“It is Telkom’s contention that the wireless local loop these days is more than a substitute for both voice and broadband communications,”
- Techcentral’s Candice Jones quoting Telkom’s chief of corporate governance, Ouma Rasethaba.

I doubt they believe that (which wireless local loop technology available today is as scalable and robust as ADSL2+ for the provision of fixed broadband?).

In fact, if I were Telkom, I would downplay the value of the copper local loop and encourage my competitors (like these guys) to invest in WLL alone for home/SME customers instead of a mix of mobile and fixed line infrastructure.

I replied with a detailed response, noting that the MX record points to a web virtual-hosting box at RSAWeb that isn’t accepting SMTP (I imagine having a broken MX suits Dynamic Seminars just fine), and that the website is a RSAWeb domain parking page.

Mark responded with this:

Thanks for putting this out in the wild, we do not condone spam & spammers. Unfortunately its always difficult to isolate these spammers as they tend to be small and difficult to detect unless we notice an abuse pattern or receive spam complaints! However we always make a concerted effort to stop these guys. Spam is inherintly evil and we have terminated the services of spammers that havent even made this ISPA hall of shame list (and will continue to do so).

He also said they’ve suspended the hosting until they have concluded their investigation. When I checked this afternoon, the domain parking page was still up, so I don’t know what they mean by “suspended”. Also, the specific spammer is number one out of twenty-five on the ISPA list, which hardly makes them small, or difficult to detect.

Nevertheless, RSAWeb at least took notice, which is probably more than I can say for the others in my ISPA members hall of shame.

1. The post started with the words “This morning”…
2. Couldn’t they get the list off the ISPA site and do their own lookups?

After filtering out domains without MX records, MX records without valid A records, and IP addresses for which whois lookups failed, the 63 listed domains whittled down to 44 servers, of which 14 are hosted by ISPA members.

So Localloop.co.za hereby presents the ISPA member hall of shame:

1. Hetzner (4 servers, 2 of which are hosted in Germany)¹
2. Webafrica (4 servers, 3 of which are hosted in the US)
3. Internet Solutions: (2 servers)²
4. Datapro (2 servers)
5. RSAWeb (1 server)³
6. AboutIT (1 server)

The only non-ISPA member is Intekom (Telkom SA) with one spammer mail server.

This does not prove the spammers listed use these mail servers for sending spam (they could use any other ISP for that, and judging by recent complaints on the IOZ list, Vodacom SA is one of the favorite providers for spammers).

Having said that, wouldn’t you expect ISPA members to uphold the spirit of the anti-spam clause in the ISPA code of conduct by not hosting mail servers for the ISPA’s own list of spammer domains?

1. Tie with Webafrica, but I put them first because one of WA’s spammer mail servers is hosted by Hertzner.
2. Tie with Datapro, but I put them first because AboutIT’s spammer mail server is hosted by IS.
3. Tie with AboutIT, but I put them first because they have their own data center.

The whole IECS debate now seems pretty irrelevant given that the Minister of Comms has decided they will not get one ..

To allow ~500 licensed operators (including Telkom, which is also partially state-owned) to be vertically integrated, and to deny this to Broadband Infraco seems inconsistent (and unfair?).

Then I read this in an ITWeb article:

ITWeb is in possession of an advance copy of the department’s new draft broadband policy, which is expected to be gazetted in the next few days.

The new draft policy has realigned the state’s role in the provision of broadband. It specifically states that “government should not operate directly in retail service provision, but leave these markets to the private sector players”.

Does that mean the state will dispose of their Telkom shares?

Perhaps the future holds something even more interesting. To quote Gartner analyst Will Hahn commenting on the Competition Commission’s recommended R3.6 billion Telkom fine:

In most mature telecom regimes, the company in Telkom’s shoes has had to undergo either rigorous functional separation between network ops/wholesale on the one hand and retail on the other, or it has gone further, approaching structural separation (where these functions would be vested in completely separate companies).

Although highly unlikely, if there is a coherent government plan to put an end to the turf war between the DPE and the DOC and get their telecoms house in order, it might be in the form of what Hahn is talking about.

It seems I was overly optimistic about the conclusion of Broadband Infraco’s licensing when I blogged about it back in March this year. The process is stalled in a dispute:

During the regulator’s public hearings, ISPA (among others) objected to the issuing of the IECS license, due to fears that Infraco will turn into another anti-competitive vertically-integrated government telco. I agree, that wouldn’t be good for the country.

On the other hand, ISPA’s members now have their own happy-meal licenses, enabling then to operate national networks. This they couldn’t do before, but the problem is, they don’t have national networks. Instead, they want to restrict market access of the only organization (other than Telkom) that has a national network, to themselves. As middle-men this would guarantee them fat profit margins, and it would not guarantee the intended outcome of cheaper telecoms for the rest of us.

So how about a compromise: ICASA issues Broadband Infraco an IECS license with a condition that permits them to provide optical transport services to everyone (including the retail market), but no higher level (IP transit) services. ISPA can’t object, because they’re supposed to represent Internet Service Providers.

Since I’ve just updated the table using a fresh copy of IS’s “local” routing table (minus their African and Malaysian peers), we can check if opening the licensing floodgates has lead to many new South African networks popping up in the BGP table. There are four new ASNs, so the short answer is “not really”. The list follows:

AS35405 (Macquarie Bank)
This is an end user, so not due to regulatory changes. As you can see, they are dual homed (like most of the Banks are), but they’re running their second link in backup-only mode by announcing sub-prefixes on their primary link (similar to my setup for UCT). Datapro is their primary provider and Neotel is backup:
* 87.236.68.0/24 168.209.255.8 0 3741 36937 35405 ?
* 87.236.68.0/23 168.209.255.8 0 3741 11845 35405 ?
* 87.236.69.0/24 168.209.255.8 0 3741 36937 35405 ?

AS37028 (FNBConnect)
This is First National Bank’s new IPConnect-based ADSL service provider and VOIP operator. If I recall correctly, they would need at least an IECS license to do this, but they probably got the happy meal (IECNS+IECS) anyway. They transit through the bank’s original AS:
* 41.183.0.0/16 168.209.255.8 0 3741 17148 37028 i

AS37049 (South African Digital Villages (Pty) Ltd)
This one is a mystery so far. The name sounds like someone who wires up housing or office complexes and sells them bandwidth. They transit through SAIX:
* 41.222.136.0/21 168.209.255.8 0 3741 5713 37049 i

AS37079 (SMMT Online)
Finally, the winner of the Gauteng Online tender to provide connected computer labs for the province’s schools. They transit through Neotel:
* 41.154.0.0/16 168.209.255.8 0 3741 36937 37079 i

Public hearings over the licence conditions for Broadband Infraco will probably provoke a storm of protest from industry, if the state-owned entity does not stick to its original mandate, sources say.
– ITWeb

So what is Infraco’s original mandate?

Investigations into the high broadband costs in South Africa compared to international counterparts revealed that connectivity providers other than Telkom Limited (‘‘Telkom’’) have a cost structure where up to 80% of costs comprise costs attributable to Tier 1 national backbone connectivity and Tier 3 international connectivity, both of which are supplied by Telkom. The logical conclusion was to intervene to address the national backbone and international connectivity cost structures. This is based on the assumption that if these costs are addressed, Tier 2 (the Local Metropolitan Area network and last mile) connectivity providers would quickly pass this on to the market as a result of competitive pressure.
– Memorandum on the objects of the Broadband Infraco Bill, 2007

It turns out this assumption was false. The graph below shows how Neotel’s national backbone pricing is very similar to Telkom’s.

Clearly the DPE’s plan didn’t work, so Infraco now needs a license to fulfill it’s original mandate!

I would like to know from who in the industry (other than Neotel and Telkom) this move will “provoke a storm of protest”, and why they are opposed to lower cost national backbone bandwidth?

The Department of Communications (DOC) says SA will use its position as the chair of SADC to drive ICT issues in the region, in particular Zimbabwe. “Our ICT intellectual affairs and trade branch will come up with an ICT proposal in which key issues, such as digital migration, will form part of the SADC programme,” says DOC spokesman Joe Makhafola.
– Moneyweb