Of course, I may just be rambling but its still a possibility. Not an unlikely one though not necessarily my opinion. From just considering many view points, most arguments usually come to a moot point. You could say that I hold very few actual “opinions” just from that. One of them is still that not enough has been done to increase the connection of the island to the rest of the world. And that is still the nub of the matter.

The FUP may be towards better sharing. But it’s still a sign that that the infrastructure is getting inadequate. If there were more cables we wouldn’t have to worry too much about sharing.

There’s till only SAFE. but if they start by adding another cable. then another. and another. and so on. As I said India isn’t that far away. neither is Reunion. or Madagascar. and the east coast of Africa. We’re taking about distances which can afford pretty large bandwidth optical lines with fairly few repeaters. no repeaters between the islands in fact (even to Rodrigues). And we’re not at war with any other country in the I.O. so if we keep at it, we’d end up like South Korea or Japan.

But I don’t think a petition won’t be quite enough to get what I want to happen going. probably will have to spam some of the “policy makers”. What you decide is affected by the options available to you. and they have the options.

like you explained the advantages to MT in your petition call, the obvious advantages that can be explained here, to whom it concerns, are for their cyberisland. and it will only get better for us, the individual users.

Eventually, they will also have to think abut getting rid of all that sugarcane that doesn’t sell very well and start planting more things that we can actually eat. and all sorts of other stuff.

and I quite like coincidences. they happen to me all the time. Everything is interconnected you see.

I raised a petition that made it in the local press in 2002 (2003), and I was not even in Mauritius then. See ADSL petition. Unfortunately, the database has been archived and you cannot see the massive list of signatures on the petition. Two things happened shortly after the petition went out: 1) residential tariffs for ADSL were lowered, and 2) business tariffs were raised. I don’t think it was a coincidence, but rather a realisation that there was the solution to make everyone happy.

Eddy.

you can guess the rest. Have you ever tried doing that yourself? I mean getting your money back.

“how to run their business”? That is a rather big assumption. It would be rather weak to assume that they always know what they are doing. And it definitely seems that they are stuck in first gear and can’t find the clutch. If they were “running their business”, as you say, properly I wouldn’t be telling them how to do it.

So maybe you should thank me

I don’t think so, no. We’d all like to think all sort of things. and you are thinking on the wrong side of the wall(’wall’ in the metaphorical sense. whatever that means). You are mostly concerned with how the ISP can make profit off a single external line i.e. SAFE. I’m concerned about making more connections to the outside. I’d like to think (see above) that I’m looking at the much bigger picture (and still considering all the improvements it can bring on the smaller scale).

I could go on but it’ll be mostly a repeat of what I’ve already written in previous comments, here and on noulakaz.net. You should also read the stuff on carrotman’s blog.

I’ll leave it at that.

Eddy.

That why I plodded at rather great lengths on the stupidity of policies.

Well maybe not time as in per seconds. More like time left to the end of the Universe. I probably should have said amount.

Say if mauritius had a limited amount of terabytes per months leased on the SAFE cable and exceeded that, the whole country would be deprived of that bit of internet until next month. Bet you’d find that very curious too.

Now, I’m not trying to be contrary here but I have an alternate take on empathy for you:

take the guy, we shall call kyle, who is paying his 512kbps (advertised as unlimited) connection from Orange.

Kyle is all “woohoo! I can download everything I want! and fast! all the time!” and happily does so.

Kyle downloads all sort of things, even things he does not need. he downloads things for his friends too. and even things for his friends that his friends don’t need. why? because he can. he has “unlimitedness”. He paying for it, he can do what he wants with it.

All is sweetness and bliss on kyle world. Not a worry in sight. until…

More subscribers come along to Orange

Orange finds that it can’t supply all those subscribers and sneaks in a FUP in the contract.

then Orange says to Kyle “onoes, you can’t has unlimitedness no moar,sry but you still pays same prices lololol kthxbai ”

you might think that kyle had it coming and it all well and done but think how Kyle is feeling. He’s still paying for the 512 unlimited. but he’s no longer getting that.

Kyle doesn’t know that you think he was abusing anything. he’s no network technician. As far as he is concerned, he’s just using what he paid for and what was made available to him.

Saying that kyle should have read his contract through and through before signing anything is rather self-righteous, don’t you think? Contracts and Term of service are written in a way as to be obfuscated to the end user. And even if you noticed the “terms are subject to change” clause you aren’t necessarily expecting them to backstab you with it whenever they feel it suits them best.

So if it’s not kyle’s fault, not your fault, not my fault, I say it’s the ISP’s fault for overselling in the first place. Retrofitting a FUP like that is appalling behaviour. Its literal skulduggery. I probably would have found out if it weren’t for Metoo’s blog post.

Anyway, we both know the why of the FUP. Now ask yourself the “why not?”

why can’t kyle have his unlimited 512 that he pays for? why can’t you and me have your whatever connection we use at a reliable quality and all the time?

the answer lies somewhere on the trajectory of a brick being hurled through a window at a passing Telecom senior executive. possibly…

I’ll have to discard your comments about the government’s plans for the cyber-island. I could give my opinions which mostly reflect yours, but I’m too well aware that the only ways I can change things are with my vote and whom I give my custom to. Besides, it would distract from the topic.

Bandwidth is limited in time. That’s why you can download only so much per second. Don’t tell me that you hadn’t figured out what ‘kbps’ and ‘mbps’ stand for! Anyway, the bandwidth allocated to MT on SAFE is just as limited as yours is, so obviously restrictions are necessary.

I’m not siding with the ISP. I’m only trying to educate about the FUP to spare you the frustration of trying to fight it.

I guess I feel concerned because I have empathy. Also, I’m a customer of Orange myself.

Eddy.

This is in England, BTW

Is it? Hadn’t noticed.

If it is, then what is your concern then?

My argument is, and remains: I paid for an advertised service, was already getting less in return and reasonably getting mightily ticked off at suggestions of reducing it further. and you missed the whole “we’re going to monitor your traffic” bit.

and I will keep dreaming because they do have those multimillions. The point where you start heaving bricks though their windows in the hopes of maiming a senior executive is when you ask why aren’t they investing those multimillions where they should be.

Now, you probably know that the Mauritian government, in fact a few of Mauritian governments in succession, have been going on about cyberislands and stuff. you might even say this is A Government Policy. If they want the goddam cyberisland, they had better start investing.

The same was done for the textile industry. before you could build factories you need the infrastructure to support them. Then you need roads and powerlines, now you need cables. I didn’t miss any wake up call but they definitely missed theirs.

Everyone should have the right to download 1GB in one session… but certainly not 10GB+ in one session!

haha! we’re talking a session how many months long here? my opinions differ. I think you should be able to download 10GB in one go. It would be absolutely fantastic if we could actually do this in Mauritius. Bandwidth is not something limited in time. it’s not like there’s a fixed reservoir of bytes and if you “take” 10Gb out of it, you’ll need to wait for digital rainfall to come along to fill back those 10Gb. (discounting idiotic policies of course)

carrotmadman pointed out EASSy, but that doesn’t mean MT or the Mauritian government can’t make their own move because they know who to talk to and how to get it done. They really should stop being such wusses and take decisive actions. AND NOT AGAINST THEIR ALREADY DISGRUNTLED CLIENTS!

I’m even writing a letter to whom it may concern, that is, once I single out those who it concerns. The only problem so far is that I fail to write it in a way that doesn’t suggest that they are blithering idiots and should be pig farming instead of just looking fat in their suits.

also, amusing is usually used as defensive argument when one does not to know what to retort. You may find amusing what you want, I frankly have to tell you that I am not laughing. I could for example tell you “Oh look out! there’s a three-headed monkey behind you about to mug you and make off with your scooter.” You may find the three-headed monkey part amusing but it will still mug you and leave you poorer by a scooter. This is of course almost entirely unrelated to the current discussion but you can contrive any analogy you wish from it.

and for note, I may not be an professional (if it sounds to you like I’m telling the professionals how to their job, they you may be right. I’m on the receiving end and I can tell you they are making a pig’s ear of it) but I do understand, to some degree, the limits of commmunication networks. what limits bandwidth is not the limit of the physical medium, you can ALWAYS add more wires improve routing and switching, stuff. The real culprits are the policies set by those who own administrate the physical medium. And those policies suck.

sidetracking: why do you sign your comments “Eddy”…… I mean….. on your own blog…..? habit?