Derrick
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- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,085
- Reaction score
- 5
The Free Bandwidth Campaign (FBC) recently got a mention here on the MyADSL News and managed to cause a stir. There was considerable amounts of feather ruffling to be seen in the Blogsphere, on local forums as well as some other local Internet communities.
What FBC is aiming to achieve (it would seem) is to prove that the South African Internet networks are capable of transporting considerable amounts of data locally and that this data transport should be made free to users. Their reason:- ICASA says we should get it so we want it.
There appears to be a flaw in their thinking however. The ADSL regulations said that local access should not be subject to a cap. This indicates to me that users should not have their access cut off after a specific threshold. There is nothing that suggests that an ISP may not charge for a service they provide even if it is only to local Internet content. There are no such things as free lunches.
The debate around this ‘protest’ seems to be rather clearly divided into two camps. The users who have access to Internet and feel that it is their right to have it for free. And the administrators and owners of networks who are trying to run successful businesses under South Africa’s crippling monopoly.
There appears to be considerable support for FBC on the MyADSL forums and no doubt other similar communities are enthusiastic to join the campaign. From comments on the forums one can however surmise that many of these users exist in what is already SA’s Internet royalty. People who make use of multiple ADSL accounts every month or make use of local-only ADSL accounts to provide themselves with additional savings on their extensive use of the internet. The average-Joe user who survives on 3 Gig caps and less seems much less inclined to consume their precious bandwidth for this little test.
Leading the debate for those against the campaign was Henk with his scathing blog post last week. He brings up various valid points that have been echoed by a number of other people.
While the user who decides to participate in the campaign agrees to donate a portion of their bandwidth to the cause it is not yet clear whether the owners of the servers that will be the source of the data will be given the same choice. Internet hosts suffer under the same overpricing as the rest of the internet community do and there is a potential that some people could take quite a financial hit.
It is debatable whether the FBC’s piece of testing software can be considered a virus or malicious software. It could have the potential of causing similar symptoms to a DDoS attack despite their claims that it will do no such thing.
There are unfortunately considerable parallels that can be drawn between the FBC and the recent public servant stike that has been happening on the streets. Both are protest actions in their own right and played out in a very typically South African way.
Everyone has a right to have their voice heard and make protest if it is neccessary. When this right is taken to have precedance over the rights of others we begin to have a problem. Out on the streets we have the nurses right to protest being put above the right to health of their patients. Similarly the FBC has a good chance of degrading the Internet experience for many other completely innocent users who get caught in the crossfire.
While I support protests against Telkom’s high pricing it is questionable whether they would even notice the protest. They would probably just smile at the extra revenue generated by transporting junk data between users. FBC would be well advised to tread very carefully.
What FBC is aiming to achieve (it would seem) is to prove that the South African Internet networks are capable of transporting considerable amounts of data locally and that this data transport should be made free to users. Their reason:- ICASA says we should get it so we want it.
There appears to be a flaw in their thinking however. The ADSL regulations said that local access should not be subject to a cap. This indicates to me that users should not have their access cut off after a specific threshold. There is nothing that suggests that an ISP may not charge for a service they provide even if it is only to local Internet content. There are no such things as free lunches.
The debate around this ‘protest’ seems to be rather clearly divided into two camps. The users who have access to Internet and feel that it is their right to have it for free. And the administrators and owners of networks who are trying to run successful businesses under South Africa’s crippling monopoly.
There appears to be considerable support for FBC on the MyADSL forums and no doubt other similar communities are enthusiastic to join the campaign. From comments on the forums one can however surmise that many of these users exist in what is already SA’s Internet royalty. People who make use of multiple ADSL accounts every month or make use of local-only ADSL accounts to provide themselves with additional savings on their extensive use of the internet. The average-Joe user who survives on 3 Gig caps and less seems much less inclined to consume their precious bandwidth for this little test.
Leading the debate for those against the campaign was Henk with his scathing blog post last week. He brings up various valid points that have been echoed by a number of other people.
While the user who decides to participate in the campaign agrees to donate a portion of their bandwidth to the cause it is not yet clear whether the owners of the servers that will be the source of the data will be given the same choice. Internet hosts suffer under the same overpricing as the rest of the internet community do and there is a potential that some people could take quite a financial hit.
It is debatable whether the FBC’s piece of testing software can be considered a virus or malicious software. It could have the potential of causing similar symptoms to a DDoS attack despite their claims that it will do no such thing.
There are unfortunately considerable parallels that can be drawn between the FBC and the recent public servant stike that has been happening on the streets. Both are protest actions in their own right and played out in a very typically South African way.
Everyone has a right to have their voice heard and make protest if it is neccessary. When this right is taken to have precedance over the rights of others we begin to have a problem. Out on the streets we have the nurses right to protest being put above the right to health of their patients. Similarly the FBC has a good chance of degrading the Internet experience for many other completely innocent users who get caught in the crossfire.
While I support protests against Telkom’s high pricing it is questionable whether they would even notice the protest. They would probably just smile at the extra revenue generated by transporting junk data between users. FBC would be well advised to tread very carefully.