hitting the wire*

Finn wins cell chucking contest

(OK I have to admit I was WAB'ing when I found this - I'm supposed to be completing a presentation for iWeek)

According to The Register, that UK bastion of scrupulously objective and bland commentary on things telecom, tech and IT, a Finn called Tommi Huotari took gold at the eighth Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships in Savonlinna.  The distance was quoted as being "a creditable 2.77 Campbells", which led me to this Register article which defines a Campbell (among other fascinating measure such as a Bulgarian Funbag) as being 231lg (where lg is a standard unboiled linguine which is equivalent to 14cm, 0.02784 perches, 0.462 Japanese shyaku or 0.0007568 Ancient Greek stadium ptolemeys.

The distance travelled by a tantrum-driven flying PDA shall be defined in Campbells (1cB=231lg). Example: "Yeah, I asked that Foxy Brown to turn her car stereo down and she only went and threw her bleedin' Blackberry about three Campbells."

Sheesh... I thought I was pushing the envelope with the post about the airspeed of an unladen swallow!

Hit & run Merc driver left his brains at home

Some mornings, when I don't leave for the office before dawn, I take the kids down to catch their lift through to school.  This morning was one of those.  The route runs past Tygerberg Zoo down a fairly quiet and narrow road, parallel to the N1.  There are usually a lot of labourers on foot and on bicycles as well as school kids waiting for buses.  You need to be alert.

Just past the entrance to the Zoo I was flagged down by an agitated fellow.

His mate, a 59 year old guy who works with him at a nearby County Fair farm, had been knocked off his bike in front of him and was now lying in the ditch with a broken arm and lacerations on his head. I have to say that to survive something like this at the age of 59, you have to be one tough SOB!  To say he had been "knocked down" does not adequately describe what seems to have happened.  The guys at the 147 call centre got me through to Emergency Services pretty smartly and the cops (3 vans), a traffic officer and 2 ambulances made it within 20 minutes.  Needless to say a tow truck beat them all by about 10 minutes!

The guy was hit from behind on the far left hand side of the road - the far right in the picture above as he was coming down the hill towards the camera - (his bike had reflective  tape, so he had tried to make himself visible), "carried" (I assume on the bonnet?) for about 150m (the skid marks are 100m long - the cops measured them -  began in the middle of the road and ended on the far right - camera's left) before being tossed into a ditch.  The marks of the acceleration away from the scene are obvious here.  The driver bolted, leaving the cyclist broken in the ditch with his bike a mangled wreck.  Fortunately for him, his mate was on the other side of the road and saw it all happen and was able to flag us down.

What the driver obviously did not factor in, was this:

He left a good portion of his number plate (and a Merc decal off his car) on the scene.  Before I left the scene, they had his name & address and make & colour of vehicle.

I hope they nail the bastard.  He obviously had no idea if the cyclist was alive or dead when he (I suppose it could be she?) fled the scene. 

Disgusting.

Isn't it nice when things just ... work?

A long time since I've watched this ad for Honda Accord.  My brother in New Zealand  just sent me a link to the clip and I thought it would be worth sharing.  I can watch it repeatedly and still be amazed. 

And you thought those people that set up roomfuls of dominos to knock over were amazing. Well, people, let me tell you:  there are absolutely no computer graphics or digital tricks in the film clip you are about to watch. Everything you see really happened in real time exactly as you see it.

The film took 606 takes. On the first 605 takes, something, usually very minor, didn't work. They would then have to set the whole thing up again. The crew spent weeks shooting night and day. By the time it was over, some people in the crew were ready to change professions.  The film took three months to complete. It is two minutes long. It cost a reputed six million dollars to produce--including engineering.

However, this clip is fast becoming the most downloaded advertisement in Internet history.  Honda executives figure the ad will soon pay for itself simply in "free viewings" (Honda isn't paying a dime to have you watch this commercial!).
When the ad was pitched to senior executives, they signed off on it immediately without any hesitation - including the estimated costs.

There are six and only six  "hand-made"  Honda Accords in the world. To the horror of Honda  engineers, the filmmakers disassembled two of them to make the film.
Everything you see in the film (aside from the walls, floor, ramp, and complete Honda Accord)  are parts from those two hand-made cars.

The voiceover is Garrison Keillor. When the ad was shown to Honda executives, they liked it and commented on how amazing computer graphics have gotten.
They fell off their chairs when they found out there were no graphics. It was for real!

Oh, and about those funky windshield wipers. On the new Accords, the windshield wipers have water sensors and are designed to start doing their thing automatically as soon as they become wet.

 You have to be in awe of these guys!

The regulator finds its head!

Business day reports that Karabo Motlana will start as CEO on 3 September 2007.

He's worked for CellC, Telkom and SAB, so even if he can't get his head around the telecoms Gordian Knot, he should be able to organize a good p*ss-up?

;)

I'm a little behind on regulatory issues of late, and notice ICASA have issued proposed regs for both facilities leasing and interconnect.  Both very important to the future competitiveness of the local market.

Watch out Yeigo, here comes Google!

It is one of those immutable laws of business.  If you charge too high a margin, even if  you have a de facto monopoly, someone is going to find a way of stealing your market.  Ask Telkom.  The likes of Storm have made a good living out doing just that!

The likes of local entrepreneurs Yeigo and UK farmboys TruPhone have been beavering away to develop the ability to do VoIP over 3G or WiFi using one a bog standard cell phone.  OK, so one of the new bog standard phones (with WiFi/3G etc), but you get my drift?

Now when the Google guys set their sights on that market, you'd better sit up and take note, I don't care who you are and how smart you are. 

CrunchGear has an article on Google wooing the mobile phone manufacturers.

I finished reading "The Google Story" yesterday; you can't help being seriously impressed with these guys.  They are aggressively innovative, irrepressibly keen to take on huge challenges and have a war chest that is rapidly making Microsoft's look commonplace!

If Google intends taking on the cellular industry with a free phone (and they have managed to make a serious amount of cash with the concept "free"!), the cellular industry and others who are challenging them better take a good hard look at the threat to their business plans.

good spam info site.

ISOC have a great wiki site for the Spam Bounty Hunter project - thanks to Calvin Browne for pointing me to it (hint noted for adding to the "how to" section ;).  Worth a visit.

<- Love the logo that Joe had made!

I'll give updates on activities Rob Stokes & I plus a growing bunch of IOZ members intend to take on spam and spammers.  It will not be a short, clean or easy fight. I foresee much frustration ahead, but if we can strengthen the legislation and mechanisms to throttle the scourge here in SA... we will.

aluta continua

Telkom DSL in less than 2 weeks with free modem, free install for under R350/month, all in.

The following was passed on to me by Sarah Rice.  Lawrence Cawood has graciously  agreed to allow me to publish it here.  If you're looking for a way to get a basic DSL service at a reasonable price with very low (i.e. none whatsoever) setup costs, read on...

"
Lawrence’s Guide to Ordering Home DSL

Step 1: Acquiring a Phone Line

If you already have a phone line, skip to step 2.
In order to make use of the DSL service, you need a permanent telephone line (not prepaid).

Loophole #1: The monthly line rental for a standard telephone line is R99 per month. You could go this route, however there exists a better option... it’s called Telkom Closer, which I’m sure you’ve heard of in the ads.   With Telkom Closer option 1, you pay R120 p/m, and get calls charged at a R1.40 flat rate for an hour at a time when calling local or long distance during callmore.

How does this help with my DSL you may ask? Well, on top of offering great savings for telephone calls (about one-sixth of the standard cost of a call during callmore), Telkom gives you FREE LINE INSTALLATION with this option, which would normally cost you three hundred and something rand. That’s loophole number one (also confirmed by the Telkom consultant I dealt with).   Even paying the extra R20 per month for a year doesn’t add up to the amount that you would usually have to pay once-off for your line installation.   And get this, the monthly line rental for a standard line is going up to R111 tomorrow (the Closer option 1 package is staying the same), so this is obviously the best choice as it includes your line rental, plus you get free phone line installation.   PS: There are other packages, such as Closer option 2 that gives you absolutely free local and long distance calls any time during the day for up to an hour at a time, however this is not necessary if you’re only planning to use DSL.

The process for signing up for a telephone line is as follows:
·        Phone 10219 and speak to a consultant
·        Tell them you want to get a residential phone line installed
·        Tell them you want ‘Closer option 1’
·        Give them your details etc.
·        They give you a date that the technician will come to your premises to install the line. They will tell you 1-2 weeks, but mine took 3 days.
·        Telkom phone you the day before they come to install. You can postpone it if you need to (I did 3 times).
·        Technician phones you in the morning, and then arrives sometime between 9am and 2pm. Installation takes about 30min.
·        You have a phone line

Step 2: Ordering DSL

Loophole #2: It is at this point that you can cancel your ‘Closer’ option. Yip, when you phone to order DSL you can ask the consultant to cancel your Closer option if you wish, which means that you saved the installation cost of your phone line (it already went through as zero on the account) AND you don’t have to pay more for the Closer option. Confirmed as loophole number 2. Stupid Telkom.   However, I would not advise cancelling your Closer option as it’s only R9 p/m more than the standard line rental, and the charge per call stops at the R1.40 flat rate.  

Ok, the first thing you need to decide is, do you want to go big or go home. Going big means having a big budget, and being able to splash out on that 4MB line for 413 bucks per month. Going home means going cheap, so if you’re like me and don’t download movies but instead get them from your friends, you don’t need a 4MB line and can part with R152 bucks p/m for a decent 384kbps connection.

Here are the DSL packages:
1.      384kbps = R152.00 p/m
2.      512kbps = R326.00 p/m
3.      4096kbps = R413.00 p/m

The first option is the most cost effective, as it offers decent gaming speeds, acceptable RDC connections to work over the VPN, and is perfect for browsing. I’d go with that one if you just want entry level DSL (this option was rated SA’s best value for money when it comes to broadband offerings).

Loophole #3: Ah yes, loophole number 3. The most important of all. This little beauty lets you get a FREE DSL modem which would normally cost you R1000, plus free DSL installation. Here’s how...   When ordering DSL, tell the consultant you want the self-install option. This means you will get a free 4-port wireless DSL router, AND you don’t have to pay the R437 DSL installation fee!   But wait, there’s more! Choosing the self-install option also reduces your wait from 4-6 weeks, to less than 2 weeks.   I also thought there was a catch, but there’s no catch... J I think it’s just easier and cheaper for them to offer an incentive to the customers to install DSL themselves.  

The process for signing up for Home DSL is as follows:
·        Phone 10219 and press 3 to speak to a consultant for ADSL
·        Tell them you want Home DSL
·        Tell them you already have an ISP (we’ll get to that later)
·        Tell them you DO want the “self install” option
·        Tell them you DON’T want a contract
·        Give them your details etc.
·        DON’T let them sell you any other crap, cause they always try to confuse you and sell you something extra. Refuse any other options they mention (i.e. TelkomInternet).
·        They say it will take around 23 days (their ‘max’ estimation), but it will probably be around 7 or 8 days. Amazing!
·        Your DSL will be enabled in a week or so (they don’t have to send someone to your house – with self install, this stuff happens on their side)
·        Install the DSL modem yourself (very easy, follow a tutorial – takes half an hour)
·        Done.

Step 3: Finding an ISP
There are many ISP’s offering similar services, so any of them should do. My ISP is WebAfrica (www.webafrica.co.za) who have a great service. If you take a 1GB account, you pay R70 per month. My 3GB cap is R198 p/m. You can buy extra prepaid cap as you need it, for R70 per GB.

With WebAfrica you get a nice admin system to check how much cap you’ve used etc.

Pricing
So, if you’ve taken the optimal route above, your monthly payments will be something like this:
  ADSL subscription (Telkom, DSL 384)   R 152 p/m   
  Line rental (Telkom)   R 120 p/m   
  ISP subscription (WebAfrica, 1GB cap)   R 70 p/m   
Total: R 342 p/m

Summary
So, what have we learned? Well for one, I learned that while Telkom still sucks, they are getting way better at customer service. The last 3 consultants I spoke to were brilliant. Shocking stuff I know.

Second, we learned that you can get DSL at home in under 2 weeks, with a free modem, free installation, for R 342 p/m.
"

As always, your milage may vary as the yanks say - you need to keep your wits about you and assume that at some stage Telkom may wise up and plug some of the loopholes.  In the meantime, feel free to make the most of Lawrence's condensed wisdon here!