Sign up with Google
CodeMaster
Expert Member
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2003
- Messages
- 3,465
OCR’d from Brainstorm September 2005
Telkom takes readers for idiots
We might, says Telkom, find it strange that it offers a range of “broadband” products, the potential of which it is not entirely clear. Cor blimey!
By Ivo Vegter
The only word in the Arthur C Clarke quotation that rings true is “laughably”. Emblazoned over a large centre-spread photograph that not quite resembles the Orion Nebula, the words are cut for quality. After all, Clarke wasn’t a very good writer in 1951, when he wrote in The Exploration of Space, “If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run—and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.”
Telkom omits the long-run, short-run bit so as not to divert attention from the humor printed in smaller print beneath the quote. Understandably so, since the spread in the Sunday Times must have cost half a million. Wouldn’t want to waste it.
“The recent telecommunications innovation called broadband has been defined as high speed, always available access to the internet. But it’s a definition that, whilst being factually correct, is hopelessly inadequate,” Telkom says.
Where to begin? First, there’s nothing “recent” about broadband. The term has been around for many decades to describe multichannel transmissions using a wide frequency band, and in the last decade it colloquially refers to digital subscriber line (DSL) or similar access technologies running at or above “Ti” speeds of 1.5Mbps. lcasa has accepted the ITU’s definition as “transmission capacity faster than primary rate ISDN, at 1.5Mbps to 2Mbps”.
The only “innovation” here is Telkom’s use of the term to describe contended, port-blocked, server- incapable, traffic-shaped DSL services as slow as 192 kbps. Capped.
What’s inadequate about the ITU definition Icasa accepted other than the impossibly futuristic speeds those idiots think it operates at? Or, for that matter, the vague, misleading definition of the service Telkom itself offers? -
The answer lies in Telkom’s next question: “You may find it strange that we at Telkom are offering you a range of products,” it says, to which we nod vigorously, “the potential of which we’re not entirely sure.” There. Spot it? The definition says nothing about what you can (or rather, cant) use it for!
The Telkom ad talks about “a glimpse of the infinite ‘possibilities that stimulus encourages”, and we’re tempted to toke on whatever they’re smoking. Call it peer-to-peer pressure (sorry, bad copy is contagious). Then we remember we have testimony at the casa hearings to figure out what the limits on infinity actually are.
Here’s a list of the “infinite possibilities”, as Telkom described them to Icasa: “the service [ADSLI is mainly meant for the following purposes:
Web-surfing; e-mail application; to send 120 photographs per month by e-mail; to send and receive 1 600 e-mails without attachments; watch one two- hour video per month; download 80 tracks of music per month and online gaming for one and a half hours per week.”
To put this in context, the OpenOffice.org users mailing list alone averages 2 300 e-mails per month. And more than half of all e-mail is junk, nowadays.
So when by the fourth of the month you’re done with your allotted 1 600 e-mails, you have a leisurely three or four weeks free of annoyances to indulge in two hours of video and six hours of gaming. Wow. Now that’s infinite stimulus encouraging possibilities! Especially while you can listen to the same six hours of music every day.
“And this is just the beginning,” the ad copy climaxes, breathlessly. What’s next? Telnet? FTP? Skype?
As a final clumsy insult, the advert tells us, apropos of nothing, “Telkom is not the only company offering broadband.” Whew, and there we thought it was our only hope for high-speed cables to the home or office.
Arthur C Clarke, a science-fiction author first made popular by Telkom, will be spinning in his grave. Even he couldn’t have foreseen innovation so rampant, so audacious, so...
Oh hell. I give up.
Telkom takes readers for idiots
We might, says Telkom, find it strange that it offers a range of “broadband” products, the potential of which it is not entirely clear. Cor blimey!
By Ivo Vegter
The only word in the Arthur C Clarke quotation that rings true is “laughably”. Emblazoned over a large centre-spread photograph that not quite resembles the Orion Nebula, the words are cut for quality. After all, Clarke wasn’t a very good writer in 1951, when he wrote in The Exploration of Space, “If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run—and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.”
Telkom omits the long-run, short-run bit so as not to divert attention from the humor printed in smaller print beneath the quote. Understandably so, since the spread in the Sunday Times must have cost half a million. Wouldn’t want to waste it.
“The recent telecommunications innovation called broadband has been defined as high speed, always available access to the internet. But it’s a definition that, whilst being factually correct, is hopelessly inadequate,” Telkom says.
Where to begin? First, there’s nothing “recent” about broadband. The term has been around for many decades to describe multichannel transmissions using a wide frequency band, and in the last decade it colloquially refers to digital subscriber line (DSL) or similar access technologies running at or above “Ti” speeds of 1.5Mbps. lcasa has accepted the ITU’s definition as “transmission capacity faster than primary rate ISDN, at 1.5Mbps to 2Mbps”.
The only “innovation” here is Telkom’s use of the term to describe contended, port-blocked, server- incapable, traffic-shaped DSL services as slow as 192 kbps. Capped.
What’s inadequate about the ITU definition Icasa accepted other than the impossibly futuristic speeds those idiots think it operates at? Or, for that matter, the vague, misleading definition of the service Telkom itself offers? -
The answer lies in Telkom’s next question: “You may find it strange that we at Telkom are offering you a range of products,” it says, to which we nod vigorously, “the potential of which we’re not entirely sure.” There. Spot it? The definition says nothing about what you can (or rather, cant) use it for!
The Telkom ad talks about “a glimpse of the infinite ‘possibilities that stimulus encourages”, and we’re tempted to toke on whatever they’re smoking. Call it peer-to-peer pressure (sorry, bad copy is contagious). Then we remember we have testimony at the casa hearings to figure out what the limits on infinity actually are.
Here’s a list of the “infinite possibilities”, as Telkom described them to Icasa: “the service [ADSLI is mainly meant for the following purposes:
Web-surfing; e-mail application; to send 120 photographs per month by e-mail; to send and receive 1 600 e-mails without attachments; watch one two- hour video per month; download 80 tracks of music per month and online gaming for one and a half hours per week.”
To put this in context, the OpenOffice.org users mailing list alone averages 2 300 e-mails per month. And more than half of all e-mail is junk, nowadays.
So when by the fourth of the month you’re done with your allotted 1 600 e-mails, you have a leisurely three or four weeks free of annoyances to indulge in two hours of video and six hours of gaming. Wow. Now that’s infinite stimulus encouraging possibilities! Especially while you can listen to the same six hours of music every day.
“And this is just the beginning,” the ad copy climaxes, breathlessly. What’s next? Telnet? FTP? Skype?
As a final clumsy insult, the advert tells us, apropos of nothing, “Telkom is not the only company offering broadband.” Whew, and there we thought it was our only hope for high-speed cables to the home or office.
Arthur C Clarke, a science-fiction author first made popular by Telkom, will be spinning in his grave. Even he couldn’t have foreseen innovation so rampant, so audacious, so...
Oh hell. I give up.
