Massive rollout of web access planned for Western Cape.

Western Cape Premier Helen Zille has unveiled an ambitious plan to get the province connected with a mass rollout of broadband internet.

The idea is to match the best net access in the world.

Zille made the announcement on Friday during her 2012 State of the Province address.

“It is clear that if we aim to create an internationally competitive knowledge economy, improve productivity and enjoy access to new markets, we need to invest far more in fast and affordable broadband infrastructure,” she said.

“We need to link over 4 000 government facilities in the province to one another and to business, civil society and citizens. By 2014 we aim to have connected 70 percent of government facilities and every school in the province to the broadband network and also ensure that there is at least one public ICT access facility in every ward.

“Within the next two years, as part of a pilot project, we aim to create the largest mesh network in the world that will have connected all households in Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain and Saldanha Bay, including the Industrial Development Zone footprint.

“By 2020, we aim to have connected every citizen in the metropolitan area to affordable broadband infrastructure at network speeds in excess of 100 megabytes per second, and all citizens in towns and villages to a broadband network.”

The plan would “position the Western Cape as a broadband access leader in SA, and support the information technology centres in every school in the province”.

Explaining the importance of connectivity, Zille said: “The World Bank estimates that every 10 percent increase in high-speed internet connections in developing countries results in a 1.3 percent increase in economic growth. Broadband is also a platform for local information technology services industries, which create youth employment and promote social inclusion.

“The World Bank reports that the number of internet users in developing countries has increased tenfold between 2000 and 2007, with over four billion cellphone subscribers living in developing countries.

But since 2009 South Africa had lagged behind many African countries in increasing internet penetration. “For example, while Nigeria and Egypt had increased their internet users by 33 million and eight million respectively over the past two years, South Africa has only increased its users by 2.3 million.

To compound the problem in the Western Cape, only 20 provincial government buildings, about 50 City of Cape Town buildings and 50 municipal sites were connected at 100MB/s or more.”

The plan would involve partnerships with stakeholders including licensed telecom service providers, banks, the Industrial Development Corporation and the Developmen Bank of SA, businesses as well as local and national government.

“All of this constitutes a huge investment in growth-creating infrastructure, most of which will be used as a powerful magnet for further investment from other spheres of government and from the private sector,” Zille said.

Cape Town Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry head Michael Bagraim said net access “is even more important than access to capital”. Without efficient interconnectivity, “business comes to a grinding halt”. - Cape Argus

How is it that a thief can still use a blacklisted BlackBerry? Wendy Knowler investigates.

Sharmaine Dhawnarain blacklisted her BlackBerry after hijackers stole it, along with her car and other valuables, at gunpoint last month.

By doing so, she believed that it would be listed as stolen and thus disabled electronically – in other words, it would become useless to the hijacker or anyone it was sold to.

But more than a week later, the hijacker was still merrily using the supposedly blacklisted BlackBerry.

Dhawnarain, an MTN subscriber, made the shocking discovery 11 days after she was hijacked in front of her two daughters at their home in Durban.

Then a friend of one of her daughters sent a BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) invitation to Dhawnarain, mistakenly using the PIN for the BlackBerry stolen during the hijacking.

“Imagine her surprise when she received a reply from my hijacker, who is still using my blacklisted cellphone!

“He even sent his profile picture. I was quite shocked to see it – he’s definitely one of the two men who hijacked me,” Dhawnarain said.

So either he’s not too bright, or incredibly brazen.

Incidentally, Dhawnarain’s car and handbag were recovered by her tracking company – only her BlackBerry was still missing.

So how is that hijacker able to keep using a blacklisted handset?

“I have queried this with MTN and have been advised that blacklisted cellphones are still operable,” Dhawnarain said. “But they tell me they can’t trace it. Imagine that.”

She has reported the information to the police, who will no doubt have more luck in getting that information from the network, should they be inclined.

Responding, MTN’s customer service executive, Eddie Moyce, said her phone was indeed blacklisted on its network, and the Equipment Identity Register (EIR), which is facilitated by Transunion ITC.

“Effectively, this prevents the device from being used on any of the other networks,” he said. “But the blacklisting of devices, for network usage, is only limited to those countries that have an EIR database, and who have subscribed to the Centralised Equipment Identity Register (CEIR).”

If the Blackberry had been taken into one of SA’s neighbouring countries, the blacklisting would not be effective, he said, because current legislation only applies within our borders.

Another possibility was that criminals had changed the phone’s IMEI number, he said.

“This means the same device reflects a new IMEI number on the network, which prevents the network from realising that the device is one which is blacklisted,” Moyce said.

Such tampering was illegal, according to RICA legislation, he said, but can’t be prevented because the phone’s IMEI is not hard-coded into it.

So, whether Dhawnarain’s Blackberry has had its IMEI number changed, or is being used outside SA, its BBM pin can still be used, making it possible for the hijacker to use her Blackberry messenging profile. Moyce said the Blackberry is not in use on any of the “home” networks. - The Star

Dublin Bus plans to install Wi-Fi technology on its fleet of 900 buses before the end of the year.

Dublin - Commuters in the Irish capital will be among the first in Europe to enjoy free internet access on city bus services.

Dublin Bus plans to install Wi-Fi technology on its fleet of 900 buses before the end of the year, allowing passengers to surf the internet, tweet and send emails while on the move. Wi-fi is internet access provided through a wireless system, meaning that people with laptops or smartphones can connect to the internet without plugging into a wall socket.

The service is commonly found in airports, coffee shops and hotels.

Yesterday it emerged that Dublin Bus will begin a two-month trial of the technology from next week on 10 Route 16 buses serving Santry and Ballinteer, and if the trials are successful it is planned to extend the service across the entire fleet.

Other public transport operators including Iarnrod Eireann and Bus Eireann have already started rolling out the technology.

Many private coach firms also offer the service and the National Transport Authority hopes to install Wi-Fi on Luas trams later this year.

Iarnrod Eireann has free Wi-fi on most trains between Dublin and Cork and the service will be available on 234 inter-city rail carriages as well as the DART and commuter fleet in Dublin by the end of the year.

More than 40 buses in the Bus Eireann fleet have free Wi-fi, and they operate on the Expressway services between Dublin and Galway and on commuter services in the Greater Dublin area and Cork.

“All 88 of the new fleet that will start to go into service in the coming weeks also have Wi-fi, and vehicles will be used on city, commuter and inter-city services across the country,” a spokesman said.

“We will be rolling-out Wi-fi across our inter-city services in 2012.”

The Dublin Bus contract is the biggest tendered to date but the costs are not yet known.

Documents published yesterday sought companies to provide Wi-Fi for up to 900 buses, but warned: “This project is funding dependent and there is no guarantee that it will proceed.”

A spokeswoman said the company hoped to install the technology but it was dependent on funding.

Although coach services in other European cities provide free Wi-fi, Madrid is the only other city in Europe which currently provides the service free to passengers on city buses, she added.

The National Transport Authority said funding would depend on the prices that would emerge through the tender process, and that it also hoped to roll out the system on the Luas tram system. - Irish Independent

Campaigners say our health is under attack from cellphones’ harmful electromagnetic radiation.

The ultimatum from the teachers at Eldorado Park Senior Secondary School in Joburg was clear: either the planned cellphone mast went, or they did. For Lionel Billings, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.

“I thought that I could rather lose the mast but not the teachers,” says Billings, the chairman of the school’s governing body. “My kids also attend the same school.”

The school entered into a contract with Cell C more than two years ago and a mast would provide a guaranteed income. “The thought of radiation was in the back of my mind… but some of the schools in the area do have these towers and I thought it can’t be that bad.”

But when construction started towards the end of last year, everything changed. “The teachers told me if the mast went up, they would leave. They had done their research and were concerned about the dangers of cellphone masts.

“Some of the research was very inconclusive, but the bottom line was that the word radiation was mentioned in every article. That was enough for them to say we don’t need this at our school. I don’t want to put our school’s 1 600 learners and 50 teachers at any risk. We don’t even allow cellphones at the school.”

Tracey-Lee Dorny, the chairwoman of the Electromagnetic Radiation Research Foundation of SA, applauds the school’s move, noting that a village in Spain has just removed a cellphone mast after 50 villagers contracted cancer or suffered from headaches, insomnia and depression.

Too many schools in SA allow the erection of cellphone masts on their grounds, says Dorny, despite “burgeoning” scientific evidence about the potential health effects of electromagnetic fields emitted by cellular base stations.

“There are thousands of papers showing possible links to cancer, and now increasing incidents of attention-deficit disorder, Alzheimer’s and diabetes from cellphone radiation,” she says.

“When I give talks to schools, the first thing I ask is who is sleeping with their cellphones under their pillows. Almost all the hands go up. You find our children hiding their cellphones on their bodies so that they don’t miss an SMS while their poor little breasts are being fried.

“I teach the children how dangerous phones are and not to put them in their bras or panties, sleep with them under their pillows and walk with them in their pockets.”

Like most South Africans, Dorny, an events organiser, was using her cellphone regularly two years ago. But when she and her family, who live in the upmarket suburb of Craigavon, Joburg, started to fall ill, they looked at the iBurst mast just metres from their home.

“I was actually using iBurst,” recalls Dorny. “But I ended up starting to vomit until I brought up blood. I had a rash from head to toe. It felt like my eyes were melting in my head. My husband had bleeding headaches. My son would wake up screaming in the middle of the night holding his head, which he said felt like a rocket had gone off.”

Dorny says the effects were so severe that the family could not live in their home for 18 months. Eventually, iBurst dismantled the mast, which had been illegally erected, but its former chief executive maintained it had been switched off for weeks at a time and denied it could be the cause of similar illnesses affecting scores of residents in the suburb.

Dorny believes she has another battle on her hands. She says MTN’s testing of 4G LTE (long term evolution) is “scorching” trees in her garden and the surrounding area, and is the source of growing reports of illnesses, including tinnitus, headaches, shooting pains, nausea and dizziness, in the suburbs where it is being conducted.

4G is the fourth generation of wireless communication standard for an era of ultra-fast broadband internet access.

“People ask me if we’ve had a fire here,” says Dorny, pointing to a cluster of some of the 60 burnt and blistered pine trees in her garden – she has numbered each one.

She says 4G has higher penetration levels into buildings, and “therefore into our bodies”. “My big concern is that we’ve got so many service providers rolling out waves and levels of radiation… but they are actually clueless about the damage they are causing… The only reason we have 4G is purely to now flog a whole generation of gadgets to the public. What sort of powers and frequencies are being transmitted to do this and what is it doing to people?”

But Dr Walter Meyer, a senior lecturer in the physics department at the University of Pretoria, disagrees. “In principle, electromagnetic radiation can cause heating effects. The best example is the microwave oven, but the kind of effect to scorch a tree would imply a serious health hazard to people.

“You actually start heating people up, cooking them. It’s certainly possible… but the power output of such a transmitter would be much higher than that which is used for cellphone communication. I doubt whether this scorching is due to cellphone radiation. To have those kinds of thermal effects you should in principle feel the heat.”

Ivan Booth, a former Vodacom spokesman, lashed out at Dorny’s “pseudo-science”.

“I’m willing to put a R1 million bounty out there to anyone who can prove that cellular base stations scorch pine trees,” he wrote.

But Dorny says several studies point to the deterioration of trees around masts. “I’m not an alarmist. I wish I could shout louder. What’s happening now with the mass of towers and all the different layers of technology on top of each other is you’re being exposed to electromagnetic radiation 24/7. You’re not having a choice of ‘I don’t want this coming into my home, it’s making me ill’. You can’t switch it off like you can your cellphone.”

SA is guided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the exposure guidelines published by the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). SA authorities say that there is no risk to the health of the general public from exposure to the microwave emissions of cellular base stations, for example.

Barrie Trower, a military scientist from the UK, on a visit to King Kgafela II of the Bakgatla tribe in Botswana, notes how there are at least 11 international committees that “vehemently” oppose both the WHO’s and ICNIRP’s safety levels.

“This is mostly due to the former’s safety levels being based… on thermal levels, whereas other international studies recognise responses to electrochemical interactions between microwaves and cellular biochemistry and set safety levels according to lower rates.”

The king had invited Trower to speak because he blamed the death of his father from a brain tumour on a cellphone mast erected near the royal residence.

Last May, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the WHO reclassified radio frequency electromagnetic fields as a Class 2B carcinogen – possibly carcinogenic to humans – because of links to some types of brain cancer.

“But this has been ignored by the industry,” says Dorny. “They will keep quoting the ICNIRP. But those guidelines have been declared obsolete by several governments, because it’s only based on six minutes of thermal heating on an adult male… not one organisation has yet declared what they feel is a safe level for children… We’re sitting in 2012 with masses of new technology and huge cellphone use.”

Late last year, a Danish study, billed as the largest of its kind, found that there were no increased risks of brain cancer from cellphone use after tracking 350 000 users for 18 years.

SA, says Dorny, should err on the side of caution and follow the example of Sweden, Canada, France and Switzerland, which have adopted safer radiation limits for their citizens and even prevented wireless fidelity (wi-fi) in schools.

She accuses government departments of passing the buck and leaving SA’s cellphone industry “unregulated” and uncontrolled.

The departments of Health, Environmental Affairs and Communications and the Independent Communications Authority of SA failed to respond to the IOS’s queries.

Last year, Olle Johansson, an associate professor at the department of neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and a scientific adviser to Dorny’s foundation, wrote an impassioned plea to the SA government. He said several studies had demonstrated “cellular DNA damage, disruptions and alterations” because of exposure to electromagnetic fields.

The ICNIRP/WHO public safety limits were inadequate and obsolete with respect to prolonged, low-intensity exposures, he said, and the precautionary principle should be in force in the implementation of this new technology, especially when it came to the exposure of children.

Dorny says her exposure to the iBurst mast made her electrosensitive, which means she becomes ill when exposed to electromagnetic radiation. She wears specially made nets to shield her from radiation at home and when she travels. According to her foundation, 3 percent of the world’s citizens are electrosensitive, and the number is surging.

Dorny is not averse to the use of technology but says that a properly planned fibre-optic network, “from backbone to final source”, is safer if broadband is to be expanded.

She even owns a cellphone. “It’s an ancient thing but I only use it for emergencies. It’s never on. I used to use my phone quite avidly. But I don’t feel well when I do use one. If I have to pick up a smartphone, it actually burns my hand.”

She adds: “Anything… that is going to make you sick is of concern. If it’s going to give you rashes, make you vomit, give you blurry vision, memory loss… that either happens till the signal goes down or you take yourself away.” - Saturday Star

UK service provider O2 says that a glitch had exposed the numbers of smartphone-toting customers who connected to the Internet via the company's network.

London - An untold number of UK residents may have unwittingly broadcast their numbers to sites across the web while browsing the Internet with their cellphones during the past two weeks.

Mobile service provider O2 said on Wednesday that a glitch had exposed the numbers of smartphone-toting customers who connected to the Internet over the company's network.

The company, a major subsidiary of Spain's Telefonica, S.A., has some 22 million customers in Britain. It was unclear how many of those may have been affected and a call seeking further comment from O2 was not immediately returned.

The glitch was “potentially very serious,” said Matt Bath, the technology editor for British consumer watchdog Which?

“You are making private information available into the wilds of the Web,” he said. “A lot of good websites won't do anything with that data at all (but) there's a potential for a rogue website to harvest the information. That is an open door when it comes to spam, which is annoying, but also outright scams.”

O2 said in a blog post that the company routinely shares its customers' telephone numbers with what it described as “trusted partners” for purposes such as age-verification and billing for premium content. But because of a glitch introduced during a routine maintenance operation around January 10, “there has been the potential for disclosure of customers' mobile phone numbers to further website owners.”

O2 said it had fixed the bug Wednesday and apologised for any concern caused. But Bath said the damage may already have been done.

“This genie is completely out of the bottle,” he said. “Some unruly website may be rubbing their hands with glee at the data bounty that's landed on their laps.”

The Information Commissioner's Office, Britain's data protection watchdog, said it was looking into the potential breach.

“When people visit a website via their mobile phone they would not expect their number to be made available to that website,” the office said in a statement. - Sapa-AP

Enterprises and public sector organisations will soon have to adopt Wi-Fi to cater for the insatiable demand for wireless connectivity.

Cape Town – Investment Bank JP Morgan estimates that sales of tablets will soar to 99.3 million in 2012, which coupled with the ever-increasing sales of smartphones, will result in more fixed line and wireless service providers, enterprises and public sector organisations adopting Wi-Fi to cater for the insatiable demand for wireless connectivity.

In fact, Chris Bruce, Chairman of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, stated that 2011 marked the beginning of ‘the golden age of public Wi-Fi” which mirrors the sentiments of Ruckus Wireless, a leading provider of advanced wireless systems for the mobile network market.

According to Ruckus Wireless, as the demand for Wi-Fi connectivity increases the market will experience the following specific developments during 2012:

Capacity will matter as much as coverage 2012

Wi-Fi capacity will become just as important an issue as Wi-Fi coverage in 2012 and service providers will have to deploy Wi-Fi networks with the bandwidth to cope with highly populated and dense environments, such as the crowds of spectators expected at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

This will become apparent as more wireless operators offload data traffic onto Wi-Fi networks and Wi-Fi hotspots become universally accessible thanks to the adoption of the 802.11u standard, which will allow users to roam seamlessly between hotspots without the need for constant authentication. It is estimated that service providers will spend up to $1 billion worldwide on Wi-Fi network expansion to support the need for greater capacity.

Three Wi-Fi devices per-person

As sales of smartphones and tablets with Wi-Fi capabilities continue to increase at a rapid rate we estimate that the average number of Wi-Fi enabled devices per person will reach three in 2012. Tablets have been adopted by consumers and businesses alike and they are optimised for entertainment consumption and corporate use.

Apart from smartphones and tablets other Wi-Fi enabled-devices include laptops, games consoles and printers. Many users are now taking their devices into the workplace, and into schools or universities, to act as a substitute for a PC to conduct a range of different tasks.

In addition to the above, Ruckus Wireless predicts that:

The number of Wi Fi connections will equal or surpass all other type of network connectivity in 2012

Wi-Fi range and speeds will double by the end of 2012

The adoption of 802.11u will become rampant in 2012 bringing carriers into the enterprise market

Wi-Fi capacity will overtake Wi-Fi coverage as the number one issue for wireless in 2012

“Based on the accelerating activity of the past six months, the industry can expect to see rapid expansion of Wi-Fi networks worldwide that will open up new markets and enable broadband users to enjoy the truly reliable and high-bandwidth experience they’ve been waiting for,” concludes Michael Fletcher, Sales Director: Sub-Saharan Africa at Ruckus Wireless.

Plan to bring broadband to “every town and village” as South Africa lags behind world.

South Africa has been left flat-footed by the rest of the world in terms of internet usage and connectivity after having been on par with the likes of North America, Europe and Australia.

As a result, the Western Cape provincial government and the City of Cape Town have now set themselves targets to have citizens in every town and village in the province get access to affordable broadband infrastructure at a minimum network speed of 1 000Mbps (megabits per second) by 2030.

As part of their infrastructure milestones, the province and city now want all government buildings in the province connected by 2014. And by 2020, every citizen in every town and village are to have access to affordable broadband infrastructure. People in the metropolitan area have access to affordable broadband infrastructure at network speeds in excess of 100Mbps.

Presenting the Western Cape Broadband Strategy and Plan during Tuesday’s mayoral committee meeting, IT consultant Nirvesh Sooful said a lot of work still has to done in terms of information and communications technology (ICT).

“ICT is an accelerator of economic growth. But the plan is going to the provincial cabinet for formal ratification. As we’ve developed in this 20-year period, South Africa has largely remained the same while the rest of the world has moved ahead. Some have caught up to South Africa and moved ahead.”

In his presentation Sooful said the province’s vision was that of “a Western Cape where every citizen in every town and village has access to affordable high-speed broadband infrastructure and services, has the necessary skills to be able to effectively utilise this infrastructure”.

“We are being left behind by the rest of the world. We need to get our act together, we need synergy,” Sooful said.

He said priority projects have been identified such as connecting households and “plotting” 8 000 points of government in the province.

Also in the pipeline is the installation of “wireless mesh” for Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain which will need R45 million in funding and will cover an area of 72km2.

He said Mitchells Plain and Gugulethu were furthest behind in terms of the household internet distribution gap in the city, while the Southern Suburbs had the highest household internet distribution.

For this financial year, the city has committed R11.2m for its broadband programme with the provincial government putting aside R18.5m to connect provincial buildings.

For the 2012/13 financial year, R45m has been budgeted, but with a R25m shortfall needed to complete the core network not being budgeted for.

Mayoral committee member for corporate services Demetri Qually said ICT was as important an item of infrastructure as roads and seerwage works.

“The city and province have been working well together and there are exciting possibilities,” Qually said.

Mayor Patricia de Lille said the city would discuss where to get some of the funding to make up the R25m shortfall.

“But we can’t underestimate the value of broadband. We will certainly find the money,” De Lille said. - Cape Times

Due to the country’s historically slow internet expansion, South Africans have restricted their online behaviour to fall within their bandwidth allotment.

Cape Town - Uncapped Internet was first launched in South Africa almost two years ago, but many South Africans have yet to make the switch to an unhindered Internet experience.

Carolyn Holgate, MWEB Connect GM, says one of the reasons for this is it's hard for consumers to know what they’re missing out on when they have not experienced an uncapped Internet scenario or don’t have friends who have an uncapped Internet connection.

“MWEB has launched a website (www.mweb.co.za/getuncapped) to help you understand what uncapped Internet offers you. The site also explains how to set up your various devices (laptops, smartphones, tablets and PCs) to get the most out of your uncapped Internet account,” she says.

The website features three characters and unpacks the hardware they use, their favourite online destinations, communities, videos, images and infographics.

There are the entertainment buffs - a couple downloading music and movies and streaming live content and using sites like the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), Soundcloud (http://soundcloud.com) and LastFM (www.last.fm).

Lastly, there’s the social media addict, connecting to the Internet from her smartphone via a Wi-Fi connection using Facebook (http://www.facebook.com) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com), while checking out fun videos on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com), LOLCats (http://icanhascheezburger.com/) and AutoCorrect (http://damnyouautocorrect.com)

The same characters also appear in a TV advert that will begin on 16 January 2012, or you can see it on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/MWEB?sk=wall.

The campaign was designed to give you a glimpse of an uncapped Internet lifestyle, as well as a taste of the extensive and exciting content the Internet has to offer, with some quick and easy tips on how to optimise your Internet experience, Holgate says.

Due to the country’s historically slow Internet expansion, South Africans have restricted their online behavior to fall within their bandwidth allotment. Aside from email, the occasional web browsing and Internet banking, most people haven’t yet harnessed the full power of the Internet and don’t know how to tap into it.

“Uncapped Internet access opens up a new world of opportunity, enabling you to enrich your personal and professional lives with information and entertainment, community and commerce. From watching your favourite shows online to making VoIP calls; shopping or gaming online; you can now explore content without having to worry about being capped,” says Holgate.

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Maybe it’s time to take a closer look at just what you are spending, what you receive in return, whether you could be saving costs and, most importantly, whether the communications system you’re using (or planning to use) suits your business growth plans and your business operations.

We are conducting a survey to find out whether businesses understand what’s on offer to them in the telecommunications sphere. So please do take just five-minutes to complete a quick survey and, at the same time, find out more about whether your current telecommunications solution is ticking all your boxes.

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Berlin's mayor has thrown his weight behind plans for free wireless Internet service in central districts of the German capital.

Berlin - Berlin's mayor threw his weight on Thursday behind plans for free wireless Internet service in central districts of the German capital, saying it was an economic necessity.

“We will strengthen broadband and work to introduce a free-of-charge Wifi network since infrastructure policy for a capital city in the digital age also means ensuring speedy Internet access,” Klaus Wowereit told the city-state parliament.

“The economy needs it and it is our social responsibility to prevent a digital divide,” the Social Democrat said.

Although the plan has previously failed, Wowereit, who won re-election in September, wants to follow the example of London and the western German city of Aachen, the Tagesspiegel newspaper said.

The Pirate party, which shot to prominence last year after securing seats in Berlin's regional parliament for the first time, also calls for free wireless Internet service for all. - Sapa-AFP