CSIR - First Mile First Inch - What does ICASA Say to this

[Toby]

See the CSIR's experiments .If they cross a "public Space" what is ICASA's attitude.

Does work in this space imply that the CSIR (another Government Department) supports the use of public Wireless Networking and by Implication the building of MESH networks.

Tin Can Antenna (http://www.csir.co.za/websource/ptl0002/pdf_files/technobrief/nov2004/T_OCT_NOV_P10.pdf)

First Mile First Inch (http://www.csir.co.za/plsql/ptl0002/PTL0002_PGE038_ARTICLE?ARTICLE_NO=7164782)

[arf9999]

Tin Can Antenna (www.csir.co.za/websource/ptl0002/ pdf_files/technobrief/nov2004/T_OCT_NOV_P10.pdf)


URL is broken?

[Toby]

Try my original post again. I have edited post It should now work

[arf9999]

Hmmm, I was reading some of RoDent's posts on the Jawug site. he seems a bit critical of these initiatives...

[TheRoDent]

Meraka. What a kaka indeed. Open-Source development stimulation in .za my ass. What a useless bunch of twits. I still have to beg Internet Solutions to keep their archive of ftp.gnu.org reasonably updated. Yet IS is the only company that could actually be bothered to do it. How is opensource to develop in South Africa, without developers having reasonable access to the actual CORE of opensource software, which is the GNU tools?

I don't see a fscking ftp://meraka.co.za/mirrors/ftp.gnu.org/ do you? Yet the CSIR claims that they are "looking at ways in which technology barriers can be removed or minimized to enable bottom-up creation of wireless access infrastructure."

HALLO MOTHERFSCKERS! How about establishing a local mirror of IMPORTANT software?

I have news for you. The OpenWRT distribution based routers that the CSIR are using has no LOCAL fscking mirror. The TOOLS required to compile OpenWRT aren't even available locally, and have to be downloaded at Telkom's extortionate rates...

How to remove barriers to stimulate local development? Stop making pretty looking PDF documents about your "achievements". Start mirroring software locally. Open up a local sourceforge.net equivalent. Start paying for the bandwidth of distributed software.

The jawug firmware is being built on 100% internationally downloaded tools and software. I had to download each and every single byte myself.

Cantenna indeed! A 24db grid antenna will work out around the same in terms of price when you consider the time spent on building it, and the cost of a pigtail. Get real CSIR. Wake up.

Stimulate local development of community networks my fscking ass. This is more like first mile in the first inch of your ass, CSIR! Start adressing the real issues instead of adressing the political issues which will determine whether or not you have a grant next year. Lobby that bloody useless communications minister to actuall LEGALIZE WiFi. These are the core issues.

You can leave the rest up to us.

[Perdition]

HALLO MOTHERFSCKERS! How about establishing a local mirror of IMPORTANT software?


Is the Shuttleworth Foundation not doing anything like this? Considering they pimp open source to the max it would seem strange if they don't have something like this.

Also now that you mention the 24db grid antenna what distance can you get on one of those?

[TheRoDent]

I dare you to find a reasonable mirror for the LINUX KERNEL, locally.

South Africa is the only country in the world, that does not have an official linux kernel mirror site. Don't believe me? Take a look at http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/. Even bloody ANGOLA, and MOZAMBIQUE has a mirror site. We don't. The Shuttleworth foundation does ****all more than pay a bunch of people in Brittain to create a hack of the Debian/GNU Linux operating system, crappily called "Ubuntu". Spirit of fscking Ubuntu my ass.

The 24DB grid antennae can get between 0-12km's. That's pretty awesome for something that costs R600.

[Perdition]

Hehe I wasn't arguing, just find it strange that a foundation based on open source software doesn't have THE very foundation of open source itself mirrored locally. Believe me I'm in the same boat as you wrt thinking it's a load of bollocks.

Thanks for the info in the antenna, thinking of hooking up to the WUG sometime in the future when I have spare cash (which has been in short supply lately :( )

[bb_matt]

I dare you to find a reasonable mirror for the LINUX KERNEL, locally.

South Africa is the only country in the world, that does not have an official linux kernel mirror site. Don't believe me? Take a look at http://www.kernel.org/mirrors/. Even bloody ANGOLA, and MOZAMBIQUE has a mirror site. We don't. The Shuttleworth foundation does ****all more than pay a bunch of people in Brittain to create a hack of the Debian/GNU Linux operating system, crappily called "Ubuntu". Spirit of fscking Ubuntu my ass.



Aye - agreed.

Things have gradually got worse here at the same level as they've improved overseas.

There was a time, during the cdrom.com days, that local mirrors were kept up to date - heck, I used to map for Quake1 and Quake2 and I remember seeing my maps being mirrored on a local mirror of cdrom.com within a few hours !

Linux distributions would be mirrored within a few days - now it's more like a few months.

I ended up paying for Slackware 10.1 after waiting 2 weeks for it to be mirrored to a decent local server - 2 months later it still wasn't anywhere to be found - least ways, not anywhere with decent download speed.

I find myself wondering WTF Telkom doesn't have a series of mirrors that are kept up to date - it's not like they don't have the bandwidth !

Saix is about all there is and they are pretty shoddy at mirroring frequently.
IS has got gradually worse, probably to save costs on ridiculously expensive bandwidth.

It's a k@k state of affairs - downloading Open Source software can be expensive as ordering it online and having it shipped over !

[dominic]

there is a research category of temporary license afaik - they would need to have one

[Peapod]

I kid you not - I think CSIR "bought" the Sat2 cable that used to belong to University Durban Westville - doing some digging around.

[Van_Gogh]

http://wirelessafrica.meraka.org.za/

Looks like its still under construction though....

[freeek]

any of you guys see this :
http://www.itweb.co.za/sections/telecoms/2005/0507281101.asp?S=IT%20in%20Government&A=ITG&O=FRGN
purely gov. : lots of money for uninet

[Sangoma]

there is a dept. in the CSIR playing with wifi at the moment. The have a link from the CSIR to Centurion, I believe.

http://csircoin.blogspot.com

[pookfuzz]

I would have to agree with TheRodent as this stage. The CSIR should focus their energy into lobbying to legalize wifi rather than trying to do "research" on something that does not need it, no amount of research is going to tell us something we dont already know. From what I have seen the CSIR wifi stuff is nothing more than a number of them playing around with wifi for fun, not unlike what other people are currently doing.

There is nothing wrong with them doing this, but the general feeling I have is that the project is hollow and lacks real substance. You need to ask the simple question "What are you trying to achieve, and how are you going about achieving it?".

What really bugs me is the title "Community Owned Information Networks", how exactly is what they are doing community owned? I see no community involvement.

[Sangoma]

I would have to agree with TheRodent as this stage. The CSIR should focus their energy into lobbying to legalize wifi rather than trying to do "research" on something that does not need it, no amount of research is going to tell us something we dont already know. From what I have seen the CSIR wifi stuff is nothing more than a number of them playing around with wifi for fun, not unlike what other people are currently doing.

There is nothing wrong with them doing this, but the general feeling I have is that the project is hollow and lacks real substance. You need to ask the simple question "What are you trying to achieve, and how are you going about achieving it?".

What really bugs me is the title "Community Owned Information Networks", how exactly is what they are doing community owned? I see no community involvement.

First they research & build their own network, granted its not cutting edge & its happening all over the world. Then they have something to show ICASA & say hey look at this its great, the community will benefit, make it legal. They will have a much bigger clout than anyone else trying to legalise it.

[pookfuzz]

Ok. If that’s what they are going to do then they should get on with it instead of wasting time with blogs, websites and jabbering on about opensource.

Mereka is getting 50Million a year. Wifi equipment is cheap, the network should be built already. How along are they with the ICASA and legislation lobbying?

I am not quite sure exactly what they are researching, it’s fairly obvious that mesh networks will benefit the community. The only thing that is really important that they can do is convince Gov to legalize wifi, this will benefit everyone. The community will do the rest, as they always have.

[TheRoDent]

I'd like to know what exactly the CSIR is doing that is of any benefit. Having a group of people playing with Wifi kit is nice.

What is the purpose of their project?
Are there clearly defined outcomes?
Is there a timeline?
What are the defined outputs of this 'research'?

Besides which, I didn't hear peep from the CSIR when Wifi kit was still new in .za and shown to ICASA and they reeled in shock. Cisco Systems convinced them to type approve it, not the CSIR.

[mbs]

The CSIR is primarily a masturbation haven for wanna-be scientists who remain absolutely clueless of the practical realities of life - they're more interested in publishing papers of questionable academic worth to add to their CV's and of even less relevance to our current societal imperatives. I have more respect for the under-funded think-tanks and private initiatives attached to universities and civil society...

[NoFluffAllowed]

Hi,

I was googling for innovative uses of WiFi for socio-economic development in South Africa (baring in mind the perverse regulations in this country), and came across the CSIR's presentations at the previous WSIS. To my amusement (disgust), their WiFi network at Tsilitwa in the EC was touted as a major victory in ICT-for-development, connecting a school, police station, community centre, hospital and clinic, as a "community driven" wireless initiative.

Sounds great (although was only possible of course due to the fact that they own a special excemption license for WiFi for the area), but if you actually visit the site, only the hospital and clinic use the WLAN - and only occassionally due to an incredible workload; the WLAN falls over almost daily due to power cuts in the area and has no back up batteries; and it uses their own, bespoke hardware that only the CSIR can fix.

NoFluffAllowed

[wifi_dude]

What a waste of bul****.

What we as the community should be doing is getting together and lobby ICASA directly. At this rate, when CSIR do become successful, what will happen to the "community". It will be snatched up by CSIR and in order to connect, we'll be forced to buy their closed-source wifi equipment and most likely pay a small fortune for the "priveledge" of a "community network".