I'm done with this sh1te. I'm launching sentechsucks.co.za and mywirelesssucks.co.za tonight sometime. The MyWireless service sucks. Aside from a handful of people here, nearly everyone on this forum is experiencing problems, or dissatisfied with the way the service has degraded since February.
It's worse than a 56K modem, as a RULE... I'm not doing this launch without peril either, otherwise I would have done it a few weeks ago. I can face a lawsuit for doing this, as I will demonstrate.
Let me relay an experience I had before: I once registered www.ebuckssucks.co.za after having had a horrendous experience with their virtual "e-currency" and their service. You can go check, I registered the domain initially, http://co.za/cgi-bin/whatelse.sh?File=ebuckssucks.2
10 months weeks later I received a lawyers letter from Adams and Adams lawyers (to whom www.ebuckssucks.co.za currently points to), insisting that I hand over the domain to them, or face legal action from their client "FirstRand".
They basically instructed me to hand over the domain to them, or face a trademark infringment lawsuit, due to me using their trademarked "ebucks" as part of the "ebuckssucks" domain.
If I had the inclination, and money, I would have fought it. At that point I had neither. I also didn't have strong enough publicity or a support base to even think to go to court, or the newspapers with it. Remember, this was back in the day just before the .com bubble burst, and they had lots of money to persue this kind of lawsuit. SA commercial internet was only around 6-8 years old, and "open grounds" in terms of legal issues.
So, relucatantly I handed over the domain to them for about R500 bucks which was basically administration and registration fees, for the period that I had had it. I still have their receipt to this day, somewhere on a harddisk.
They subsequently took over the domain, and pointed it to http://www.adamsadams.co.za/ which is currently it's final resting place.
My whole point about describing this incident, is that I want to make it clear that doing something like this in .za is a risk. I'm doing it, since I really believe that we are being screwed over. Hopefully, 4 years later, things will work out differently than before. I'm not holding my breath for that, but I do believe that the success of myadsl.co.za and the weight it carries stands defiantly in the face of Adams & Adams.
Back then, the laws weren't tested, and noone bothered to. I believe that a name such as sentechsucks.co.za or mywirelesssucks.co.za could be construed as "fair use" (as has been proven multiple times in the USA) in these times, but I'm pretty sure this hasn't been tested in .za, ever.
Either way, if Sentech decides to take this on, in a legal fashion, ala Ebucks, then I'll once again happily sign over the domains to them unless someone offers free legal services on these forums for the duration of any said court case. Hell, there might be grounds for a class action counter-suit if it was worth it.
If, however, Sentech manages to address the issues that cash-paying users are experiencing instead of stonewalling, and ignoring us (as Lonegunman's experiences indicate, ((as do mine)) ) then I will feel happy to delete the domains in question, or transfer to them free of charge.
If NOT: I'm going to go ape: If someone does an ananzi.co.za search for "sentech" or "mywireless", sentechsucks.co.za will be there....
I know I can beat them in Ananzi rankings (seeing as how I actually worked on their spider for a few years). I'm also pretty effective at manipulating google's rankings, and with a bit of help from local a-href'ers I can easily reach the top 10 for "mywireless" or "sentech".
I will even go as far as taking out google ".za" targetted ads for any keywords matching "mywireless" or "sentech"...
I'm relaying this post to the email adresses of people at Sentech, that are supposedly "in charge". We will see what the response is, if any. At least, these 2 domains might wave a little red flag for anyone considering MyWireless and save someone a few bucks.
At worst, I may end up having to transfer the domains to Sentech, whilst the domain history will still exist at http://co.za for everyone to see...
It's time to make a stand. A messy media-driven stand if need be, but a stand nonetheless. Of course, it's stupid, and masochistic (http://rodent.za.net/SadoMasochism) to do this against a government parastatal, but times have changed, and apparently I enjoy that sort of sh1t.
As a highly skilled IT worker in this country, I essentially have 2 options in this country: 1) try to convince people to make things better, or 2) emigrate. Since I really like living in this country, I'm going with option number one for the moment.
There's a constitution, consumer laws, and god knows what else that is supposed to protects us -- versus old laws that protect bad parastatal business practice. I have news for em: There's a media format and publicity mechanism that cannot be fought with any amount of money or lawsuits. It's called 'http'. And hosting a domain doesn't require megabucks anymore. I can register new, creative domain names for ever and a day.
My Internet connectivity works me out to R680+R300 (Telskum ADSL) and R650 (SuckTech) a month. That's R1600 a month. That's what the average South African pays for a CAR every month.
Where it that you would have to SERVICE your own car, (upgrade the firmware) tweak it yourself, (fix device drivers), pay exorbitant toll fees for the road you drive on whilst everyone else is paying nothing (512kb versus 128kb performance), and the people answering the emergency phones on the higway spoke Ukranian (the helpdesk), and have a backup car that could only goes 3km but costs twice as much as the normal car... Do you think there would be a public outcry? You bet your ass there would be...
RPM has taken the conservative, and red-tape route with his ICASA complaints. I think it's time for some immature guerilla tactics. So sue me... I'd love to publish the letters on sentechsucks.co.za
I'll setup some basics tonight. Until then, this message will be the homepage.