone or dares transmit and receive a signal.

Telecom investors are withholding further funds until the mess is cleared up. There are signs of policy glastnost, but the thaw is much too mild. Without radical reform SA will fall even further behind its rivals and may never get a chance to catch up.

Broad mess

The recent introduction of broadband services to SA illustrates much that is wrong with the government’s analogue approach.

That there is pent-up demand is obvious in extortionate pricing for bandwidth and the saturation of what capacity that is available. Want to run a Web site serving international users? You can do it faster and cheaper from London, Toronto, New York, Tokyo or Sydney despite much higher base costs there. A local entrepreneur who contemplates building a business using high speed internet access must suffer download quotas and an irrational ban on derivative telephony services.

Wireless Internet access finally made a commercial appearance this year, but coverage is scrappy and outrageously priced.

Sentech offers an unlimited wireless service priced ten times higher and with less bandwidth than what you pay through a Starbucks outlet in New York City. M-Web charges more for one hour of Wi-Fi than you would pay for a full day of access in Manhattan. Better yet, you can connect in places like Bryant Park or Bowling Green for free. Reliable, free Wi-Fi access is a bonus across many large US and Canadian cities provided you know where the hotspots are. And if you don’t, an antenna made from a tin of Pringles crisps will zero in on a usable signal.

There is no reason to presume that the same couldn’t be true in SA. In fact, we will bet a handy sum that it would be so with even modest reform.

Civilly disobedient

How come it is cheaper to go online in Windhoek or Maputo than Pretoria, yet SA has more paying users and invested infrastructure by several standard deviations? Crystal clear Internet-routed telephone calls from the US to SA cost around 15 cents a minute, but don’t try that the other way or Telkom will frog-march you to prison or bankruptcy.

It is intolerable, but the answer is not more regulation. The country is well past the grace period provided for the incumbents to make themselves competitive. It is also well past the sell-by date on regulatory pettifogging. Since the obstructionists are incapable or unwilling to meet global standards, consumers should effect a righteous change for them through Wi-Fi wildcatting and clandestine cabling.

Should the people not govern?

SBC are evil.