SMS Alert System

It’s immediately apparent that there was a lack of communication in such an emergency. Radios can only do so much. After all, you need a radio close and switched on to be able to hear announcements.

An alert system would make use of SMS messages to alert people about what to do and areas to avoid. The messages must be short and easily understandable. For e.g., in case of a flood, the messages would contain a list of regions to avoid and in case of a cyclone, it would contain the current Class alert like Class 3 now in place as soon as it is decided. For torrential rain, it would inform people that schools are closed for the day.

There are a few things to remember if such a system is to be put in place:

• The messages must be easy to understand. French is preferred since it’s close to Creole.
• The messages must be short. You can only say so much in 160 characters.
• The messages must not be sent too frequently, otherwise people would disregard them. They must only be used for the most important of messages.
• All heads of emergency services in Mauritius should be able to send messages, including Police, Traffic Unit, Fire Services, Health Services, Met Services and maybe, the Prime Minister’s Office. Access to the service should be distributed so that important messages do not get delayed by bureaucratic slowness.
• The system could cause additional load on an already-strained mobile network if there is an emergency.

For the fourth point, it’s possible to use cell-based location to restrict who gets what messages. For e.g., a flood alert and evacuation notice can be broadcast to only people in Port-Louis and surrounding regions, but not to people in Souillac. This would restrict the load to only a region of the mobile network and not affect everyone. If needed, the network could assign higher priorities to those emergency SMS broadcasts, dropping normal user SMSs if required to alleviate load on the network.

Extending the idea further, a special number, like the well-known “96″ for cyclone information could be set up for emergency announcements. People could ring the number and hear a recorded message on what is happening and what to do. Ideally, this number should be the same number that sends emergency SMS messages.

A Twitter account for collaborative information sharing

Just like the @WeatherMu account re-tweets about #weathermu hashtags, a Twitter account could be set up to relay important information to the public in real-time. This method also allows for less intrusive alerts to be sent to users, as well as instructions.

To ensure people can communicate with each other, the account could be on the lookout for special hash-tags and re-tweet messages that people might send. For e.g. if you saw an accident on the motorway, you could tweet about it (after stopping your vehicle, of course) and the account would selectively re-tweet it, cutting down on spammy tweets. So, it would work as a two-way communication channel and possibly become a collaborative effort.

This idea can be implemented quite easily I believe, even without Government intervention. A “collaborative” Twitter channel that would aggregate important events about happenings in Mauritius, live. The same idea can be implemented on Facebook, possibly via a Facebook group and the information relayed to Twitter and vice-versa.

However, if Government were to do it, it would be more trust-worthy. Also, in times of non-emergency, the police could use the account to broadcast non-emergency messages such as roads to avoid because of traffic jams or because an accident is causing slow downs. Again, it has to be used only for important information, not to tell people to not speed on the roads. People will stop caring if they receive too many “spammy” messages or tweets.

Well, those two ideas occurred to me, and I thought it would be a good idea to share and get the opinion of the community. If you have other ideas about how technology could be used to improve communication in times of emergency, to reach a large number of people, please post your suggestions in the comments section below.

This article comes from GeekScribes

Mauritius March 2013 Flood – Two Ideas

The ideas mentioned in the post on Yashvin’s blog are mentioned here for simplicity: competition among ISP, removal of VAT on technology items, more international IT companies, improving IT education, computerization of governmental bodies, more emphasis on electronic, mechanic and electric engineering and finally, invest in research.

Good ideas, but the emphasis should be on education first. However…

Education is not sufficient

That’s a fairly big problem. Education alone is not sufficient if you don’t use what you have learnt: you simply forget what you don’t use often. I can’t remember how many times I’ve taught my dad how to attach files in an email. A relatively simple thing: click a button, choose a file, click ok. He never remembers, often forgetting what button to click to start with!

Why is that? Because he rarely sends emails, perhaps once a month at best. Brains are designed like that. Things that are not used often are forgotten while other more common activities are given priority. Attaching a file? Never remembers. Searching for a particular football match on satellite TV? With almost 10 steps to accomplish the task? That he remembers! Why? Because that’s an activity he does very often.

Consider IC3. What does IC3 teach you? To type letters, use spreadsheets and do presentations. Good things, yes? For a student or an office worker. Now, take a bus driver who has just completed her IC3 course. One week after, she knows how to do presentations. How is that useful to her? Does a bus driver make presentations often? I doubt. I am ready to bet that in less than 3 months, she will have forgotten most of IC3. I will also bet that the part she will remember most is how to use the Internet, if she does remember something. Why? Because the Internet is useful to her, to check out videos, Facebook, Loto results or whatever people generally do online.

Making IT useful

So how do we make IT something people use often? By making technology take a center place in people’s lives. Yashvin’s blog proposes to computerize governmental bodies. That’s the way to do it. By providing services.

If the services provided are helpful on a day-to-day basis, people will use them, and they will be motivated to learn the technology required to use the services. Not only will people learn, they will motivate others in their environment to learn too, as the others start appreciating the benefits of servvices being provided.

Teaching people just for the sake of figures, to boast that 300,000 people or whatever are now IC3-educated, is worthless. I believe the approach should be different. Give people a reason to use technology, then after they have started, educate them to use the tool better and discover other tools that could be useful.

The lack of online services

Here is the big problem Mauritius needs to overcome, before calling itself a Cyber Island. The lack of useful services in Mauritius must be filled. Well, we do have a few online services, including online banking, filing your tax forms online, reading newspapers and watching local video programmes, among other things.

However, these things are way too basic, almost a given in today’s times. People were filling forms online in 1999, and it’s only in 2011 (if I remember correctly) that Mauritians were able to fill their tax forms online! Online banking? Yes, through horrible systems that make you jump through hoops just to accomplish simple tasks. Definitely not services that people would be interested in using daily. Useful services, true, but not essential on a daily basis.

So the problem is two-fold: not enough services, and the services already provided tend to have usability issues. Like? Try accessing gov.mu from your mobile. Such a pleasant experience.

Useful services?

A large, large number of useful services. That’s what we’re missing. We hardly have any useful eServices to use! Want proof?

Allow me to list 20 simple things that would be very useful to you, things that you would do almost daily, but are unable to do through technology in Mauritius to start:

1. Check live bus schedules to know when the next bus is due, depending on your location. You can still check which bus to take, but not live schedules.
2. Get live traffic information so as to avoid congested roads at peak hour.
3. Have an electronic travel card, so you don’t have to carry loose change when paying for transport. Just touch the card to a device and you travel.
4. Check the stock of a shop / supermarket / bookstore / store from their website.
5. If the stock is available, reserve the item for pickup. Otherwise, order and reserve it, with the shop notifying you when your item is ready. This assumes ePayment services are not available.
6. Order pizza online for delivery.
7. Buy your groceries online.
8. Buy something online from a local store, anything at all such as a simple pen.
9. Book a seat at your favorite restaurant for a dinner or a seat at the cinema so you don’t have to queue.
10. Book a taxi online (or even over the phone – who do you call? 150?)
11. Watch a live football match or live programme that is currently being broadcast by MBC online, BBC iPlayer style.
12. Top up your mobile from your network provider’s website, and perhaps put a standing order to auto-topup your mobile every month through your credit card.
13. Book an appointment with your doctor / optician / mechanic / car retailer online.
14. Local search – find the best dhol puri seller in your region according to user reviews.
15. Subscribe to a newspaper online, access the full content and download an offline copy to your phone / tablet.
16. Get an SMS notification when you have mail waiting for you at the post office / customs
17. Search for shops / businesses around you on a map, even Google Map (try “computer shops in Port Louis” as a search query for example, see what you get)
18. Get free online videos from the national Universities about general topics of interest, setting aside specialist videos for now
19. See what events are being organized by your city / town / municipality / village council and register your participation online.
20. Find / Join a sports / activity / hobbies club in your region online.

Convinced that the eServices we already have are not so useful yet? I’ve tried to include only things people do almost daily in the list above. Granted, you yourself probably don’t join a sports club daily, but that’s something people do quite often. These services are probably more useful to your bus-driver. She would probably be more motivated to learn technology if in doing so, she’d be able to use these services (were they available).

You can argue against these point by saying that some of them are available over the phone, such as checking the stock of a shop – you just call. There are no formal commitments by phone. If you reserve online, they will have your details and can pester you if you don’t commit to pick your item or get your seat. You can also manage your reservations and cancellations alone, without having to rely on a person to ensure she got what you want right. Just try booking a cinema seat over the phone in Mauritius and see what happens!

A lack of will

I can’t understand how our local shops can afford not to have websites in 2012. I would understand if the small corner shop doesn’t have a website, but what reason do large companies have?

Let’s see the websites of a few big Mauritian companies, shall we? This is just to illustrate my point, not to badmouth them. But seriously, they should get their game together by now!

United Bus Service (UBS) – No website available through a quick Google search.

J. Kalachand – A big name furniture, electronics, vehicle retailer. Website still under construction.

Jumbo Score Hypermarket – No website that I could find, thus no way to find stock / promotions. Shoprite has a website, but doesn’t list any of the products they sell.

Bookcourt Mauritius – A well-stocked bookstore. No website that lists stock.

Galaxy Mauritius – Website available, with serious usability issues. Prices are listed inside images (not searchable). Some sections just have images, and no prices. Clicking on them just increases the size of the image, without giving a description or price. Copyright notice at the bottom of page shows 2009.

This gives the impression that some of our local companies simply don’t care about their online image and presence.

Fortunately, that’s not the case for other companies, who seem to care more about their online presence. Companies like Orange and Emtel have better designed sites and services. Why can’t I make online topups from their websites? You’d think as local ISPs, they’d be setting the standard for online presence, but sadly, even they lag behind.

Interestingly, the Government of Mauritius might be leading the way towards the introduction of eServices! At least, if you believe all the measures announced in the Budget 2012 will be implemented. Let’s hope they are, and that they inspire the rest to implement their own.

Step 1

So long as we don’t have meaningful online services, Mauritius cannot claim the title of Cyber Island. You start with the general population. The rest follows. Just to compare with Yashvin’s guest post to finish:

You want to provide eServices? You will need good Internet infrastructure, which encourages competition among ISPs. More companies would want to settle in to provide services if customers are interested. To do so, they would need qualified local labour, which demands increases in IT education standards and investment in research. After companies start providing services, Government would be motivated to follow suit, encouraging computerization of its own services. Just a simple scenario, but you can see how introducing eServices help build the IT sector of a country.

You want to turn Mauritius in a Cyber Island? Start by providing useful services, and getting local companies to provide same. We seriously need our local services to become up and ready. You provide useful services, people start using these services and in the process, learn IT and embrace technology. That’s a “cyber island”, if there’s any such thing.

This article comes from GeekScribes

Cyber Island Mauritius: Not Without eServices

I think I got all of the IT related measures, but if I missed any, drop me a word in the comments.

Decrease in price for entry-level Broadband

The price of the cheapest broadband available, which I believe is Orange Decouverte, currently priced at Rs. 349 a month, capped at 3GB, 256Kbps will be decreased to Rs. 200 a month to allow financially-vulnerable families access to broadband.

This is a good measure. I’m always for seeing the Internet price falling in Mauritius. This, coupled with another measure that comes later in this article, regarding tablets, will increase the Internet penetration in Mauritius if implemented.

Decrease in International Lease Line prices

A 15% decrease in International line price will be effected, which should reduce Internet connection prices across the board for operators. Again, a good measure considering that we’re paying large amounts for slow connections. Overall, I guess we’ll be expecting a cut in Internet price cut by the end of the year, if not the start of the next year from the major operators. Hopefully!

Note, this is not a direct cut in Internet prices, but this one will follow some time later, as operators decide what the cut will be.

While I’d rather the speed increases instead of price falling so often, this is still a welcome measure. I hope Bharat Telecom hears! Especially on their higher-end Internet connections.

Extending fiber optic connection to secondary schools

This should allow secondary schools to benefit from higher Internet connections. Honestly, am not sure this can be implemented so easily. Considering how BTL is having issues rolling out its fiber network, am not sure the Government will be able to do a better or faster job at rolling out fiber to all our secondary schools, scattered all throughout the island.

Well if they do, all for the better since it’ll be developing the overall fiber network of Mauritius, which at this moment, is virtually inexistant for home users. I believe businesses and exchanges are already benefiting from fiber, but we need faster Internet for homes, and without fiber, this isn’t going to happen soon. Fiber rollout must happen sooner or later if Mauritius wishes to wear the tag “Cyber Island” with pride. I do hope the ISPs  hear and start considering Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH).

Increase the number of 4G hubs in Mauritius and sharing poles etc…

Mauritius is one of the rare countries in the Indian Ocean that has started 4G rollout, although 4G itself hasn’t been standardized yet as far as I know. Nevertheless, it’s a great measure, at least if it is implemented.

Faster internet on-the-go is always a welcome measure, assuming the price is right. We’ll see how this is implemented, given how the rollout decisions lie with mobile operators and not with Government.

Freeing wireless spectrum by turning off  analogue TV

This was already announced in a past budget, so nothing new here. I guess the freeing up of spectrum would allow more wireless services in Mauritius, and a less crowded spectrum overall.

Revamping of Privacy Laws, especially regarding Cloud Computing

Unfortunately the Minister was not too clear about what will be revamped, except mentioning the measure. There are many things to fix, and I wish that Mauritius would make Internet access a legal right to Mauritians as a few other countries have done.

I’d wish there were tighter data protection laws, data retention laws for cloud providers, ISPs etc, but at the moment, there’s nothing more on this. Definitely something to look forward to, but again, if it is implemented.

Increasing the bandwidth to Rodrigues

Rodrigues will soon be expecting an Internet speed boost if this measure is implemented. Rodrigues is to be allocated more bandwidth through the LION 2 cable and newly established satellite links.

That was regarding the Internet-related measures. On to the remaining measures announced.

All Form 4 students to be allocated a Tablet

Yup! So now, all Form 4 kids will be allocated a tablet. For them to conduct research and whatever else they wish to do on tablets. Unfortunately, the Minister doesn’t mention which tablet that is, but I guess it will be the Rs. 3000 tablet that Orange is marketing. That should be affordable enough for the Government while at the same time provide appreciable performance for day to day apps. The company would be very happy I guess, providing 20, 000 tablets for kids. The people will have to spend a Rs. 500 one-time fee to cover insurance in case of damage or loss.

Well, it’s a good thing to increase IT penetration in Mauritius. However, I doubt how useful a tablet is on itself for actually doing research and typing documents and assignments that are required for school. Still a good measure, if you don’t have a laptop or computer at home. You can always hook a keyboard to Android and start typing.

Oh and in case you’re wondering about Internet access for kids under 18, the tablet will be “reasonably protected against Internet abuse” as the Minister said.

Parliamentarians will be provided with a Tablet

I guess the parliamentarians will not want to be left out. After the IT Minister was laughed at for using his tablet in the parliament, the Finance Minister has announced that every parliamentary will be provided with a tablet with a view to reduce the use of paper. They will use emails to exchange messages and order papers, as it was mentioned.

Good measure! I like seeing the use of IT increase, wherever it is. Oh and now, they can’t make fun of the IT Minister using his tablet!

Of course, they will have to adapt the laws to allow electronic devices in the parliament, but I think it’s high time that this happens.

To further reduce the use of paper and wasted resources in Government, the budget for stationery (I’m not too sure I heard this right) will be cut, saving 40 million rupees yearly. Use of electronic services will be encouraged.

Let’s hope they don’t start playing Angry Birds in parliament! Or that they do, perhaps this will reduce the frequent use of… flowery language in parliament.

Proceeding towards eServices and the remaining measures.

Enabling Online Payment and Mobile Payment for Government services

It was announced that the MRA now accepts mobile payments. The Minister announced that by March 2013, 8 new departments will be accepting online payments via credit cards. Mobile payment will be extended by too.

Great measure! It’s high time we get to pay for stuff online now, instead of long queues for payments! I highly welcome this measure and I wish they extend it even more.

However, we need to consider the security measures to be taken to protect the data of people and reduce the risks involved in mobile payments. Let’s see how this one is implemented. Definitely one measure to look forward to. The side effect is that if this is implemented, more private sector departments will start implementing online payment too, given a robust framework. This should be a good boost for Mauritius overall. How long till we see a boost in online shopping in Mauritius.

Measures to increase the number of Startups in Mauritius

I always say we don’t have enough startups in Mauritius. Well, apparently Government has heard, finally. They are pushing ahead with two measures which will bring some additional startups and hopefully, give youths more incentives to start their own IT companies.

The Emerging IT Leaders award

This will provide people with a good business idea, if approved, with a capital fund of  USD$100, 000 to start their business in Mauritius! Great measure, made even greater by opening the award to internationals too! Please, let this be implemented! We’ll finally see our startups sector grow!

Incubator for application developers

Not much was said here, but the Minister announced the implementation of incubation centers for application developers. I hope this helps increase the number of startups too. Startups tend to hire creative programmers, for creative projects. Let’s see what they do with these incubators. I think this is related to something Accenture has recently announced, in partnership with MIT. I don’t have more info about this, except that

Free Online Courses

In partnership with MIT, free online courses in various sectors will be offered. No more information announced on this. More on this later.

There is already free courses offered online by the NCB, in the form of text. Not very interesting, despite being about interesting topics. I wish they did it in video, something like Khan Academy, but for Mauritius. This wouldn’t be too bad. Good for digital learning, overall.

This, with tablets for students and lower Internet costs, should yield some interesting results.

Head of IT-related Sectors in Government must be Professionals and IT-literate

Again, just an announcement. I’d like to see how this will be implemented, but it’s good for head of departments to be IT-literate at least. Let’s hope they’re given incentive to undergo constant training, especially people heading governmental IT sectors. It has to be continued training though, considering how fast IT evolves. A system similar to expiring certificates might be good enough.

Merging of various IT-related departments into a homogeneous body

Government wants to merge various bodies, such as Central Informatics Bureau, IT Security departments etc… into a single body to better provide services regarding IT for government.

Not much to say here. These bodies are not very public-facing. You hardly hear of them usually. I can’t remember the last time I heard CERT-MU being mentioned in the news for e.g. Let’s see what happens after this is done. If Government wants to move forward with increasing provided eServices, they will need good services provided and good consultants. If these departments are merged, they will probably be able to provide more unified and consistent suggestions.

Introduction of Biometric Passports

Just an announcement, with no further details at the moment. Other countries are already using biometrics, such as finger prints along with passports. I’m not too sure how the Government will include these information in passports, but let’s wait and see if this is implemented.

Digital Signatures for Online Transactions

The last time I checked, Mauritius already has its own Certificate Authority, run by ICTA. The Ministry announced that online transactions will be conducted and signed by digital signatures.

I’m not sure he fully understood the concept of digital signatures when he announced this. Well, either he misunderstood digital signatures – the whole PKI setup around it for e.g., or I did not. Perhaps digital signatures will be just a writing on eDocuments. I doubt though. I’m not sure how this will be implemented. Wait and see.

Customs Brokers no longer required for products below Rs. 30,000

I’m not sure I heard that quite right. The Minister has announced that a Customs Broker is no longer required when clearing items costing less than Rs. 30,000. Previously, the limit was Rs. 10,000. Now, you can buy your camera, or whatever electronic products online without having to get a Customs Broker.

I’m not sure to what this measure applies to. The announcement was made really fast and no details given. Hopefully I got this right. People can now more easily buy stuff online, costing up to Rs. 30,000, without having to go through an additional step involving a broker.

For more information about the problem, refer to this post by Yashvin.

Conclusion

That’s about it for the technology-related measures announced in the Budget 2012. Let’s hear your views and comments now. To me, there are some good measures there.

There are measures which we expect year by year, such as Internet prices falling. Always welcome, but I wish we got more speed too. Perhaps some incentives for ISPs to accelerate their fiber rollouts? We won’t be able to get faster speeds over copper anytime soon, so fiber has to come someday, soon hopefully. Nothing about Internet speed in this budget, unfortunately, except prices.

Other announcements are quite surprising, such as a free tablet for form 4 students. Good measure, if implemented. Giving students new tools to play with and develop on is a great idea. This, coupled with the measures for startups, like application incubator centers, will hopefully increase our startup sector, perhaps in the mobile-application sector. Who knows, a Mauritian Instagram or Pinterest perhaps? Well, giving every HSC student a laptop was in the electoral programme, but not implementable. Perhaps tablets are more affordable, but not as useful as laptops generally. Still progress!

Other measures, sadly, look like mere announcements! Like the one regarding digital signatures. Or the one about head of IT sectors being IT literate. It’s not easy to ask people to go train in the context of their job overnight. Well if implemented, it will be a good thing, but I’m not too hopeful regarding this. Of course, am not saying every head of department out there is not IT illiterate, but generally in Government, IT in Government still looks like something special, unfortunately.

Anyway, that’s about it for the budget 2012, regarding technology stuffs. Let’s see your views and opinions.

P.s. Something interesting during the  Budget 2012. Mauritian tweeters were very active during the budget speech. A good sign! I wish journalists next year start live-tweeting comments on the budget too, instead of comments after the speech. Something like live coverage tech sites do for product releases abroad. Minute-by-minute coverage using tweets would be a good step forward for the Mauritian IT sector. This was done by tweeters themselves this year.

This article comes from GeekScribes

Major Technological Provisions in the Mauritius Budget 2012

The solutions are simple:

1. Ensure you set the resolution to native for the screen. For this particular TV, it was 1920 x 1080. You can also try lower resolutions to see if the problem is decreased. 1600 x 900 was quite good in this case, but I wanted to keep the full 1080p resolution so it was a compromise.
2. Connect the HDMI cable to the appropriate HDMI port. In my case, HDMI1 was also labelled HDMI1 / DVI so I selected that one. On your remote, press the Source button. Select the appropriate HDMI source.
3. You have to rename the source to PC or PC/DVI or equivalent. In this screen’s case, go to Source selection, press the Tools button on your remote, choose “Edit Name” then select “PC”. Doing this disables all processing that the screen does on the image and enables 1:1 pixel mapping. You should instantly see the text become much sharper.
• Adjust the screen settings such as Contrast and Sharpness to change how the text looks like until you like it. I’m using Backlight: 13, Contrast: 85, Brightness: 55, Sharnpess: 65 and other minor adjustments to make the image look good to my eyes. Your settings may vary according to your screen.
4. Adjust the Cleartype settings in windows for the particular screens. Type “Cleartype” in start menu, select the screen you want to configure (the HDTV) and walk through the settings that work best for the screen.
5. Use a good quality HDMI cable. Avoid converters such as HDMI-DVI etc if possible.

Hopefully these should solve your problems. Point #2 did it for me. I didn’t know “Edit Name” could have such a big effect!

Note, you may notice black borders around your image as the image no longer takes the full size of the screen. You need to disable Overscan in your graphics driver. I have an ATI card so for me it was:

1. Open ATI Catalyst Control Center.

 

2. From the top, choose Graphics → Desktops and Displays.

 

3. From the display, select Configure.

 

 

4. Go to the Scaling Options tab and drag the slider to 0%. Your image should now take the full screen.

 
(Source, if you need further information)

Thanks for reading and hope this helps.

This article comes from GeekScribes

[Solution] Text is fuzzy or pixellated when LED HDTV is connected to PC via HDMI

Having left the measly 128Kbps ADSL behind, we now have up to 4Mbps being offered to customers. The price, while still very high for the connection speed, is “reasonable” considering the market size of Mauritius. It’s far from being a good price, but for a small market like ours, it’s decent. However, the major concern now is not price. I’m sure a large number of Mauritians will appreciate a low-cost Internet connection, to “democratize access to the Internet”, as our Government would say. This is a good thing: low cost of connection means more people get access to Internet, which possibly leads to better education and other advantages.

Is that enough? Cheap connections? Far from it. If you want to use today’s Internet to its fullest, speed matters much more than cost. True, not for everybody, but for a large majority of users, speed is more important, especially when they can afford it.

4Mbps is poor nowadays. Google just announced its Kansas City fibre rollout, which means that residents of Kansas city now have access to 1Gbps Internet connections, at $70 a month. That’s 250 times faster than our fastest customer-oriented connection. No mistakes there: 250 times faster, priced at Rs. 2173.50.  By the way, our 4Mbps is at Rs. 2349, by Orange at the moment.

I’m not saying everybody needs a 1Gbps connection. However, most of Europe, the US, Asia, Australia etc have access to at least 20Mbps Internet. That’s still 5x faster than our maximum. It’s high time Mauritian ISPs and perhaps the Government start thinking about investing in higher speed access too, not just “democratizing access” to Internet. ISPs say only “heavy Internet users’ need high speed because they download “a lot”. Bovine output! Everyone can be a heavy user if they’re consuming the right services. Watching HD movies online doesn’t make me a heavy user, it makes me a movie watcher!

Why should they do this? Because new services demand it. Unless you want to wait hours and hours to watch a movie online, or download the latest update for your OS, you need a fast connection. One example use where high-speed is required is to use any Cloud-based service. The latter, hailed as the future of computing by vendors, is here to stay. It’s not something new. Perhaps it is for Mauritius, but it is not new. Want an example? Google Docs. That’s a Cloud-based service, albeit one that doesn’t require a fast Internet speed to use.

Dropbox on the other hand, requires a fast Internet speed. Same for any other Cloud-based storage service out there, like Google Drive, SkyDrive etc… If you don’t know already, Dropbox is basically an online hard-drive. You rent disk space online, on a yearly basis, and you can store your files in, and access them everywhere, across all your devices. A nice service, but which requires a good connection speed, unless you want to wait for 5 days for your collection of HD pictures straight out of your DSLR uploads. Then 3-4 more days for it to download on your other devices. Yeah, very pleasant. A slow connection makes the service unusable.

You think you don’t need Dropbox or other forms of cloud-based storage? Well, you won’t have a choice soon. Microsoft Office 2013 is scheduled to come sometime later this year, or next year, who knows. But it’s going to come out eventually. Guess what’s closely tied to Office 2013? SkyDrive. Microsoft’s Cloud Storage solution. Microsoft basically wants to unify its Office platform, so you create documents on your computer at the office, which you can access over your Microsoft Surface tablet or Windows 8 Phone, whatever. Your documents are stored online, accessible on-the-go. This is just the beginning. I imagine Microsoft will want to integrate SkyDrive tightly in Windows 8 too, possibly to fight off competition like Dropbox or Google Drive with its own offers. Who knows, perhaps with Windows 9, computation being done on Microsoft’s Azure cloud? A future of your whole OS on the cloud? Maybe, but all this requires a good connection. A good connection required now, not in 5 years, not in 10 years.

Better yet, Office 2013 is planned to be offered as a service, instead of as downloadable, installable software. While I personally believe there will indeed be installable versions on disk at some point, Microsoft says it won’t be so. That Office 2013 will be available for online download only. How? Through a service known to Microsoft as App-V. In short, you download a virtualized instance of the application off Microsoft’s server after you’ve paid a license for it. As you can guess, this is tightly integrated with SkyDrive: your settings, dictionaries etc are stored there. You can imagine how long it’ll take to “stream” an instance of your favourite Office package after an update, when you have a slow connection.

Another sector which is heavily impacted in Mauritius due to our low Internet speeds: online entertainment. Ask any Youtube user in Mauritius, how much they enjoy their viewing experience of HD content. 720p. I’d not go as far as 1080p, which I believe is impossible to view smoothly. Let’s just say, 720p for now. I highly doubt your 128Kbps, 512Kbps or even 1Mbps are sufficient to give a smooth 720p stream. What you need is a high-speed, possibly tens of Megabits to get a decent service. Even with your maximum 4Mbps, 1080p a stream is hardly smooth. Remember, HD content is very much present online, just out of reach of our citizens because of their connection.

Other services, while not available in Mauritius yet, would be impossible to use: imagine streaming HD movies off Netflix. That’s possibly 15-20GB download per movie. Over your 1Mbps connection? Good luck waiting. You’d be better off buying it on Bluray. IF you can find the movie to buy, that is. So many other services, out of reach of Mauritians, because of either stupid licensing deals, or simply, because of our slow connections.

I don’t know if you’re aware, but recently, online game marketplace, Steam had a Summer Sales. Original, genuine, AAA games being sold for fractions of their original prices. Way to go to destroy game piracy! Well, ouch, you can’t really use the service in Mauritius, can you? Yes, it is available to Mauritians. Yes, you can buy games using your credit cards. Then what is the problem? You still have to download the games: 7-10GB per download. Unless it’s the rare 15-20 GB download… Large downloads, in other words. While some of us are patient enough to wait the 20-30 hours required to download your newly purchased good, there still remains this rather troubling problem: you cannot play online without annoying your fellow gamers. Because you’d be lagging to no end and destroying the game experience for everyone. Online gaming requires good speeds, especially when you’re playing on international servers. The same happens with your Xbox 360 or PS3 consoles when you play online. Much worse will happen when the next generation consoles hit the market, with integrated entertainment shopping platforms in-built.

That was for enjoyment only. One can argue that “fun” and “enjoyment” are not good reasons enough to justify investing large amounts of money in fast connections. If my Office 2013 and cloud storage didn’t influence you enough, what if I mention this word: “teleworking”? What about our soon-to-be-created Mauritian startups, looking to offer services online? Perhaps a freelance graphic designer in Mauritius looking to work online, for a big company? Can it be done on slow connections? Don’t know. Depends on your patience, I believe. Or at least, your boss’ patience. I’m not elaborating on this further, because there’s a major hurdle involved in this, that is not related to connection speeds: how to accept payments? I’ll leave this for another post, I think.

There you have it, reader. You are paying large amounts of money, for a connection that will soon not be worth much online, assuming it’s worth something now. You are unable to use useful services because you have low speeds. Your experience online is marred by lags, slow-loading pages and shouts of frustration because the progress bar in the “download” field seems to have stopped. While there is hope that Bharat Telecoms Ltd, BTL, will provide fast connections through fibre-to-the-home, most of us are still waiting. I’ve seen a few reports and speed-test screenshots from BTL users. They seem happy. I’ll reserve my judgement when I get to actually test that FTTH connection myself, without caps. Their Facebook page is virtually dead, with no updated news. The newspapers are no longer talking about them. Are they dead? What are they doing? Has anybody actually tested this fabled FTTH connection at their home yet? If you have, drop a comment below with a review! Otherwise, the shining-new LTE networks from Emtel and Orange? Considering how tight the data caps put on mobile data networks are, I’m not hoping for much from these. At least, not for heavy users.

There you have it. You’re being denied access to the highway because your vehicle only does 40 Km/h, while you’re renting that vehicle for the price of a luxury car. I only wish that Mauritian ISPs will wake up soon, and start thinking about how to give their customers speed, without annoying caps, hopefully. I still wish to download my legally-purchased games, movies etc whenever I want, without having to worry that my ISP won’t like the amount of content I consume. It’s time to do the upgrade now, not when your network is dying of overload in 5 years. Also, BTL, wake up! We want to know what you’re up to. It’s 2012. Twitter and Facebook exist. You’re an ISP! You’re supposed to have an active online presence and generating enormous hype, not a dead Facebook page!

This article comes from GeekScribes

Faster Internet Speed Must Become A Priority For Mauritius