However bad things are in Ireland in relation to our broadband speeds - things are even worse in Iran. According to the Guardian, the government there has ordered all ISPs to limit Internet speeds to 128kb. This is in an effort to:
make it more difficult to download foreign music, films and television programmes, which the authorities blame for undermining Islamic culture among the younger generation. It will also impede efforts by political opposition groups to organise by uploading information on to the net.
Iran also has some of the most stringent filters blocking Internet sites into the country - almost as bad as China’s infamous Great Firewall of China.
Having said that, I know several people in Ireland who’d love if they could get speeds of 128kb ‘cos they are stuck with 44kb dialup.
If Iran is really serious about reducing the speeds of access for its citizens, I suggest they hire in the expertise of Ireland’s Minister for Broadband Suppression and Ireland’s Telecom’s Regulator Isolde Goggin who have successfully managed to keep Ireland at the bottom of the international broadband leagues for years now
I wrote a post not so long ago about the state of broadband worldwide and how poorly served we are in Ireland. I showed a table of broadband speeds and prices worldwide - based on the table the average broadband speed was 18mb for 44 US$ per month.
However, Lupan, a Japanese reader commented on the post correcting the figure for Japan. His broadband is 100mb for the equivalent of €25 per month!
Incredible, my own connection is 3mb for €50 per month and that’s good compared to many in Ireland.
If i lived in Japan I could get 33 times the speed for half the price I pay in Ireland.
Unbelievable.
Noel Dempsey, our minister for broadband suppression should take up thumb twiddling or some other pastime equally suited to his (in)abilities.
The plates are hardly dry from last night’s great blogger’s dinner and we have another spectacular one planned.
The date is November 28th, time and venue are yet to be decided - mark it in your calendars now!
November 28th is the eve of it@cork’s 2006 Business and Technology conference, so I made sure to invite the speakers who blog to the bloggers dinner, when I was asking them to speak at the conference.
The list of bloggers who have agreed to come to the dinner is impressive:
Hugh MacLeod
Marc Canter
Salim Ismail and
Jeff Nolan
I’m sure we can convince Hugh to bring some of that Stormhoek wine he is always raving about!
Now, I wonder if we can find somebody to sponsor the food as well…
If you plan to come to the dinner, or are interested in sponsoring the event, leave your name in the comments of this post (or send me an email - tom@tomrafteryit.net).
Last night’s blogger’s dinner was a great success - thanks to Pat for organising (and paying for) it.
Shel Israel and Rick Segal were the guests of honour and both had lots of interesting info to impart. Rick talked up MusicIP - I missed the start of the conversation but I assume MusicIP is a company he has invested in. MusicIP scans your music (Windows, Linux, Mac) and creates playlists for you based on your mood!!! amongst other things.
Little did I realise when I first started conversing with Shel last year that I’d convince him to come to Cork twice this year (first for the it@cork Web 2.0 conference and now for his global tour) - it just goes to show the power of blogs as a networking tool!
Conn’s podcast in the Irish language - An LÃonra Sóisialta is at position number 37 in iTunes!
The more people who subscribe to the podcast, the higher it will go in the listings.
Conn has also been nominated for a richly deserved Netvisionary award in the podcasting category - if you haven’t voted yet, head on over there and cast a vote - voting is open to all.
[Final Update] - Post title changed one more (and final) time. I have updated this post one final time because I didn’t realise how quickly and more importantly how high up my post would come in a search for Noah’s name. I have spoken to Noah and he is genuinely sorry and I don’t (now) think the hotlinking was done maliciously. Lesson learned, Google places a lot more stock in what I say than I had realised. Must remember to think before I Publish, must remember to ….
[UPDATE] I have changed the title of this post. Many people have responded in the comments of this post to say I was too harsh on Noah - and they are completely correct. I thought about titling the post “Reasons not to steal bandwidth” (Noah’s post is titled “Reasons not to blog”) and taking a much more humourous approach to the issue but it was Monday morning and I let my temper get in the way (red hair!). Lesson learned - take a deep breath before hitting Publish!
If you link to an image on someone else’s site you really should ask their permission. Otherwise, every time someone views the image on your site, you are stealing bandwidth from the site hosting the image.
Noah Kagan did this recently. He used an image from this site on his blog without asking my permission. This is theft. I pay for the bandwidth that he and his site’s viewers are consuming.
Of course, there is another very good reason not to link to images on someone else’s site - you have no control over those images. They could be deleted, renamed, or changed at any time - like below - I replaced the image Noah was using with a more appropriate one - now Noah’s site is hosting an image which tells it as it is!
Poetic justice. That bandwidth I am happy to pay for.
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