It seems I’m always late with catching up the latest news updates! 🙁
Anyways, according to TheMediaGuru, the Orange FAQ, particularly the sections on FUP (Fair Usage Policy) have been updated. They can be accessed here. Bear with me for the long analysis. This will probably be the last FUP article for a while, since I’m kind of tired about writing on the same subject over and over, specially when we are dealing with unreasonable limits, and unfair practices.
Finally, the issues about FUP have hit the local newspapers! Guru just sent me a scan of the article, and here it is, for you to feast on!
This article brought me out of my temporary blogging hibernation (due to exam), but had to blog on it! I couldn’t resist! I must thank News On Sunday for publishing the article and Yannick Rivet for reading Mauritian blogs, and considering our opinions. At least, we now know that Mauritian bloggers are being taken seriously!
Btw… Congrats CarrotMadMan! Your title (Stab in the back) goes to print! 😀
Here is Mr. Avinash Meetoo’s heavily commented and discussed post about FUP. I’m really sorry since I forgot mentioning this great article.
This article is now out-dated. Rapidshare is back online in Mauritius, discarding the concept of orange applying Internet Censorship. It was probably a problem with their servers, or a broken thing somewhere.
It’s back to normal now. I can access it and download normally. 🙂
I don’t know since when, but it’s impossible for me, an Orange ADSL user, to access rapidshare.com. I can access rapidshare.de though.
Rapidshare.com can be pinged, can be trace-routed, albeit very slowly, but when loading rapidshare.com in a browser, you get a “page loading” thing (progress bar starts filling) then it freezes.
I managed to get 1 download going, but it failed after 7KB downloaded, with a miserable speed of 1.5KBps, which is lame.
This can mean 2 things:
– There are issues with the Rapidshare servers and they are doing some kind of maintenance.
– Access to rapidshare.com has been blocked by the local ISPs, or Orange.
I had a friend using Nomad’s network to try to access rapidshare.com and launch the same download I’ve been trying to get. No result. It was blocked too.
This is not a local DNS issue since I’m using OpenDNS. Trace-route to rapidshare.com works. If there was a blocking, the request would have stopped at the ISP, or maybe they are letting requests go through but block HTTP requests or something similar?
For now, I don’t know. I’m writing this article without having every fact, so take what you read with a pinch of salt. It might be censorship. Or it could be a simple server problem. Still, Rapidshare is unusable on Orange’s network.
Another weird issue. If you try accessing rapidshare.com via a proxy, it works fine. This is making me seriously consider censorship. Nothing confirmed yet. It might be that Orange started blocking access to Rapidshare to prevent heavy downloading or some kind of weird reason. If you want to check, go to YouHide and use it to access rapidshare.com.
However, if there is censorship in place, there will be an all-out war between Orange and Internet users. They are violating the basic philosophy of the Internet, which is the free and unrestricted flow of information. We can accept capping, but we can’t accept being censored and restricted like that.
I agree that Rapidshare has loads of illegal content, but also, loads of totally legal content. That doesn’t mean that it should be totally blocked. This is plain unfair. If there is indeed censorship, we could send an email to rapidshare, telling them that their premium users are being denied service in Mauritius, and we demand a refund? That should get their attention! 😛
The Media Guru also wrote about this problem, so you might give his article a check.
More on this as I get updates… Nothing confirmed yet, remember this!
Ps. Sorry for the lack of articles on GeekScribes. Both Guru and myself are in exam period and will finish by end of May. So, if there are no frequent updates, you now know why. 🙂
I dunno how that Orange propaganda brochure (as if there wasn’t enough Orange advertising already) landed at my place, but I thought I’d look through it. And guess what? It lands on GeekScribes! I ain’t got a scanner, so bear with the cam-pic quality! Here’s the cover:
Take that orange fans! :/
The company is here, and as soon as it lands here, it starts changing things. Sometimes for the best, most of the time, for the worse! Read on!
I think it is official now. Orange is here and is nearly taking over Mauritius Telecom (MT). From what I read and heard, Orange will be handling Internet and mobile services. I haven’t heard anything about landlines, but I’m pretty sure this is included. Heck, seeing the massive advertising campaign the MT has put up, they must be very eager to show off their new partner. This tempted me to write a post about our Internet services in Mauritius. I know this has looonggg been discussed, criticized, flamed, approved and disapproved, but hey, we didn’t have a post on that topic yet, so it doesn’t hurt, right?
Hehehe! Congrats to the folks at MBB! You people finally made it to the newspapers! It’s on Le Mauricien of Saturday 12th April, on Page 15.
We know what the MBB is about, but just a small refresh. The MBB, or the Mauritian Blog Brethren, is a blog which tracks other blogs, specifically Mauritian blogs. They often post reviews about Mauritian blogs, giving its readers an opportunity to discover other Mauritian bloggers. There is also a forum where bloggers and non-bloggers, Mauritians or International can participate.
There’s also some comments made by Jevin and Morina about blogging in general.
For a better coverage of the event, check out TheMediaGuru who has an extensive article on this.
So big thanks to all those trying to bring the Mauritian Blogging Community to light.