Last night we had an awesome dinner at Moyo of Spier. It is a very cool, African restaurant. It was supposed to be an informal social gathering before the official program started today. I ate far too much and slept even better.

We then got up bright and early with a farm style breakfast. We then had a few introductory talks including some publicity for Rhodes CoE, when we signed an agreement with Etheopia and Namibia. Incidentally the coference is being streamed here (the stream is awful) and is available on DSTV's summit tv (channell 55).

The first session was dead boring with five talks:

1. Interactive address by Telkom's COO and CMO. They detailed Telkom's plans for the future. MPLS and IP based with broadband services.
2. Profitable Migration Strategies towards the future network. Detailed strategies for data enabling existing SDH infastructure and building 'future proof' MPLS networks.
3. Evolution of Wireless Broadband. This was an advert for WiMax, which is a merging of HyperMax (spelt Hiper?) and 802.16. It looks promising with it's best feature being longer distances and not requiring line of sight.
4. eLearning. This was an interesting talk about the promise behind eLearning. There was very little practical information, but more theory. The main theory is that eLearning should be more than reading but aim to build virtual classrooms combined with the benefits of computing and networks such as collaboration, interactivity and a research oriented approach.

Lunch was good, but I am over food.

Currently we are in the panel discussion about 'fixed vs mobile'. So far it is some big players, Telkom, Vodacom, BT and ETSI individually detailing their way forward both in implementation and marketing strategies. Afterwards they had a debate. Some of the more interesting questions were:

• What are the results of the new VoIP regulation announced on Thursday?
• Telkom - The announcement will create about 200 PSTN operators, a big-bang approach to liberalisation. Telkom feels it has opened up opportunities for them to lead but it depends on the regulations. Telkom wants 'rules to the game'.
• Vodacom - It is in the interests of the consumer. Telkom isn't in danger as it has a huge infastructure that others will find hard to replicate.
• BT - The chairs are really comfortable. Deregulation was a very positive thing for BT as it made the marketplace more exciting and opened up new opportunities to deliver more shareholder value.
• ETSI - The regulation needs to be fully understood before people use it. Telkom is lucky to have connections with BT as they have gone through this before.
• How are you keeping it simple?
• There was a general agreement on a need for openess, ubiquity and convergence, however there must be a balance to prevent over standardisation which stifles innovation.
• We don't have a convergance bill. Should we have one and would it work?
• Telkom - I don't think there is a need for it and it won't help the customer.
• ETSI - Regulation is a necessary evil. I doubt SA needs a bill to force convergance as it will happen anyway.

The rest of the questions were pretty uninteresting. We went off to Tea and then the full papers. The first half of the day can be summarised as 'most telecom networks are moving to IP and they will ensure Qos with MPLS, also WiMax looks interesting and education is important'. I was not impressed and very bored.

After lunch we had the full papers. I either picked a bad bunch or the quality of the presentations was terrible all round. I learnt almost nothing, laughed at people re-implementing well solved problems, badly, and got pissed off that I had to be subjected to this. I will not waste my time eviewing the drivel I saw. Lets's hope Day 2 gets better.

The evening was great. We went to a 5-star restaurant at Spier with the CoE's new partners from Namibia and Etheopia. I had seafood pasta which cost more than my education and great wine which cost more than my kidneys could fetch. We then retired to Yusuf and my room with a fire, Muskadel and some good geek conversation. A good end to a bad day.