Here’s a round-up my latest columns and articles:

The bonsai economy, on The Daily Maverick, prompted by president Zuma’s promises of tighter labour law in his May Day speeches.

The death of an industry, on ITWeb, which celebrates the coming demise of a telecoms sector (least-cost routing) that existed merely because of a temporary market inefficiency.

South Africans rock Texas, which appeared in print in Brainstorm magazine, and contains a detailed report-back from our trip to South by South West, including some pretty cool notes on technology in Africa.

I trust you’ll enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

Hi all. It’s been over a year, and I keep getting asked when (or if) I’ll ever get around to blogging again. The answer is: I’m not blogging, but I am writing. This gives me little reason to blog and some good reasons not to.

Most Thursdays (and occasionally at other times) you can find a column on technology or telecommunications at ITWeb. Every Tuesday, my column on politics, economics and (anti-)environmentalism is published at the phoenix that rose from the ashes of Branko Brkic’s dearly departed Maverick magazine: The Daily Maverick. I also still write a monthly column for Brainstorm magazine, where the then-editor Brkic first convinced me to write opinion, and where current editor Samantha Perry continues to tolerate my invariably overdue mutterings.

Here’s what I’ve been up to since I stopped blogging, written while The Daily Maverick was still in pre-launch beta testing: Going cold turkey.

Since its launch, I’ve taken up one of my favourite cudgels: Too late to cool it? This week I penned a piece on the temerity of leftwingers who claim to oppose fascism: The irony of the left. I have many ideas lined up to fuel future arguments, so keep an eye on The Daily Maverick. Moreover, it is home to an eclectic group of brilliant reporters, photographers, analysts, commentators and columnists who offer some of the finest reading matter available on the South African internet. It is a pleasure and an honour to be published alongside them.

Elsewhere, this rant on power plugs for Brainstorm magazine elicited some vigorous nodding from readers, many of whom, unsurprisingly, share my pain.

Though a promising challenger has recently appeared (here’s to you, Duncan McLeod), ITWeb has for 15 years been the backbone and daily staple of the South African tech and telecoms scene. Among my recent ITWeb columns are an opinion about which commenters appeared to miss the point somewhat: Sure, fund the SABC with tax, an argument about who might be producing primary reporting in the future: Reviving the leisured classes, and a story about a man, The chief incompetence officer, which may yet have repercussions.

Discussion of or comments on my columns are best posted on the publishers’ respective sites, not only because they buy my bread and beer, but also because I’m more likely to read and respond there. I’ll post alerts of new articles and columns over here, however, so the many friends (and enemies) I’ve made here can follow me wherever I write. Speaking of following, I’m @IvoVegter.

Of course, the archives remain intact, and contain some 218 041 words in 520 posts, with 1 331 comments. Some of the topics I tackled, or responses I promised (but never wrote) will no doubt surface again on ITWeb, in Brainstorm or on The Daily Maverick.

Thank you all for reading and, most importantly, arguing with me. You’ve been a whetstone for my blade: sharpening my arguments, but innocent of how rashly I wield them. You rock — dangerous communists included.

• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm magazine, February 2008. This is how I earn my monthly ration of beer and cigarettes, dog and cat food, fuel and bread. Subscribing not only gets you these columns on time, but goes some way towards sustaining this starving blogger in health and happiness.

Squelching to court through a quagmire

In the heavily prescriptive television industry, one has to admire the effort the regulator, ICASA, puts into its work. It can’t be easy. But one sometimes wonders: why, why, why, oh why?

Several recent developments in the broadcasting sector are worthy of attention, even if each serves only to exposes a fundamental failing in our telecommunications law.

Three that caught my attention in the last couple of months are the ruling ANC’s call for the SABC (the public broadcaster) to be more tax-funded and less advertising-driven, the suit Black Entertainment Television (BET) is bringing against ICASA over its award of five pay-television licences (it didn’t get one), and the demand by the SABC that pay-TV operators pay it for content they are required to carry (they don’t want to).

The ANC is quite right. One of the most damaging aspects of the SABC’s historical dominance of the broadcasting space is its reliance on advertising for funding.

A public broadcaster, if such a thing is necessary in the first place, should have a specific public service mandate and should be funded by public money. TV licences are a regressive, clumsy and expensive method of generating insufficient revenue. By selling advertising, the SABC, though it is a state-owned institution, sucks a large proportion of potential revenue out of the market, which could sustain competing broadcasters. Diverting available spending to the state is an implicit threat to media freedom, media diversity, media quality and media specialisation.

So I’m right behind the ANC’s proposal, with one caveat. The knee-jerk reaction has been that this will threaten press freedom. I can’t really see how the SABC can be more beholden to the state than it already is. I mean, with extended live coverage of ruling-party birthday parties it is, frankly speaking, kissing arse. Besides, being beholden to advertisers raises the same problems. The solution is to create an inviolable layer of structural separation between editorial and owners (in this case, the state). The SABC should be answerable to an independent, disinterested editorial board appointed by Parliament, rather than being controlled by politically-appointed directors. Only then can its public service begin to be distinguished from government service or ruling party service.

BET is also quite right. Television licences (and, for that matter, any other licence) should not be limited according to some bureaucrat’s notion of what the market can bear. They have no way of knowing how big the market might be and have no motive to take the necessary risks. They can only make and implement their one guess, however educated, rather than letting many competing guesses duke it out. They’ll always underestimate market size (witness cellular licences) or over-estimate it (witness E.sat’s decision to provide content to Multichoice, rather than use its licence, citing lack of space in the market).

Markets are created when risk-taking investors spot gaps and exploit them. Competition is created when those investors can price products as they see fit. Cost-reduction happens when competitors consolidate their interests, and winners buy up losers.
Instead, we get cosy cartels, who are held to arbitrary pricing restrictions, such as that they must generate at least as much revenue from subscriptions as from advertising. What do they do in a good advertising month? Go to customers and say, “Sorry folks, but we’re making a fortune here, we’ll have to raise your rates”? For that matter, why should there be any legal distinction between how broadcasters earn their revenue? Surely that should be a strategic business decision, not a legal prescription?

Unlike the ANC and BET, the SABC is quite wrong. If pay-TV operators have to pay for their SABC content, they should have the choice whether or not to buy it. If they’re obliged by law to carry public service content, it is unjust to expect them to pay over and above the cost of distribution. This is sheer opportunism on the part of the SABC, which is one of the dangers of that curious, cancerous state-capitalist hybrid that is the profit-driven state-owned enterprise.

Solving these problems go to the root of our telecoms legislation. They require setting licence conditions, but not limiting the number in issue. They require that risk-taking investors themselves choose their business plans and pricing models, rather than having them imposed by the state. They require regulation that is purely administrative, rather than restrictive, prescriptive and protective.

Because all this complicated lawyering and regulatory rigmarole, designed to balance the interests of producers, broadcasters and the state, forgets the most important interest: that of the public.

I’ll be away most of this week, chairing some conference sessions. I have a few months’ worth of Brainstorm and Maverick columns stored up, though, so I’ll post a few of these for your reading pleasure when I get a chance.

• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm magazine, December 2007. Brainstorm pays for these, so if you’d consider subscribing, I (and the magazine) would be in your debt.

Unfair, unreasonable and ludicrous

Those aren’t my words. Those are the words of members of the Security and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee in the National Council of Provinces.

Stupid. Imbecilic. Naïve. Batty. Those would be among the words I’d choose. Half-baked. Dim. Preposterous. Simple-minded. Goofy. Witless.

I’m talking about the recent amendment to the Regulation of Interception and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act, pushed through parliament by the Justice Department.

Let’s just call it the spy law, since that’s what it is, and many people must be familiar with the hoohah in the United States over similar “domestic wiretapping” provisions in anti-terrorism laws.

According to market researchers BMI TechKnowledge, there are somewhere north of 40 million cellular telephone users in South Africa. The majority of those are prepaid customers, who prefer, whether for creditworthiness or other reasons, to buy SIM cards and airtime as and when they need them.

This amendment requires everyone who uses a cellphone SIM card in South Africa to register their identity and residential details with their operators.

It’s loco. Pointless. Dense. Harebrained. Illogical. Bonkers.

The primary reason cited for the requirement is fighting crime. Organised crime, in particular.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to commit a crime, I’d go to some lengths not to identify myself to authorities. I’ll get an untraceable phone, or make it so. And if I can’t get a phone that’s untraceable, I’ll – I hope I’m not giving away any crime secrets here – meet my accomplices in person.

Criminals aren’t the sort of considerate people who obey the law. I’d have thought the definition of criminal would make this clear. This won’t curb any but the most petty crime, committed by the most incompetent criminals, against which I’d have thought the police don’t need all that much help.

Futile. Brainless. Ridiculous. Potty. Derisory. Lunatic.

This requirement is going to be tremendously impractical. It will create reams of data, most of it probably wrong. Many cellphone users don’t even have formal addresses, or they move regularly, or don’t have proper identity documents because Home Affairs hasn’t had its home affairs in order for years.

How are mobile operators supposed to ensure the information is accurate in the first place, and stays up to date in the second? I’ll bet that more than half of the information so gathered will be useless to law enforcement, and the other half won’t be needed.

It’s feebleminded. Doltish. Mindless. Dumb. Flaky. Absurd.

The cost of recording and maintaining all this data will be borne by whom? Mobile operators? You have to be kidding me. It will be passed on to consumers. Instead of reducing the cost of telecommunications, as the president mandated in a state of the nation speech some years ago now, this domestic spy law will significantly raise it.

Wacky. Foolish. Moronic. Dippy. Nonsensical. Dopy. Nuts.

It will undermine the spectacular success of low-cost prepaid telephony in South Africa. If cutting off half the people who’ve gained access to telephony thanks to prepaid is the government’s intention, the spy law is great.

Insane. Kooky. Irresponsible. Laughable. Half-witted. Ludicrous. (Oh, scratch that; the NCOP has that covered.) Retarded.

A government that has easy access to reams of private data is sure to abuse it. Even assuming that we trust the government in general, can we extend this trust to the bad apples within government? Can we trust private organisations that have no inherent need for the data, because they’re not, for example, providing us with credit? This extends the circle of organisations whose intent and competence we need to trust with private data even further. It’s a fundamental infringement on privacy and individual liberty. It’s how a police state operates.

Ill-advised. Nutty. Fruity. Fruity-and-nutty. Obtuse. Short-sighted. Barmy.

This law also requires all foreigners to register their cellphones when they’re in South Africa. Never mind the annoying impracticality of that, or that it doesn’t exactly say, “Welcome to the free South Africa”. If even one refuses, the measure is unenforceable, unless all international roaming is blocked. And if we do that, South Africans won’t be able to use their own phones internationally either. We’ll cut ourselves off from the global village. It’s that simple.

Rash. Mindless. Idiotic. Unthinking. Cockeyed. Thick. Irrational. Senseless. Ludicrous. Loony. Daft.

I’ve run out of words. Oh wait, no, I haven’t. There’s still cretinous. But I’ll save that word for a future column on the subject.

No synonyms were harmed in the production of this column.

• This column was first published in the November 2007 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine, under the title “Music business turned on its head”. If you’re in South Africa, you may wish to subscribe to the high-quality print version.

Ever since peer-to-peer music downloading became popular, the music industry has been in a deep crisis. Now comes the denouement.

The kid that started all the trouble was 18, a college dropout named Shawn Fanning. He created a piece of software called Napster, which started a peer-to-peer music downloading craze. Record companies were in a flat spin.

Now, eight years later, the game may finally be up for the record companies.

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• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm, a South African business technology magazine, on 1 October 2007. Do subscribe, if you prefer to read it the way it was intended to be read: in print.

In March 2003, this column was headlined Root out Poison Ivy. It wasn’t the first call for her dismissal, but it did coin the now-famous nickname for our Minister of Communications. It’s time for an escalation.

This magazine has documented every step in the failed politics of telecommunications reform in South Africa. Now the entire sorry saga is retold in a paper co-authored by Willie Currie of the Association for Progressive Communications and Robert B. Horwitz of the Department of Communication at the University of California in San Diego.

The ten-year retrospective makes for sobering and intensely depressing reading. The authors interviewed everybody who was anybody during this time. In its 44 pages are collected, with academic rigour, failure upon failure, which makes the most cogent case yet for the dismissal of the current Minister of Communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.

Moreover, I contend that it justifies the abolition of the ministry itself.

The headline of the report, “Another instance where privatisation trumped liberalisation,” perceptively highlights the core philosophical error underlying the policy of “managed liberalisation” that South Africa followed since Telkom was first granted its monopoly in 1997.

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• This column was first published in Brainstorm magazine, South Africa, on 1 September 2007. They keep me in bread, beer and bacon, so I’d appreciate it if you’d consider subscribing.

There are finally signs that the long-frozen telecoms sector is thawing. Now everyone’s thanking the government. That’s twisted.

A celebratory message arrived recently: one side of a particular road was being trenched by Neotel, while the other was being dug up by MTN. Great news indeed, if only because it proves that the space-time continuum doesn’t implode when two competitors dig up the same road.

Similar good-news stories appeared elsewhere. A company named Seacom is building a new undersea cable. Vodacom says it wants a meerkat in every telecoms hole it can find. Every second VANS operator is swindling reporters into believing it’s a historic first, the next-big-thing in infrastructure. Talk of new interconnect regulations, industry consolidation, self-provision and new pay TV licences spices up dinner parties, and pundits get drunk on the heady mead of price wars and dark fibre.

The cause is the new Electronic Communications Act, which though still a vague piece of legislation is making it possible for some enterprising companies to squeeze through some gaps. So we find ourselves celebrating – finally – the culmination of “managed liberalisation”.

But why? There’s something deeply pathological in our reaction.

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• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm, a South African business technology magazine, on 1 July 2007. They pay me for this stuff, so you’d do me a great service if you’d consider subscribing.

This wasn’t intended as a column extolling the virtues of reading history. Yet if only Poison Ivy¹ would do so, she might actually “connect us to the future”, to use her words.

There she goes again. After eight years in office, and all those nice things they said about encouraging competition, technology neutrality and managing liberalisation, minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri is proposing to drive us up another dead end.

“I have taken the policy decision,” she dictated in her Department of Communications budget speech, “that Mobile Broadcasting Services will be provided on a single network with national coverage, using the DVB-H standard. The network … will be operated on the basis of open and non-discriminatory access principles.”

She’s proposing yet another monopoly, presumably to be run by government, and limited to a single choice of technology. Oh yay!

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1. Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, South Africa’s minister of communications. [↩]

• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm, a South African business technology magazine, on 1 June 2007. Click here to subscribe and read it with a free photo of me reading a collection of Punch cartoons.

Remember when Telkom asked the regulator whether IP was a basic service, and when it replied nine months later, Telkom took it to court for not having jurisdiction in the matter? Well, here’s the sequel.

Telkom has thrown down the gauntlet to the regulator. Like any dominant incumbent with a legal department the size of the North Korean Army, it knows this game well. The regulator must respond to its proposed interconnection rates for other operators and value-added network providers. How it responds will show whether it is as impotent as its predecessor, or can regulate decisively in the public interest.

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• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm, a South African business technology magazine, on 1 May 2007. If you’d like to help them pay me, click here to subscribe. It looks better in print anyway.

Ever stared at a problem so long you just know the simple answer is right there, but you just can’t see it? That’s why we have politicians. To be brilliant for us dumb shmucks.

Take telecoms. I mean, here’s a conundrum. Despite all the hard work of Dr (don’t forget the Dr) Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, telecoms prices are way high in South Africa. While the world raced ahead, South Africa went backwards. We’re stuck deep in the last decade, at 1997 or so.

Thabo Mbeki blames Telkom. After all, it didn’t bring down prices, and it could have. It’s only concern has been for profit. How evil. I mean, who among us is ever motivated by profit? You? Anyone? I’m not. I’m a journalist. But Telkom is. Bastards.

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This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm, 1 April 2007, in South Africa. It’s best read in print, of course, so head here to subscribe.

How the law caught up with reality a mere twelve years later. Or, in defence of the grey market.

A long, long time ago, I can still remember, how that bunfight used to make me smile.

In the early 1990s, there was a kind of lone ranger (though short of stature and totally bald) in the IT industry. He was a useful fellow to know, not only because he could always be relied upon to supply sensational last-minute copy if you needed a blank space to fill, but also because he imported and sold cheap US Robotics modems.

There was a price on his head, of course, because he had the gall to buy them cheap from a distributor in the Far East somewhere. The exact source usually remained a closely-guarded secret, known only to the corrupt customs officials he claimed were bribed by the official agents for the products he brought in.

The practice of “parallel imports”, or buying from sources other than channels authorised by the manufacturer, became known as “grey marketeering”. The reason was that it wasn’t illegal, so it couldn’t be termed a black-market. The insinuation was clear: our lone ranger must be doing something nefarious, underhanded and wrong.

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• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm, 1 March 2007. They pay me, so please subscribe to the print edition.

The more Alec Erwin intrudes on the communications minister’s portfolio, the more absurd the comedy show gets.

Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and Alec Erwin, telecommunications ministers one and two (as the DA’s Dene Smuts calls them according to the Financial Mail), could use a few civics lessons.

Last time I checked, private citizens of a country were required to obey the law – even if they don’t know what the law is. It follows, therefore, that Erwin risks unwittingly committing any number of crimes, since he doesn’t seem to know what law Matsepe-Casaburri’s department wrote and got parliament to pass.

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