Public revolt slams crappy South African monopoly DSL offering

[martin]

I submitted details on the ICASA recommendations and Telkom's reaction to Boing Boing Blog. One of the most popular blog sites in the world.

Public revolt slams crappy South African monopoly DSL offering
Nearly two years ago, we posted about a group of South Africans who were using a website called MyADSL to fight back against the national South African telcoms monopoly's ridiculous version of DSL: a network with rigid traffic caps and extensive port-blocking.

Martin, one of the MyADSL organizers, reports:

MyADSL submitted a record 466 complaints to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), the regulator of telecommunications and the broadcasting sectors.

ICASA has put forward quite a number of recommendation based on our complaints and 3 days of public hearings that followed this. Just read the news headlines on our homepage to see the fallout: "ICASA ADSL report causes a media stir that reaches the JSE", "Icasa plays hardball with Telkom over ADSL threat", "PRICES UNDER PRESSURE", "Telkom must stop their bully-boy tactics", etc..

Obviously Telkom is furious. The monopoly that boasted a profit of R6.8 billion stands to lose millions in revenue.

It's on Boing Boing's main page as I type this.

Permalink: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/04/public_revolt_slams_.html

 

[martin]

Just spotted a typo. It should have read 46 complaints.

Edit: 466 seems to be the number of written complaints sent to ICASA, apparently 46 was the number of oral presentations made at the public hearings.

 

[arf9999]

actually 466 is correct AFAIK

 

[martin]

I thought 466 was the correct number, but I've seen quite a few news reports speak about 46 complaints?
http://www.mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=541

 

[Sneeky]

Kewl, next target, Wall Street Journal

446 I think but lets say over 400 and have a beer

 

[fergus]

I think it was 466 written submissions and 46 oral presentations.

Well done on the submission martin! Traffic stats for this month are going to be crazy!

 

[arf9999]

I think that is an error that continues to be copied from one publication to another. One of the key points in ICASA's presentation at the hearings was that this was the most written submissions that they had received.

 

[martin]

I think it was 466 written submissions and 46 oral presentations.

Well done on the submission martin! Traffic stats for this month are going to be crazy!

Thanks. We'll just organise a few donations if bandwidth is too high
Hopefully this will also push up our google page ranking on Telkom & ICASA searches.