Paul Jacobson

I was going through some old videos and found this gem.  I downloaded it a while ago and it is really good.  Take a look for yourself.  It parodies the Apple Switch ads.

Download SkylerSwticherQT2.mov

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You may be aware that Cape Town Internet service provider, Dotco, brought an application to interdict Telkom from implementing its much aligned ADSL pricing structure.  ITWeb
has reported that Dotco was successful in obtaining an interim
interdict preventing Telkom from implementing these changes at least
until December when the matter will come before the Cape High Court for
consideration:

Cape Town Internet service provider (ISP) DOTCO has
been awarded a temporary interdict against Telkom implementing its new
ADSL per usage billing structure until 5 December.

The temporary interdict was made today by Cape High Judge President
John Hlope after discussions between the advocates of DOTCO and Telkom.

In terms of the award, a final decision will be made by the High Court in December.

The temporary order was a positive development, but DOTCO customers
would have to wait until early December to see whether DOTCO would be
able to continue providing users an affordable means of accessing the
Internet, says Johan Ferreira, MD of DOTCO.

Discrimination

The order in favour of DOTCO did not reduce the urgent need for the
Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) to rule on the
proposed billing changes because the wholesale ADSL price adjustments
were intended for all ISPs and not only DOTCO, says DOTCO’s attorney,
Brendan Hughes of Michalsons Attorneys.

DOTCO, along with another Cape Town ISP, Web Africa, complained to
ICASA that the proposed billing changes discriminate against all
non-Telkom authenticated ISPs.

Telkom’s intended price increases for ADSL usage also include a hard
cap on usage for customers of independent ISPs whereas Telkom
Internet’s own customers are allowed to continue using the Internet on
a restricted basis at no further charge once the theoretical usage caps
have been reached, says DOTCO’s Ferreira.

“This is unfair,??? says Ferreira, “and we are hoping that ICASA will
recognise this unfairness and act in the best interests of all
telecommunication users and their service providers.???

ICASA is empowered by section 53 of the Telecommunications Act to
declare a moratorium on any intended action by a telecommunications
licence-holder that is likely to operate unfairly against any category
of persons, Hughes confirmed.

The big question now is what ICASA will do in the face of what many consider to be further evidence of Telkom’s profiteering.

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This pretty much says it all …

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I came across a pretty angry guy this morning.  What is he angry about?  Well, us, bloggers and this blogging plague that has infected the Web.  This extract from one of his blog posts (ironic isn’t it?) nicely captures his view of blogs:

"I am an Insignificant Microbe in the TTLB Ecosystem"

This is my evaluation in the glorious "blogosphere" that turns us all into publishers, columnists, "citizen journalists", "trolls", whatever.

Basically what is being measured in this abomination and abuse of an "ecosystem" is how much attention this blog gets. That is exactly the same measure as is used in advertising. And, of course, there is lots of blog advertising. And lots of services to try to jam ads into them

Apparently wikis and chat are far better because they are more consensual and current (respectively).  Blogs seem to be bad because they are apparently neither.  There are some pretty interesting people out there!

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It is becoming boring ranting about Telkom.  Once they again Telkom is up to no good.  The rumoured price changes are coming into effect (most likely) and the hardest hit are small and medium businesses and people who use more than a few GB bandwidth a month.  Those of you overseas (Europe/North America/Asia) may find this bizarre but we have bandwidth caps and our highest ’speed’ connection is a whopping 1Mbps connection limited by caps on how much bandwidth we can use.

I am not going to bother trying to rehash the story.  I am just pissed off at how evil Telkom can be and how our government just lets Telkom get away with anything with just a few rumblings about cracking down on our enormously high bandwidth costs.  I feel ill when I think about how callous Telkom and government are.  They know this type of service is essential for small and medium businesses because it gives us a leg up and helps us compete that much more effectively.  At the end of the day we can do little more than wait for the second national operator to go online and start offering a competing service.  The sad thing is that when that happens, Telkom will be sure to drop their prices dramatically.

To get the full picture, take a look at the following sites:

• iWeek - Telkom Torpedoes;
• Hellkom;
• MyADSL - New pricing will hit SMMEs hard;
• Gabbahead’s thoughts on the subject (quoting a nice explanation)
• Technorati search

To give you another example of how Telkom operates, take a look at this email exchange that apparently took place this last month between a user and a Telkom product manager:

From: Bladebla mailto:******@telkomsa.net
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 12:45 PM

With all the rumors etc around, it might be a good thing if Telkom can inform their subscribers what is going to happen on the 1st of November 2005, since some ISPs have informed their subscribers.

Can you please let us know what’s going on

I got this response:

From: Royden Dall (RF) DallRF@telkom.co.za
Sent: 14 October 2005 11:16 AM
To: ******@telkomsa.net
Cc:support@telkomsa.net;info@telkomsa.net
Subject: RE: ADSL Capping

Morning Bladebla

Thanks for the e-mail and first off no need to panic just yet

From 1 November the ISP’s move to usage based service, not necessarily the subscribers, if that makes sense to you. What happened is there is a group of ISP’s out there that took the same 3 Gig service we sell and sold it as 30 Gig service. So we don’t really have a problem with the vast majority of our DSL users, as they bought a 2, 3 or 4 Gig service and for most of them, stay within that limit.

We will be moving to a usage model as there is a large demand for more than the current Gig offering. I assure U that as soon as we have buttoned down our strategy, our subscribers will be the first to be informed. On the other hand if U are one of those subscribers that is running at over a 100 Gigs a month, U will be getting a mail from us sooner than later

Warm regards
Royden Dall
Product Manager
TelkomInternet powered by ADSL
Office: +2712 680 6657 Mobile +2782 454 2766
www.telkomsa.net www.aardvark.co.za
"You tell me, and I forget. You teach me, and I remember. You involve me, and I learn." Benjamin Franklin

A petition has been set up at http://www.adslpetition.co.za/.
I hope this counts for something although I despair at times like
this.  If you use ADSL in South Africa, sign the petition.  Support
every effort to bring Telkom to its senses or to its knees.  A monopoly that abuses its position like this shouldn’t be allowed to thrive.

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