Author Archives Christopher Wray

Telkom’s R2.4bn proposed purchase of BCX was denied by the Competition Tribunal because it was a clear business tatic to prevent deregulation and stifle competition.

Business Connexion shareholders accepted the offer readily, but there was a staff exodus as technicians baled out, fearing they would became part of a parastatal notorious for stifling technology innovation. Both the ISPA (Internet Service Providers Association) and multiple ISP’s challenged the bid.

The tribunal said convergence of voice and data services depended on networking technologies dominated by market leaders. The takeover would have removed an effective competitor as Business Connexion was “poised to become a formidable competitor to Telkom” in managed network services. The deal would have let Telkom gain a much larger market share and had a detrimental effect on competition by making it harder for rivals to grow and possibly push smaller rivals out of business.

The tribunal ruled that Telkom would just be taking BCX out of the market to compete against telkom for converged data and voip services.

Today we had a client query how many IP Address’s they had allocated to their Colocation cabinet. We explained that they had a /29 allocation, with 8 IP Addresses. The confusion came in when we told them only 5 were usable. For an explanation on how IPv4 Subnetting works, and how IP Address space is allocated check out this useful table explaining IPV4 Networks.

So why only 5 usable addresses on a /29 allocation when 8 are available?

This is because 1 is used for Broadcast, 1 used for Network and another is used as your Gateway IP address.

Below is an explanation of a Class C allocation, showing “Number of Hosts” as the theoretical number of usable IP addresses, however you always need to minus 1 for your Gateway IP address on our network.

Over the last few months we have been beta testing our new SuperDSL service. The new ADSL offering uses the Saix backbone and allows RSAWEB clients to easily setup more cost effective ADSL accounts. Our existing ADSL products are now called PremiumDSL and will continue as before.

We have also completed a brand new  aamotorinsurance  interface upgrade in MYRSAWEB for SuperDSL that boasts the following:

1. Better bandwidth graphs
2. Notification options
3. Top up bandwidth
4. Port locking

The new interface has been enabled on all SuperDSL packages and will be rolled out to PremiumDSL later this month.

You can now order all SuperDSL and PremiumDSL packages  Paul Smiths Sale from within MYRSAWEB.

On June 29 I gave a presentation at the Bi-Annual White Wall Web conference on the iPhone, and how it will change the face of web applications. Since then I have traveled to the US to play with the iPhone and thought I would document my findings.

Firstly for all of you who haven’t heard of the iPhone – Where have you been? If you don’t know all the facts and need more info, roll your mouse over to this review.

I was in the US last month meeting with a startup in LA that we plan to partner with in the future. While the meetings went well a small shiny black device in one of their sales guys hands caught my eye. He too was an Apple Fan boy aamotorinsurance   and had
run out and purchased the iPhone. This inspired me to take one for a test drive, so I made the pilgrimage to the Apple store in Cherry Creek, Denver. The store is a monument to all things beautiful and all things Apple, and was fully immersed in the iPhone hype. Every wall is covered in iPhone pictures and every Apple computer on Demo has a working iPhone attached. I played to my hearts content and chatted to the Apple employees who were ever so keen to tell me how uncle Steve had given them all one on the launch day.

So what did I notice about the iphone, that is not clear in the  Paul Smiths Sale online reviews:

1. Its smaller than I thought.
2. Its lighter than I thought.
3. The web browser rocks, and is far better than the IE on Windows Mobile. Most websites rendered 100%, see the RSAWEB website on the iPhone below.
4. A new user can learn the key strokes easily and even my technology challenged father got the hang of it.
5. Its intuitive and the applications are easy to work out and use.
6. The touch screen really works and the zoom/drag/etc touch features are easy to master.
7. Its beautiful!

So the iPhone begs the question,

Will you change your Service Provider just to get the iPhone when it hits SA shores?

Will you pay the premium it commands over lesser mere mortal phones?