[lugm.org] Announcing a Mauritian tech forum

Wed Dec 18 11:13:19 UTC 2013

I was hoping not to get into this discussion because I always keep the
sarcastic smile when it comes to local hosting ( :

How do you want me to host my "personal" blog on a local server that would
cost Rs 16,400 per month and a .mu domain for nearly Rs 1,800/year.

I am a proud Mauritian geek yet my VPS runs in US and I have a .in domain.
Why? I can't spend tons to be a tiny part in scaling down the price. What
can I do then? I blog, I promote open standards & when I come across a
local hosting provider I smile sarcastically because they do not have
"decent local products". When tomorrow we'll have thousands of local
bloggers hosting outside Mauritius & the local hosting is forced to be
scaled down I'll gladly migrate my stuffs. I rather spend my time & energy
to get people to use technology at lowered costs rather than them spending
a lot on not-so-productive stuffs and after some time they gonna stop using
because it's costing them too much.

Cheers!

Ish

On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Nishal Goburdhan <ndg at ieee.org> wrote:

> On 17 Dec 2013, at 10:33 PM, selven <pcthegreat at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Ipv6, great stuffs, but why would i change if currently v4 is not much a
> problem for me. Even as a tech user i just adapt only out of need to keep
> myself as lazy as possible.
>
> this appears to largely be a repeat of avinash's question ("what does IPv6
> bring"), so i'll try to answer both here *briefly*.
>
> the short answer is that you live and work in an environment where the
> basis for your connection (IPv4) is now depleted.  there is *no* other
> sustainable solution for the future other than IPv6, so if you plan to
> continue to live and work in this environment, when do you plan to develop
> the skills to do this?  when you absolutely need it in a pinch, or now (or,
> 5years ago) so that you're prepared for this transition.
>
> you're blindly buffered into believing that NAPT is going to continue to
> scale, and allow you to run your business in the same manner you do now.
> because, you see this (NAPT) working in your small networks now, and equate
> that similar operation to what a carrier would need to do, at the same
> level of operation.  that's...quite incorrect!  and it's simple to
> understand - resources (memory, ports, hash-algorithms) are all finite, and
> *will* be consumed by ever greedy, ever hungy additional connections.
>
> i always find that amusing;  particularly, since the blue-chip vendors who
> are building these large carrier-grade NAT boxes, are the same ones saying:
>  "um..guys, sure, we're selling you this stuff, and we know it won't
> scale....(but we still want your money)".
>
> there are many more reasons why you should go IPv6 :-)   but i promised my
> answer would be brief.  and there are other people here that probably also
> want to contribute (you know who you are!)
>
> you can get lots more info here:
> http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/ipv6/all-ipv6-resources/
>
>
> > Mauritian hosting easy to say but how do you provide cheap hosting given
> the crappy connection versus price we have here?
>
> economists talk about economies of scale that are needed to drive down
> prices.
> how do you *ever* plan to drive down pricing to what you're willing to
> accept as "decent", if you don't start building scale ?
>
> if you continue to invest in the $3 SaaS $colo_provided_vm, you're never
> going to grow your local business sectors.  well, that is until your
> regulator realises that, as a country you're spending XX-million hosting
> outside the country, and in an effort to improve the BoP, they pass a law
> that says all mauritian content *must* be hosted in-country.   (really, you
> think i'm dreaming?  think again!!)
>
> today, we have lots of colo centres in ZA;  local hosting is a fraction of
> what it used to be a decade ago.
> it's still more expensive than a VM in SFO, but, there's sufficient
> realisation that there is true value in keeping content in country.
> (for a start, it actually *does* make it a lot tougher for the NSA to get
> to... :-p)
> how are you - as the assumed informed crowd - promoting this
> want/need/desire to keep things in-country?
> because - honestly - if you don't sit up and promote these ideas, whom do
> you expect to?
> do you active choose *not* to purchase from a non-local site?
> and then *tell* the operator why you're boycotting him?
>
> true story:  when i landed in MU in 2009, i needed a bank account.  i
> thought SBM would be the natural bank to use;  that is, until i saw that
> their website was hosted in australia.  i wrote to them, to tell them that
> they had lost a customer.  and *why*.  if more people did that, don't you
> think that they'd sit up, and take notice?   between then, and 2012, when i
> left, i convinced 4 other expat staff at our MU office, *not* to use SBM,
> and in each case to send SBM a letter (we cheated;  they used my template).
>  you - as a consumer - need to start using your single most important
> weapon - your wallet - to determine how you make purchasing decisions.
>
> on my last trip to MU (circa May 2013) i spoke to an ISP that had recently
> put in a direct interconnection, between ZA and MU.
> i just checked - it's still in place.  so, right now, that's roughly 60ms
> between JNB and ebene.
> right now, both their regular competitors have roughly 400ms back to MU
> from my home in JNB.
> they (progressive ISP) were looking for ideas on how to resell this
> capacity.
> out of curiousity, i asked them for regular pricing;  they were on par 15%
> cheaper than two other larger ISPs that i know of.
> so.  cheaper, and faster.  mm...can you honestly tell me that you can't
> think of at least seven different business ideas here, none of which
> involve hosting in MU?
> (and really, if you can't, then let me know if you have oodles of venture
> capital, because i certainly can !!)
>
> how do you eat an elephant  ?
>
>
> > Singapore, some ips go through malaysia some still goes through linx
> weird peering. That is also why am unable to use my quakelive premium
> account in singapore any more, latency is a b*tch.
>
> so, in one sentence, you complain about latency being a b***h,.....but,
> then collectively, largely don't see a problem with overseas hosting?
> something smells fishy here :-)
>
>
> > How would you propose to solve the hosting problem without having to
> give up all your fortune to MT and still get any profit out of it? Setting
> up local exchange points and bypassing isp crazy rivalry? Who sponsors the
> scene?
>
> i have enough equipment in my home right now, to sponsor you, if you
> wanted to build an internet exchange point.
> and speaking as someone that currently manages three (3) active IXes, i
> can tell you that it doesn't take a lot of time and effort to run these.
>  but why build a new one, when there's already an IX in ebene?  better
> questions would be:
> * why isn't this IX working?
> * what can be done to revive it?
> * if the ISPs aren't going to do this themselves, how can we, as civil
> society, organise ourselves to get this done?
> don't downplay the role of well organised public outcry.  the mybroadband
> forum that i mentioned earlier, managed to get some amazing stuff done to
> get transparency from the different broadband operators here.  still not at
> the point where we'd want, but...better than before.
>
> there are more operators than MT (yip, true story!).  so start "voting
> with your wallet" and showing support to the other operators, who would
> probably be really interesting in looking for new business ideas, as they
> *need* to eat into MT's market share...
> it's still possible to deploy simple services, and virtualise around that
> - heck it's so much easier to do this now, than it was a decade ago.  if
> you hope to make money out of selling the simple web-hosting, perhaps you'd
> better re-think your model.  operators are fast realising that bandwidth,
> hosting etc are commodities, and the "S" in ISP is what people really want.
>
> i can say more, but that would require you wave that venture capital
> cheque at me :-)
>
>
> > :) the problem is not technical it is with the people itself no one can
> do anything about it because of the society's corruptive nature.
>
> honestly, selven, that's a defeatist argument, and i know, that you know
> better.
> if what you're saying is true, then no country with a single incumbent
> could have ever hope to be successful.  and history shows us otherwise.  so
> instead of throwing your hands up in the air, and crying foul, find ways to
> work within the system, while getting the system to change to what
> you/society/industry/blah believe it should be.
> where *is* your civil society representation?  what happened to ISOC-MU?
> who represents your individual interests in policy making (if this is a
> concern for you?)   a year or so ago, there was a consultative paper
> request for the redelegation of .MU, put forth by the ICTA;  i recall,
> because i posted it here.  did anyone (besides SM) comment on it?  :-)
> before this de-reails any more from the original thread, i'd like to echo
> what i said earlier:  for this (or anything) to succeed, it requires
> community participation.
>
>
> > Binary.mu might work, i remember when i was still running hackers.mu it
> used to run decently with decent amount of ppl without me actually doing
> anything to it. Problem is you need lots of patience to keep focus into
> moderating the place.
> > Good luck for binary.mu
>
>
> ....or, you need a plan to make, and keep it sustainable.
>
> again - i'll remind you - i raised these two issues, because, the
> "techies" are often looked upon to shape the way things move.  if you're
> not seeing the value of, and/or need for either IPv6, or local hosting,
> well, quite frankly, i'd be quite worried about your vision of the future...
>
> --n.
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