More on LLU in South Africa

Another snippet from Prof Marwala.

I asked about municipalities owning or using or managing the local loop (thinking especially of UTOPIA), and received:

We are actually looking very seriously on how municipalities can get involved in the local loop after unbundling. We have done a study on this regard.

Consider that many municipalities in the Cape Town area have been successfully involved in many different utilities infrastructure ownership and management (electricity, water, sewage).

LLU in South Africa

I've reproduced below a reply from Professor Tshilidza Marwala to my questions on the status of the LLUC (Local Loop Unbundling Committee) which was instituted by the Department of Communications:

So far we have conducted a comprehensive and deep investigation on how Local Loop Unbundling was conducted in the UK, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Netherlands, Italy, Canada, USA, India etc. We looked at the following aspects: Pricing Models; Regulation Models; Management of the Local Loop etc

We then have studied the South African market structure and based on all these we came to some optimal models that are evolutionary in nature and factor in parameters such as service provision, infrastructure investment, policy trajectories, locking out tendencies, etc.

Our mandate is on the wired local loop and we believe that after our work and based on competitive pricing and reliability of service issues, the SNO and future entrants will find the the wired loop more advantageous.

Not much meat, but at least the skeleton is starting to take shape...

Corporate social networking

(thanks Coloribus)

Burger King takes off Marlboro

Back to the Future!

Mere days after the release of Microsoft Vista Release Candidate 1, the old-school strikes back!

Behold FreeDOS 1.0!

(they do offer some legitimate and interesting reasons for its existence)

Pay your TV licence

(thanks My Broadband)

18 applicants for a pay-TV broadcast licence as ICASA extends the market beyond MultiChoice's monopoly with their DSTV.

Some applicants:

• Multichoice (again)
• Telkom Media (partnership with Videovision & more)
• SABC & Sentech (partnership)
• e-TV (via controlling shareholder Sabido)
• On Digital Media
• Worldspace (satellite radio provider)

Telecomms World Africa 2006

The conference is running at the CTICC from 4th-8th September 2006 (i.e. NOW).

But the prices... Ouch!

Where's a Telecomms Bar Camp?

SNO re-brands, launches

The SNO is now Neotel. And snotelecom.co.za does now appear to have been a valid interim site: it now plays a flash animation directing visitors to neotel.co.za. Oops.

There are many interesting snippets but frustratingly little detail on:

• Geographic number portability (GNP) - the landline counterpart to MNP
• Consumer access - 2007 :(
• Carrier selection and pre-selection
• Last-mile access including µwave, optics, CDMA2000 (eek!)
  

The site is well worth a visit.

Mixology

In 1960, the 11th CGPM named the system the International System of Units

Since the famous Bentley V8 engine was introduced in 1959 - 1 year prior to the introduction of SI - perhaps they thought they could retain some Olde Worlde Charme in the engine designation. What is the metric prefix for "Quarters"?

And yes, this is in the current Bentley Arnage