ICASA shuts down illegal WISPs

RichardP said:
So let me get this right - If I have a VANS license, then I am entitled to rip the public off ?
Click to expand...
nope you still have it wrong - care to elaborate?

Tunasashimi said:
Telkom don't have one and they are.
Click to expand...
telkominternet operates under a VANS licence originally awarded in 1997
 
Ah, there we go. All you prospective WISPS, become a municipality first.
 
Last edited:
and in other news criminal charges against an alleged wisp were withdrawn today...
 
Spoke to the Wisp in the Cape being harrased by Icasa. They only took
the radio equipment, not the antenna. They didn't seal the highsites
with red tape either like they had done with Aerosat. Aerosat ripped up
those seals and the cops did nothing. The Wisp in question told me that he is not being investigated by our bemused police

He could put the equipment back, but Icasa monitors the site with
a spectrum analyzer from a distant building. He uses two highsites.
If he were to put back the radios, a two week interlude follows wherein
Icasa has to obtain another court order. I can't imagine one thumbing
one's nose at any other regulatory body in the world like this. Just try
and pull this stunt in America! This country's legal system
is a joke.

The solution is to use mesh and place the antennas on private
residences roofs. We protect the spectrum and assist a fellow
victim of the Telkom/Icasa alliance. We can't all be wisps, so I would
plead that you don't ask for rental fees.

By the non-profit Jawug like community taking hands with
the commercial Wisps we could all make a sensible contribution to what
is in everybody's interest: Spectrum preservation. At the moment desperate
Wisps are blasting the spectrum to pieces because nobody want's to
donate their rooftops to them.

www.webintact.co.za, www.aerosat.co.za, www.uninet.co.za,Hermanus Wisp
should be assisted by us and we shouldn't expect anything in return - not
even free internet access. Their margins are very thin - a major expense is
highsite rental, by donating your rooftop we could even see a reduction of
fees. Help the Wisps out - they have paved the way for us to setup
fiber/Dslam/Wi-fi networks and have showed us how to ignore court orders.

The people who complain the loadest about the wisps mucking up the spectrum don't allow these same wisps to use their houses as repeaters. AODV locust mesh are the key to spectrum preservation. Does MikroTik have any sort of ad-hoc routing protocol?

Ryno go to the staion commander at Hermanus, explain to him the whole thing, so that when Icasa arrives with the next warrant they will have a fat cop assigned to them to execute the confiscation warrant. Then just have your guard run with the radios! But you will need to install expensive
LMR-1600 cable from antenna to AP, so that your radios are in close
proximity to the ground. And this again would need
to be protected from Icasa via a galvanised steel pipe. Good luck.

There is just one troubling clause in the ECB. Because the police is so useless, Telkom
has inserted a clause that allows Icasa to harass Vusi Pikoli directly. So yes, Icasa will
have access to the Scorpions. The question is will the Scorpions arrest me for
tunneling under the road? I can't wait to find out. Me ripping up the road under the
present legislation will prove absolutely nothing - the police are a bunch of clowns.
It's how the scorpions will react to such antics.
 
Last edited:
Help the Wisps out - they have paved the way for us to setup
fiber/Dslam/Wi-fi networks and have showed us how to ignore court orders.
Click to expand...

Having been conned into signing up with an ( illegal? ) WISP and receiving shockingly bad service while they used their subscriber fees to fund their own leeching habits, shaping and prioritizing said subscribers down to approx 2400 baud, you don't get my sympathy vote.

Personally I don't believe ignoring the courts is wise - if you really do have a problem, then fight it it the courts. If you don't like the laws, then fight to change them. This country already has way too much lawlessness.
 
this is all wrong - there is no court precedent to ignore and the law is not being wilfully ignored...at this stage there is not an exclusive interpretation and that is down to the telecomms act and the grey areas which it creates

certainly there are too many stories of dodgy operators in the industry but there are steps being taken to address this; at the same time there are operators dedicated to servicing under-serviced areas at little or no profit...
 
dominic said:
this is all wrong - there is no court precedent to ignore and the law is not being wilfully ignored...at this stage there is not an exclusive interpretation and that is down to the telecomms act and the grey areas which it creates...
Click to expand...

http://wwwserver.law.wits.ac.za/echc/judgment.php?case_id=13033
[35] In response to the applicant’s letter of 30 March 2004 requesting a period of grace to apply for a licence, the first respondent wrote to the applicant on 12 May 2004 pointing out the following:
“The investigations revealed that all the sites that were previously
sealed are now up and operational. This implies that the seals of the
previous apparatus and the antennas have been broken. This
constitutes a transgression of section 31 of the Act as you are now in
possession of apparatus without the necessary permit or licence.”

It is clear from this quote that Bruce ignored the intent of the seals. Seals which were put there via a court order. The seals need not be broken. He stepped through them and
attached another radio to the mast. When Icasa visited their sealed site again they just
found a new radio. And the only way the radio could have gotten there was if Bruce
bypassed the seals. dominic accusing somebody of a criminal offence is called - slander.
Bruce could sue me for defamation. There's just one problem: I am speaking the truth.
And you can't sue somebody if what he is saying is the truth.

Ofcourse we are not talking about court precedents being ignored, there are no precedents. Our prosecutors are sensible and will only gun for somebody sabotaging licensed spectrum or sabotaging fixed wired communications.

The difficulty Arrow-Altech , Hux, www.big5.co.za find themselves in are that they can't like me tell people the blunt plane facts - people are hopelessly to stupid for that. Thus they are conspiring to keep Dslam top secret information. www.itweb.co.za for example has not said a single word concerning privat dslam deployment. It's a deliberate attempt at censorship - what are you afraid of Paul?
 
Last edited:
captainwifi said:
Your post is a red herring which obfuscates my point that Icasa obtained court orders against Cape Wisps using license free equipment or any other reasonable communications device like Dslams should be ignored.
Click to expand...

To be honest I cannot make head or tail of what you are saying - this being one example. Maybe you could put your position on the courts, court orders and the law in simple sentences. I DID understand "the police are a bunch of clowns" bit though.
 
cappie we have been down this road too many times
- no seals broken
- no court orders obtained
- no wisps shut down
 
Peter_J said:
I DID understand "the police are a bunch of clowns" bit though.
Click to expand...

Common chaps... what are the police supposed to do? They act under instruction from all the other law-bodies. Its not their job to make sure "The seals are not broken" and in a case like this, they dont have the resources to go and "fight the WISP" .. I would rather their time being spent on Heists/Rape/Murder and such violent crimes.

If the Seals were broken violating a court order, its up to ICASA to bring that to the attention of the Judge who will then charge the offender with the violation of a court order.
 
Maybe I myself am not being clear. I merely said I understood captainwifi's statement and attitude. I certainly do NOT agree with either.
 
captainwifi said:
He could put the equipment back, but Icasa monitors the site with a spectrum analyzer from a distant building. He uses two highsites.
Click to expand...

This is interesting... surely they would need to monitor and capture traffic, then analyse it to prove that there is illegal activity... take note all Wifi operators out there... Especially those close to Icasa's joint (not only those with high powered stuff).

Anyone know who the WIFI setup near the old Vincent post office in EL belongs to (I understand Telkom have an exchange across the road). The SSID is Wiscan. This SSID can be picked up across town, but I noticed it is very strong in Vincent. There are a couple - WI$CAN is another one. Sorry if this one belongs to you and you are not ICASA / Telkom, but it just looks interestingly like some sort of ICASA / Telkom attempt to check up on everyone out there.

Now what about the legal and moral implications of eavesdropping. Any opinions out there?
 
Last edited:
Ryno here is perhaps a better idea. Attach a weather balloon to
the tower. It's payload is a parachute,gps/gsm modem, altitude sensor and
Atmel AVR micro for control. The balloon wisks away the Mini-itx boards,
and drops it's payload at a certain altitude or within a certain area.
The altitude sensor or gps are used to deploy the parachute under 200meters.
The gsm modem sms you the position of your expensive radio equipment.
www.roundsolutions.com are a GSM modem supplier.

This solution is viable in sparsly populated areas, just don't bring
down a boeing. And if they seal the towers with tape appoint somebody out
of jail as the director of your fronting company and let him break the
seals.

And the best part is that Icasa can't accuse you of violating their
court order, since they won't have the physical evidence!

Or build an airship that can be crudely navigated via a GPS. Nobody is
allowed to sell such a solution to you, it violates civil aviation laws the moment they sell it. But if you build it yourself it's designated experimental and thus in no need of a license. I could be wrong on this, please double check with the proper authorities. The company
Fleur that imports thermal imaging cameras told me about this law.
 
Last edited:
According to my knowledge, and I was closely involved with this matter, the following makes a WISP illegal.

- There is no license available. (VANS license doest not count)
- Fact is, you are not allowed to cross any public boundaries.

There is obviously a lot of Wisp’s operating throughout SA and my advice to them is, not to be any competition to any local ISP. They are the ones lodging complaints to ICASA. They are the ones that supplies bandwidth only over Telkom's copper network and they can not compete against a Wisp, because the consumer does not have to fork out line rental to telkom.

My point is :It is impossible for those Isp's to Compete while their clients have to pay Telkom and the Isp.

Now, this is very interesting, the same Isp that was involved in closing down one of the mentioned Wisp’s that was reported about in the Itweb article, has bought himself state of the art wireless equipment a few months ago and he in fact monitored the mentioned Wisp for months.

He in fact broke the exact same law by broadcasting over public boundaries while monitoring the Wisp's highpoints, unless his monitoring equipment was situated on the same premises which it was not.

Furthermore I believe that all these organizations ( Telkom, ICASA Etc.) must soon come up with some sort of license because there is definately a need for such a service especially where Telkom cannot reach. A wireless network can easily tap into another to extend and reach consumers witch has got no other means of connecting to the internet and/or any means of communications. Thus this solution is a lot cheaper than laying any copper networks where none is available.

Alot of information regarding this issues are incorrect and be careful what you read.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X