Category: IT

Day 2: Orange Expo 2011 Revisited!

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Inf

I felt my Day 1 at Orange Expo felt kinda rushed. There were things I missed, things I didn’t notice. So when the family wanted to go there today, I thought it’d be a good opportunity to go again. Turns out, I did discover a few new things.

So this post will be less about the tech there, and more about the Expo itself, its organization, ideas and some suggestions to Orange, as I go through it.

For this post, I’ll not make the mistake of trying to compare the Orange Expo with the expos you have abroad. They cannot be compared. Instead, what we should be doing is comparing the Orange Expo 2011 with its peer: Infotech. On Day 1, I wanted to see iPad 2 and Xoom and all the new shiny toys out there. As a geek, I wanted to see them, play with them. But I realized that many people who visited the expo today didn’t even know what an iPad was! To them, it was something new and wonderful.

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Orange Expo 2011: The Review

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Inf

The Orange Expo 2011 is held this year from 8th April to 10th April at the Swami Vivekananda International Convention Center (SVICC). Anyway, if you’re reading this, you’ll only be having a day left to visit, and that’s 10th April, from 10h to 19h.

With that said, here’s my experience and thoughts on expo. Sorry for the blurry or low-light pics. My camera had big issues focusing on all the Orange there… I was kind of in-a-hurry too, so I may have missed a few things. If I did, please let me know via comments.

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Emtel releases MIFI: Share Internet Access On The Go

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Inf

Emtel has released their new product, which they call the Emtel MIFI – Mobile Wifi.

You purchase the Huawei E5 modem which is a Wireless Access Point (AP) and pocket router that accepts a SIM card such as a fixed IP SIM, and you get to share mobile Internet with up to 5 WIFI-compatible devices at the same time.

Here’s a quick post about its features, and what I think about the device and the service which will enable access to popular sites like 겜블시티. Here’s the full advert that also appeared in newspapers:

Is it me, or do the 1st 3 people have really long arms?

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Orange Mauritius Announces Price Cuts, Speed Boosts

by
Inf

Orange (and Mauritius Telecom), have just announced our Christmas gift for the year 2010: ADSL users can expect a reduction in prices and MyT users will see their current speed doubled. The changes will start taking effect as from 1st December 2010.


Update 0: I put this as Update Zero because it’s most important: MyT Users with NO TV option will get neither speed boost NOR price cut, as confirmed on TheMediaGuru’s comment section. You will have to pay Rs. 999 (Rs. 151 extra!) if you want more speed.

Update 1: According to the user “Sab” on TheMediaGuru’s article (see link below), there won’t be any speed boosts for ADSL users, only the Rs. 100 reduction in prices.

Update 2: The price decrease / speed boosting is not pleasing everybody. There are some complaints coming from Jeyen Chellum and ACIM that Orange has done something weird or how it was ICTA’s role to announce the price cuts. I’ll admit, I didn’t understand what the problem was myself. Moreover, commenters on the L’Express article would prefer a price-cut over a speed boost. I personally prefer a speed boost over a price cut. I am opening a poll for you to answer this question.

[poll id=”2″]

Update 3: FUP no longer applies to MyT. Not that it was ever applied…

Update 4: You may be interested in this article too…


Here is a summary of the changes for ADSL (All prices are Vat Inclusive):

  • ADSL Home 256 Kbps(3GB Cap Limit): Rs. 499 → Rs. 399
  • ADSL Home 512 Kbps: Rs. 848 → Rs. 759
  • ADSL 128 Kbps for Rodrigues: Rs. 499 → Rs. 399
  • ADSL Business package prices fall by 10%. New prices will probably be:
    • ADSL Business 256 Kbps: Rs. 1840 → Rs. 1656
    • ADSL Business 512 Kbps: Rs. 2875 → Rs. 2587.50
    • ADSL Business 1 Mbps: Rs. 5750 → Rs. 5175
    • ADSL Business 2 Mbps: Rs. 10235 → Rs. 9211
  • Dedicated Lines fall by 24%

MyT prices remain unchanged, but the speed doubles:

  • MyT 512 Kbps → MyT 1 Mbps
  • MyT 1 Mbps → MyT 2Mbps
  • MyT 2Mbps → MyT 4Mbps (!!)

MyT will also offer 3 new channels – Boing, MCM Top and Motor TV and add more titles to its Video on Demand service.

There is no word yet on whether the speed doubling will be applied to existing ADSL users (like me). I hope the Christmas gift comes to us ADSL users too. I’ll update this article as more details surface.

If you have any more information, please do share!

Hat-tip to TheMediaGuru for sharing the initial news.

(Source)

Internet Filtering Being Debated in Cabinet

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Inf

I have recently blogged about the possibility of Internet Filtering being introduced in Mauritius.

I guess this is being confirmed now, with the publication of this piece of news in the local newspapers. Le Mauricien, if I’m not mistaken. For now, I think it’ll only be filtering out pr0n. No word on whether it filters everything by default, or whether you need to opt-in, or if there is an opt-out clause, or whether you need to install some client. Nothing.

Let’s wait and see. I fear that, it starts with protecting children, and ends with censoring websites the government or other powerful lobbies don’t like. Even legitimate websites with good-intent.

I still stand by my view that education is still the best way to inform children about the dangers on the Internet. So they may in turn educate their friends, and children afterward. Censoring the content is just denying the truth. Or, implement local censoring. This task is left to parents. ISPs could provide filtering software whenever there is a new customer registration, and inform the parents about how to install the software (or install it as part of customer support).

What are your views, dear readers?

Electronic and Technology Expo 2010 Review

by
Inf

I went to Infotech 2010. It was better than previous years. There were more things to see. There were more things to buy. But overall, it still did not impress me much since there was a lack of new technology. And no, the iPad is not considered new. For Mauritius it may be. But it’s not new, as compared to some Android tablets out there. Anyway, I saw this “Electronic and Technology” expo which is to be held at Free Port, Mer Rouge. I thought, hey it has a fancy title. It has some fancy graphic-prospectus with a cool-looking robot on it. Maybe I’ll get to see new technology there. I think that expo is a first for Mauritius, a technology expo that is separate from Infotech. Not a bad idea, that. So I went to see. And well… it’s somewhat of a misnomer…

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Internet Filtering Coming To Mauritius Soon?

by
Inf

I have found an interesting article coming from Le Mauricien newspaper of Friday 21st of May. You can see a shot below.

It deals with some measures ICTA (Information Communication Technology Authority) wishes to introduce or see implemented. While some are laudable, such as promotion of ICT as education tools and enhancing performance of communication systems, the last part of the article ticks off my Paranoia Alarm.

The shot of the scary paragraph, with highlighted portions can be seen below.

Well, what do I see? ICTA wants to implement Internet filtering in Mauritius.

I remember Ex-President, Mr. Cassam Uteem’s wish to see some pages of Facebook blocked due to some offensive content. There have also been past instances of Facebook being blocked in Mauritius, for example, due to the usurpation of our PM’s identity to create a profile. These cases may have warranted a blocking of the incriminating pages, but I doubt censorship was the only possible solution.

Now imagine if our local politicians or authorities have the power to block sites at a whim. Tomorrow, Mr. X doesn’t like a parody video of his speech on Youtube, and the site is blocked? No thanks!

Something strikes me as funny in this article: “the idea is not to implement censorship”. Can somebody enlighten me about the difference between “filtering” and “censorship”? I thought that content that was filtered out was censored. Am I wrong?

Giving censorship powers to a Government is too much in my opinion. The Internet should be a free-flow of information, and not to be controlled by anybody. I agree that there are some content that deserve censorship, but I believe it’s best left to its users to know what should be accessed and what should not. Such situations exist in real-life too. There are some places in cities where it is dangerous to go. However, I do not see any barriers erected to prevent people, especially children from going there. So why should this apply to the Internet?

If parents do not want their kids accessing unauthorized contents, well, they can be educated into how to implement filtration software on their machines locally. Or make the government-filtering opt-in. So people who want to see the Internet filtered can install software locally to do the job, with the use of a Government-managed database. Others can continue using the Internet as they see fit, taking their responsibilities if ever they are caught doing nasty stuff.

On a side note, we see the Internet from the social and crowd aspect nowadays. You have social networking, social bookmarking, social music discovery, social-tea-making, social-what-not. Why not social filtering? I have no idea how this would work, but hey, we do democratic voting to elect out leaders, we could do some democratic voting on what we want off the Internet too right?

I leave you to the views and your comments…