May Telkom burn!

[Dave A]

There's a three minute time difference between the posts - that's probably how it happened

I'll tidy it up if you want me to
Just say the word.

[tec0]

No worries, I think it is kind of funny anyway

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

No worries, I think it is kind of funny anyway

In simple terms please - the differecne beteen shaped and unshaped?

[Dave A]

Think of a queue at one of our marvelous government service institutions, Home Affairs for example. You arrive to get an ID book.

Now if you have to go to the back of the queue, and everyone that arrives after you has to go to the back of the queue, and everyone is served in the order they arrived, in IT terms that would be an unshaped service.

However, if people with disabilities are pushed to the front of the queue the moment they arrive, and no-one without a disability will be served until everyone with disabilities has been served and there is no-one left with disabilities waiting, this would be a shaped service.

Or more cynically, if Jacob Zuma arrived and had to wait in the queue just like everyone else, that would be an unshaped service.

Of course, being the gentleman he is, he would probably insist on the people with disabilities going first before he jumped the queue - and this would be a shaped service.

To understand the effect of this principle in Telkom terms, we need to get a little more extreme. There are some things that Telkom doesn't like - like South Africans using cheap overseas web hosting facilities. They'd far prefer we used local, and to motivate this they give certain forms of communication (particularly the ones used to control those overseas web hosting facilities) a very low priority in the queue over our international cable that connects us to the rest of the world.

Going back to our example, this would be the equivalent of setting a rule that anyone with really smelly armpits must wait outside the queuing hall until everyone else has been served. Only once all people without smelly pits have been served and the hall has been completely cleared, may the people with smelly pits come forward to be served.

And frankly, that person with the smelly armpits would stand a better chance of getting their ID than one of the pariah protocol/port requests getting overseas on a shaped service. This is because in the IT world, anything that stands in a queue too long (times may vary, but it's not long) gets flushed. It's unlikely gov would set up a cleaner to mow down all the people in the smelly armpit queue at Home Affairs who'd been in the queue for over an hour.

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

I nearly quit reading at the imagine a government institution part.

[Dave A]

So was it worth reading on?

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

So was it worth reading on?

I did indeed

[popayetwo]

Does anybody know WHY, in 2010 we still have the world's worst internet service from Telkom? WHY are we limited to a mere 384 kb speed (if you are lucky) and a cap of just 1 Gig per month? Are the resourses available TODAY the same as they were 20 years ago? Does Telkom ever upgrade its infrastructure? The world has moved on long since but Telkom still dishes out DO BROADBAND - THE BROADEST BAND.

[daveob]

Probably because they are reserving all the new bandwidth for the 2010 swc. I would imagine they have contracts in place for international transmissions, etc. where they have to guarantee minimum bandwidth, etc.

You'll probably find that they start increasing the max. speed from the current 4Mb lines to around 8Mb, with upload speeds also doubling from 512k to 1Mb at the same time - right after they no longer need the lines for the international clients and broadcasters.

Just a thought ... 2c

[SilverNodashi]

Does anybody know WHY, in 2010 we still have the world's worst internet service from Telkom? WHY are we limited to a mere 384 kb speed (if you are lucky) and a cap of just 1 Gig per month? Are the resourses available TODAY the same as they were 20 years ago? Does Telkom ever upgrade its infrastructure? The world has moved on long since but Telkom still dishes out DO BROADBAND - THE BROADEST BAND.

No offense, but I think you're a bit misinformed. Telkom has done a LOT in the last 5 - 8 years to make the internet as we know it today MUCH better. 10 years ago very few people actually knew the internet like it is today. I have a 4MB line in my house, and at my office. Do you know the average American only has a T1 (1.54Mb) if they are lucky enough to get it. Australians don't have that kind of "luxury" yet. My 4MB line cost much less than what a 64Kb diginet line cost us 10years ago. And, I now pay R290 for 10GB bandwidth. I don't think Telkom is as bad as you make them to be