Ttly OT: Fiji exercises internet censorship !!!

[Charles Martin]

> From: Peter Nacken <caipirina at mac.com>
> Now Fintel has decided to cut off access to a certain service of the
> internet. No longer are people on the islands able to use net2phone or
> related voice-chat features!!! I personally do not use it at all 
> (mainly no
> good software exists for the mac), but I find that very alarming when a
> monopoly player exercises this kind of power ... if not stopped, what
> happens next ? Next they cut out text chat like AIM, ICQ and IRC ? and 
> then
> ? email ???? and then ... certain websites ??? THIS is the beginning of
> censorship .. and I find it unthinkable that this happens in a 
> democratic
> and wannabe civilized country !!!
>
This is what happens when you have a monopoly. I'm always shocked that 
people are surprised when monopolies (like your local cable and power 
and phone companies) pull this kind of stunt. This is what monopolies 
*do.* Once a company achieves a monopoly, they stop paying attention to 
the needs of the customers and focus on the wishes of the *company.* 
And the wishes of the company and the needs of its customers are 
usually at direct odds with each other.

Apple did it when they owned the graphics market, Microsoft does it, 
the cable companies do it, etc.

The solution to the problem in your case is to lobby the gov't of Fiji 
and the gov't of the country where Fintel is located (I'm not much up 
on South Pacific geography, but at a guess -- New Zealand?) to disallow 
the monopoly. FWIW, it seems like Tonga (which is close to Fiji IIRC) 
has a much better internet deal going. Maybe you should investigate to 
see if there's a better model there.

_Chas_

"Here is the thing you will learn from really using an OS X Macintosh, 
and must somehow accept on faith if that's what it takes to get you to 
Switch: Apple makes design decisions based on a sincere desire to make 
your life better." -- Glenn McDonald