Well, we have been and gone. The conference was alright. There were two talks which I particularly enjoyed:
- A Fuzzy Logic Based Dual Explicit Congestion Notification Mechanism for TCP/IP Networks, C. N. Nyirenda (University of Kwazulu Natal)
- Spread Spectrum Voice over IP, E. P. Wentworth (Rhodes University)
The first was incredibly informative and taught me quite a bit about router congestion algorithms, his proposed model also looked quote good, but his resulting congestion graphs looked suspiciously smooth.
The second was particularly interesting and is based on the idea of 'the stupid network'. My favorite quote was "building intelligence into the network isn't to support technology it is to support business models." The other interesting quote showing that the money is in building services not charging for bandwidth was:
British Telecomms - Established 1800 (and something), massive capital infrastructure.
Google - 10 years old, minimal capital infrastructure and already worth three times what BT is.
Something that irked me a bit was the opening ceremony where our Minister of Science and Technology read out a pre-prepared speech which mentioned development and upliftment of the poor a total of once and which sounded like (on a charitable interpretation) he meant it as secondary to the needs of the developed world. Something I hope (but doubt) the rest of the government will chide him for. After the speeches there was a panel discussion and I was itching to unleash the question I had been preparing for two weeks on the Telkom CEO, however the panel chair had been watching too much John Edwards and thought he would ask the sorts of questions he could 'sense' the audience was wanting him to ask.
As for the social aspects. The opening night was hysterical. They went for a trance, futuristic, spacey theme that was one pair of shoulder pads away from the 80s. The random shots of space on the projector followed by Zulus (with Microphones) dancing was overlayed with the now famous colonial voice shouting "Wozani, Kingdom of Africa", and never properly linked to the theme. Either way the food was delicious and it all ran smoothly.
The second night we had a braai with participants from Rhodes, Fort Hare, Nelson Mandela Metropilitan, University of Pretoria and some late comers in the form of UCT electrical engineers. It was fun and appeared far more wild than it was when a lecturer from NMMU swerved onto our lawn in a stolen golf cart (which he later returned).
The closing function was a blast, Mean Mr. Mustard (South Africa's largest band I understand) played at a well catered (both solids and liquids) function which started with some reluctant dancing and ended up in a late night.
The downside to all of this is that my trip was paid for by Telkom, a monopoly I dislike. In addition to this much of the equipment I use every day and the building I work in is also partly paid for by said monopoly. This makes me a bit of a hypocrite with a touch of ungrateful whelp. However I still think Telkom and our government have many sins to atone for and their forced effective monopoly of the telecoms industry is doing much damage to the development of our second economy.
There has been a surprising amount of fuss over this, so I thought I should clear some things up.I haven't written terribly complementary things about SATNAC or their primary Sponsor Telkom. One such entry (which has now been removed) was just plain rud
Tracked: Sep 20, 12:53