skeptomai

Not what I'd call fun..

I just spent the last few hours wrestling with a combination of Transit (FTP client for Mac), Movable Type 3.17, and my very crappy Telkom ADSL connection. In the process I managed to mangle or delete most of the important files for my blog, including wiping out my entire images directory. I've rebuilt almost everything of importance and finished the upgrade. Argh, argh, argh. With any luck, I'll get back to my original intention of adding images to the gallery today.

Telkom ADSL Prices to Drop!

Many of you have heard me whinge about the price of broadband in South Africa. Much of the hassle is due to the monopoly held by Telkom, the single national telephone / last-mile provider. Well, the worm has turned. Because of overwhelming feedback through the MyADSL website, the regulatory group here in the country has reviewed Telkom's practices and will force it to lower monthly fees *substantially* and it looks like the 3gb monthly cap will be lifted as well. South Africa is entering the 21st century. The extended entry copies liberally from the original article. All rights still belong to the original author.

Broadband price freeze imminent By* *Ana Monteiro, Moneyweb, 29 July 2005

Monthly ADSL access charges to be axed as Icasa slaps Telkom on wrist
for its broadband service.

South Africa’s high-speed Internet (broadband) users connected through
Telkom, who have been subjected to among the highest tariffs on the
globe according to numerous studies, will soon see prices for the
service slashed dramatically.

This comes as telecommunications watchdog Icasa says it plans to abolish
the monthly access charges levied by the fixed-line operator for its
high-speed Internet (broadband) services.

This is one of the many recommendations that the regulator made in its
48-page findings and recommendations document on its enquiry into
Telkom’s provision of asymmetrical digital subscriber line (ADSL)
services, published in the July 27 edition of the government gazette.

Icasa received the complaint about the pricing and service levels of the
products from Rudolph Muller, the founder of website MyADSL, in February
2004. After the regulator received no less than 446 written submissions
about the services, the protracted investigation culminated in four days
of public hearings where disgruntled individual users, industry bodies
and Internet service providers (ISP) aired their concerns.

Icasa found that many of Telkom’s justifications for its practices did
not hold water. It has decided to flex its regulatory muscles and
institute a raft of regulations that will see Telkom having to lower the
price of service, loosen restrictions on monthly usage and make sure it
maintains minimum levels of service. It says it will “embark on a
regulation-making process within four weeks … to ensure provision of a
consumer-relevant, cost-effective and affordable service.”

*/Charges to tumble
/*
The access charges for Telkom’s three residential ADSL services –
HomeDSL 192, 384 and 512 – currently range from R329 to R680, and as of
August 1 will come down to between R270 and R477. Besides this charge,
users pay a R92,28 monthly line rental, and once-off costs for the modem
and installation (around R400).

The regulator is proposing that a once-off charge be levied for access
at the inception of the service, and that thereafter, “charges be
restricted to line rental only”.

Given that Telkom has around 70 000 subscribers using its ADSL services,
this will equate to a substantial, multi-million rand reduction in
Telkom’s monthly revenues.

*/Taking off the cap
/*
The much-contested three-gigabit monthly cap that Telkom imposes,
lamented by many as being too low to allow for true broadband
applications such as streaming audio and visual (multimedia) data, is
also to be reviewed and brought in line with less restrictive and
cheaper services offered in other countries.

The authority believes “that regulation is required to increase the cap
on ADSL services in line with international standards. The exact
threshold will have to be considered in the course of the relevant
public process. It is important however to emphasise that 3Gb appears
wholly inadequate for the needs of subscribers by international comparison.”

At the hearings, Telkom argued that using the ADSL service for
multimedia functions constituted an abuse of the service. Icasa says
this is not legally justifiable.

*/Guaranteed services levels
/*
The definition of what broadband actually is varies; while some say that
128kilobits per second is the minimum speed which can be defined as a
broadband connection (about twice the speed of a 56kbps dial-up
connection), others argue that this is still narrowband, and that
512kbps should be the minimum. The upstream speed on Telkom’s HomeDSL192
product does not qualify as broadband at 64kbps.

On page 31, Icasa says it “accepts and adopts the definition used by the
International Telecommunications Union (“1,5 or 2 megabits per second”),
the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India (256kpbs minimum) and the
British regulator, Ofcom (128kpbs guaranteed minimum).

Says Icasa: “Telkom’s suggested, [guaranteed] minimum speed is 156kbps,
which is not broadband.”

*/Other findings

/*Icasa inteds to ensure that when the cap is reached, people should be
allowed to top up and/or purchase extra bandwidth at a rate charges per
megabit downloaded instead of having to buy another user account.

Also, surfing local sites will no longer count towards the cap, as, says
Icasa, “this has an indirect effect on the hosting and increased use of
local websites”.

Icasa will suggest the inclusion of information on the number of users
sharing bandwidth – known as contention ratios – to protect consumers.
Internationally, the ratios are publicly available. Telkom has refused
to provide this information, saying it is confidential. The more users
there are, the cheaper the service. Typically, the ratio for a more
expensive business service is 20:1 (20 users sharing bandwidth), while
for residential users this is 50:1.

Regarding port prioritisation: Telkom argued that this was needed to
throttle peer-to-peer traffic and prioritise http traffic. Icasa says
there “should be no discrimination between users of broadband as far as
costs and priority are concerned.”

In order to introduce more adequate competition to Telkom, the regulator
is revisiting its enquiry into the undersea fibre-optic cable that
brings international bandwidth to SA, to which Telkom controls access.
Icasa says this will be completed by the end of the year.

Access to the local loop that actually takes Internet to homes is
another area that needs to be liberalised in order for more players to
enter the market and thus result in lower prices. Icasa says that the
convergence bill deals with the issues of demonopolising facilities.

Susan's Early Photos of Cape Town

At last I'm exploiting this ADSL bandwidth at home. I've uploaded several of Susan's early Cape Town photos, taken during our move and first weeks here. Some of you have seen these via Susan's Shutterfly links. I'm putting them on my site to make them more publically available. This shot is of Jacob and I at Boulders Beach with the penguins. To see them all, check out The Gallery More coming soon.

Jakey is alive and well

I was admonished the other day for showcasing Isabella and not putting up pictures of Jake. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to Jake and to rectify the situation. He's alive and well and flourishing at his new 'playschool' here in Newlands. He's there three mornings a week and comes home nearly every day with new finger paintings and other projects. The kid is a gem and the teachers love him. I've included a picture here from our trip with the Pinkhams (Susan's famous 'Vermaaklikheid' email). For those who've never seen one, Jakey is sporting an English riding helmet.

The Hate-Filled Samoosa

No, I am not making this up. The article ran in the Cape Argus, one of our local newspapers. It concerns an American man on vacation here who was attacked by a shopkeeper of Middle Eastern descent. Apparently, the American asked about the contents of the samoosa and the shopkeeper went postal on him. Pretty big news item at that moment. Unfortunately, much darker problems such as Robert Mugabe's treatment of the poor in Zimbabwe and the London bombings take precedence today.

And you think you have problems?

In a neighborhood not far from our house, we were driving down the main road. Between fits of laughter, I managed to snap this. If you've got any of the problems on this list, come down to visit and I'll be sure to take you by the herbalist's shop.

Finally catching up on blogging

You'll see all sorts of posts dated July 23rd which were written over the last couple months. We finally got DSL at home and I'm uploading pieces of my written journal. I'll be putting the actual dates in the body of the post, since the blog upload date is inaccurate. The upload of interesting linked pictures may not coincide with the text, so check back once in a while even for entries you've already read.

Happy Africa Day!

05/25/05
08:40:24

Happy Africa Day! It will be a beautiful winter day in Cape Town today, with high temperature of 25C and blue skies. It's Africa Day, and the news can't shut up about it. I expect to see native Africans sporting more native attire today and news coverage about economic gains (or frustrated lack thereof) by blacks in South Africa. Last night I attended a book club (thanks Q). The conversation ranged over biology & spread of deadly diseases (with HIV obviously very prominent), favourite contemporary authors including Steven Jay Gould, Jared Diamond, etc. R. prepared a fabulous lamb dish and there was much wine and a nice Abelour single malt scotch with dessert. Yeah, rough life. One chap had a 17" Powerbook and another brought the latest Ubuntu Linux cd's. I think I fit in :) The open back door, onto the deck, lets Jake run freely from house to outdoor garden and the sun is just peeking over into the yard. I'm looking for a good vantage point from which to photograph the mountain. I think I'll make another pot of coffee and contemplate...
Lisp makes a comeback :) I can't believe I'm making Lisp jokes in email, but it's happening:

(defun realmanp(affirm &optional quiche)
  "are you a real man?"
  (interactive "p")
  (or affirm nil)
)

We were discussing "Hackers and Painters", and how its author predicts Lisp will take over the programming world. Of course, that started debate. I chimed in with 'real men use Lisp' and it was all downhill from there. I am, by no means, a Lisp developer, but I dabble and I'm a big Emacs fan. (Truth be told, I favor ML over Lisp..)

His & Her's Matching Decadence

Ok, I feel a bit guilty. Susan and I didn't do much for our anniversary this year, since we were enroute to Cape Town at the time. We were in London, left the kids with my mom, and went to a pub in Paddington. Not exactly a celebration. Well, today we got around to fixing that. In a fit of impulse we bought his & her's Tag Heuer watches. She got some model I don't recognize, but I got the Formula 1 :) I think I'm over the guilt already. What a pretty bauble. Too bad we can't afford to send Isabella and Jacob to university now. Just kidding, really.

Yeah, like I'm holding my breath...

I'm not kidding... I really got this email last Friday, after two weeks of jerking around trying to get my "fast" airfreight shipment of household goods into the country and delivered to my home.
Most of the shipment is bare essentials, like clothes for the family and toys for my children. I'm sure what's holding it all up is my toys, the computers. I'd be willing to bet they are trying to decide what additional fees they can slap me with... Oh, and I'm sure I'll end up paying to have my goods sitting at the airport in the meantime. Yeah, like I'm holding my breath...

Subject: RE: Checking in on airfreight for Christopher Brown
Dear Mr Brown
Thank you for your email and we apologise for the delay and inconvenience
caused.
Our Clearing agent has informed us this morning, that Customs stopped this
consignment on Tuesday and called for documentation, which had already been
produced once, to be produced again.

Documentation was taken to the Airport on Wednesday morning but the Customs
Officer was off sick and no one else will handle another Officers work.

The Officer is back this morning but we are not sure if he will process this
clearance today, depending on his work load. 

Our Clearing Agent will be chasing up on this again this afternoon.

Unfortunately, we have no control over Customs who are a Law unto themselves
and the more we press them, the more they dig their heels in and become
difficult.

Customs have become more and more difficult over the past year, especially
since all the new regulations were introduced on recommendations from
America due to 9/11.

Kind Regards

Ok, I want one of these for the house..

We were shopping today at the Victoria & Albert Wharf, which pays homage to everything scary and sad about American mall culture. Dropped into the place, you'd never know you weren't in any largish U.S. city. Well, that's true until you spy some of the accoutrements. I snapped this pic with my phone camera. If you can't make out the details, let me enlighten you. It's a "Bomb Bag" used to deaden the blast of an explosive device and minimize injury to those close by. Even more intriguing is the set of diagrams beneath which show how to recognize Limpet mines and Soviet SRM's. Are those really in use in public places here? Finally, something really odd to write home about.

What do I miss?

21 May 2005
Another week gone by... Tremendous winds have blown through, bringing warmer surface waters over the nearby ocean. Friday and Saturday are both warm, in the mid- to high-20's C. We spent Isabella's birthday (Friday) with her little friends at my boss's house (my kids, his son, daughter and niece), then went down to Llandudno beach at sunset. I dragged Bella through the surf and by the end, we were all sandy and drenched. The water was warm enough for brief excursions and there were several surfers making the most of it (in mini wetsuits - they weren't crazy). What am I missing most? 24-hour supermarkets - definitely. Everything closes so early here. Most everything is closed by 6 p.m. with the exception of restaurants. Large bookstores and avaibility of any book (cheaply) at nearly any hour. Books are expensive here and the selection sucks. No Barnes-n-Noble, No Borders. Exclusive Books is pretty small in comparison and most books here cost twice as much as in the U.S. (NOTE: that's not unique to SA... books here are pegged to UK prices, with the pound at 2 dollars...) What's different (not necessarily negative)? Food portions are smaller. For the most part, people seem to be thinner and healthier here in Cape Town. There are fewer morbidly obese people. Even the lattes at coffee shops are smaller than in Seattle. There are no "grande" and "venti". What I typically get is the size of a "tall" and there are no other choices. All grocery stores are not created equal. All your needs won't be met at just one store. Each seems to carry a single set of brands, or packaging. Typically this means you'll stop at both a Pic-n-Pay and a Woolworth's (Woolies for short). This isn't much of a hassle, since one is often near the other, and Constantia Village, not far from us, has both. The recent rains created an interesting temporary waterfall over our side of Table Mountain. I'm still stunned by the view. Yesterday Susan did the mini-tour of nearby schools. I think we've agreed on one I visited over my last visit. They've got a large outdoor play area, take a few outings to local sites and they've got their own large tortoise. That sold me :) Oh, we settled up with the alarm system company last week. We now have an extremely noisy alarm, infrared sensors throughout the house, door sensors, etc. Service includes armed response by a local patrol should the alarm sound. We've also got emergency panic buttons on the walls in a couple rooms and two portable panic buttons. All of this was installed before we arrived; we just contracted to make it active. The house came with spiky metal at the top of all the surrounding walls. Yeah, security is just a bit different here. Banking It's only been in the last 10 or 15 years that banking has become nearly free in the U.S., at least for most day-to-day tasks. Here, you pay for everything. There's a monthly fee for the account, fees for number of debit withdrawals, fees for number of checks written, fees for internet banking, fees for automatic debit. You name it, they'll charge for it. And, as with any hierarchical society, the more money you make/have/place with them, the less you pay and the better service gets. We qualified for a "prestige" account with lower fees and direct access to a banker, rather than standing in line. Nice... and divisive. Car and Driver For workers and domestics, there are a slew of "gypsy cab"-like VW buses which obey no traffic laws. They'll stop without warning to pick up or drop off, honk for apparently no reason, and generally mess up traffic flow. Runners or bicyclists will take up precious lane space on already narrow roads, slowing traffic at blind corners with no regard for anyone's safety, not even their own. Gardeners, labor in general. We "inherited" a gardener from the people who own our house. He comes twice a month for the day and we pay him R100 per day, plus lunch & snacks. It's an interesting system. He comes over, works for a while, comes into the kitchen and makes himself some tea and toast, or whatever, works for a while, comes back in and prepares his lunch (usually meat pies & some coke) and finishes up around the yard. Neat system, but I've never had someone else just wander about, making use of my food. I don't mind, but it means I need to think a bit more when grocery shopping. General safety. I keep hearing "we grow 'em tough around here" each time we inquire about child safety devices. Swimming pools are a great example. Many have nets or gates, but "waterproofing our kids" seems the more standard approach. Truth be told, many children drown here every year. The same goes for child gates on staircases, padding on hardened edges, and safety plugs for the mains (power). Electronics Same as for books and groceries. Some things are available, many are extremely expensive and selection is typically small. There are no CompUSA mega-warehouses. What gets here, gets here slowly to a smaller market over great distance. TV / Telephone / Connectivity Homesickness

Oh, God. Are you a Yank?

Q and I went shopping for office provisions on Friday morning. We keep a stock of Appletizer (yum, fizzy apple juice. Wish we had this in Seattle), Coca-Cola, Coffee, etc. We were standing in the checkout line when a 60-ish woman just behind me says "You are buying all that poison? Are you mad? You know, people in India are protesting to keep this stuff out?" I said something to the effect of "oh, I'm not drinking it all. this is for the office." She caught my accent and a with a look of bewilderment, and perhaps a bit of revulsion exclaimed "Oh, God. Are you a Yank?" I nearly fell over laughing. Yes, Yes I am a Yank. No apologies offered.

Homesick at last

I've been meaning to send a long, informative email about our settling in here in Cape Town, the sights we've seen and what's upcoming. Instead, I find I'm dealing with my first bout of homesickness and figured that's equally interesting (yeah, right). I had a rather bad day at work today. You know the kind, where it seems everything you say is either discounted or dismissed and you wonder if perhaps you have silently gone crazy and nobody bothered to tell you... Anyway, I came home to my wonderful family, made dinner for the kids while Susan ducked out for more groceries and household supplies (we are still trying to figure out just what we need to survive... It's amazing what you take for granted with a full larder at home). Now, I'm sitting at the computer, in the quiet time, while the kids are getting a bath. I was paging through my iTunes collection for some background music and found myself reminiscing about some songs and who I'd shared them with or got them from.... Suddenly I realized how far I am from friends and familiarity, in both time and space. I can't just phone you all up (huge time zone difference) or stop by (imagine that!). I like what we have here, but I'd like to share it with you all.

Arrival+2 weeks

15 May 2005
Greetings. I can't believe I've held off this long in posting, but things have been hectic - yeah, like that's hard to believe. We've been here since May 2 and I haven't stopped to take a slow, deep breath yet. The good news is we've moved into our very own house (rented) and have a small quantity of furniture borrowed from the Pinkhams. Who knows when our stuff will arrive. I'll speak more on that later. It's 7:52 a.m. on Sunday morning and I'm drinking coffee and looking out our sitting room window over the little patch of garden at Table Mountain. We are in the suburb of Newlands (everybody get out your map now) and it's gorgeous. It's about as close to the good qualities of Seattle as the Cape Peninsula gets. We get more rainfall on average right here, and greenery and trees abound. Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens are a short 5-10 minute walk from here, and you can actually hike up the back side of the mountain from there as well. I now understand why so many people here look tan and fit. The outdoors present almost limitless leisure diversions. My mother stayed with us our first week here, so of course we took her to some of the tourist sites: the waterfront (and big Victoria Wharf mall), Boulders Beach with the penguins, and Cape Point with the Chacma baboons and famous lighthouse. We've got great pictures of all which I will post in the gallery and link here. What can I say about my personal experience with South Africa so far? The work environment is great. We are making progress and the folks we've hired so far seem to share a quirky sense of humour. We have lunches together and there's a great deal of laughing with at least one of us getting mock-fired everyday. Well, actually there's one guy who seems to be perpetually getting sacked. Luckily it's not me... yet. We've been warmly welcomed by everyone and I've only experienced a couple short-lived moments of homesickness and a bit of panic. Susan and I both love to travel, but bits of everyday life are closing in, beyond the travel horizon. What I mean is, during travel you don't have to contend with local bureaucracy for things like telephone service, TV license (yes, you must purchase a yearly TV license, one per household. Figure that out), satellite TV (we've caved in on this... I want my F1 coverage and world news; the kids want Disney Channel), alarm service (yes, this is quasi-mandatory, even in the nice neighborhoods like ours. More on physical security later), schools for Bella and Jacob, and most pressing and infuriating, customs demerge for our household goods. Every yahoo we deal with wants to hold onto my passport physically for some period of time - BZZZT... Nope, but thanks for playing. I'm not sure if it holds true for all, but Americans are told never to relinquish their passports because of fraud, theft, forgery, etc. Luckily, there's a shiny new American embassy here, should we require their services. Supposedly we must register with them in case there's a threat announcement or evacuation order. Susan and I both nearly split a gut when we heard that. Today our TV arrives. Yes, some businesses deliver on Sunday, which astonished us both. Most stores seem to close quite early during the week (by American standards) and there are no giant 24-hour supermarkets to be sure. So, what they miss out on for hours they must make up for in days open? Who knows. All I know is that the TV and DVD player arrive today and the kids will be watching "Finding Nemo" before bedtime. Ah, some semblance of normalcy returns. Navigation and driving: We are leasing a Nissan Almera. If you've never heard of it, you must be in America. There are all sorts of models here which are smaller, cheaper, made only for right-hand drive markets, etc. This one is a gutless little beast not worthy of comment. Move on. We've both been amazed at how quickly we acclimated to driving on the "wrong" side of the road and to finding our way around. The big roads are well marked and we've got the equivalent of the Thomas Guide for the area, covering the peninsula in detail. Even so, our most heated moments have been around driving. I got us sidetracked returning from the airport, going to the waterfront last week right around the kids' bedtime with them screaming in the back of the car. Fun, fun, fun. Everyone was miserable. On the bright side, I now know how to get into and out of Zonnebloem / District 6 and where the petrol station is. Power, voltage converters and otherwise: South Africa, like Europe, UK and most other sane countries, is on the 220v plan. I have to take some credit for our preparation here. A few months before we left the states, I began triaging our home electronics into three piles: Those which wouldn't work at all because of signal or format differences (includes TV, DVD), those which require voltage conversion, and those with multi-voltage auto-converting supplies. Those which would not work were tagged and left for storage. I began purchasing auto-converting supplies for most of the rest. Luckily, we are nearly an all-Apple Computer family and all of their equipment is 110-220 auto-converting. Once you have the voltage problem solved, it suffices to buy a physical plug adapter. (Note to Apple: The Apple world converter kit *DOES NOT* include a South Africa connector). The physical connector here is unique. It's not the 3-blade UK plug, it's not the two-prong continental European plug, it's a large 3 pin monstrosity. For all your adapter needs from UK, European, American, etc. I recommend "The Visitor Adapter" from GO Travel Emporium (picture of the SA plug and adapter in the Gallery). We must have a dozen of these :). Susan was "on the ball" too. She's got some freaky thick hair that requires a heavy-duty professional curling iron. On our last trip over together, she found even with a transformer / adapter, her US curling iron didn't heat up correctly, so she bought the professional equivalent from the UK, already a 220V device. She's since picked up a Euro hair-dryer as well. The only device missing now is her professional full-spectrum Ott-Lite, which we didn't get time to find in the UK. For electronics / electrics, we are finding the prices nearly 2x American prices, simply because the market is much smaller, things are shipped here from UK, where the prices are higher, import duties, etc. What are we missing? Ha. The irony thickens. Know what I miss most? Amazon.com and eBay. Quick shipping and low prices. DAMN DAMN DAMN.