Subject: Africa's Renaissance is coming so stop patronizing me Support For Axerra FW: I-D ACTION:draft-vainshtein-cesopsn-06.txt

From: "Richard Bell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:10:30 +0300

I'm a businessman not a techy.  Inevitably there will be times when
terminologies I use will be incorrect, however the substance of my mail is
that decisions made by technical working groups inevitably impact on the
ability of businesses to rollout networks cost effectively.  My input to
your mailing list is that we strongly support what Axerra are doing and are
eager to see this technology become a standard for the following reasons:

1.  If it becomes a standard it will drive down production costs and
therefore end user prices for purchasing this equipment.

2.  The combination of using this technology together with native IP
wireless technologies will allow us to deliver a full range of data
connectivity solutions into rural areas of Africa where otherwise it would
not be commercially viable to do so.

Your rather patronizing references to Oxfams activities clearly implies that
you are from the school of thought that believes that "you Africans should
continue herding goats, while today's real technologies and standards should
be geared towards the needs of Europe and North America".  I sincerely hope
that the same attitude is not shared by the rest of your colleagues on the
list, since it is just that attitude which is deepening the digital divide
between north and south.

You can argue semantics and technologies all day long.  I could equally give
you 20 pages (non patronizing) about the commercial realities of building
data communications networks in rural Africa.  My message to the rest of the
ietf list is that standards should be developed for everyone, including
developing countries, and this particular technology can really help us
rollout digital data communications networks into rural areas of Africa.

Richard Bell

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: 22 June 2003 12:32
To: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: RE: [PWE3] Support For Axerra FW: I-D
ACTION:draft-vainshtein-cesopsn-06.txt

Richard,

Thank you for the background information into your network and the African
economic/social climate. However, I think you may have sent this email to
the wrong address. This is an IETF WG mailing list for discussing technical
arguments for/against PWE3 protocols/solutions.

If your looking for help to improve the social and economic climate in rural
areas of Africa, you might try:

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/atwork/where/africa/kenya.htm

I believe they have had more experience than the IETF in this area, and have
already set up a working group to address the issues you have identified.

If you did intend to send your email to the PWE3 WG, then the word "legacy"
has no place on a technical mailing list. Using the word legacy to describe
ATM/FR is just marketing hype. A few years ago when vendors were pushing
LANE and ATM to the desktop, they were calling Ethernet legacy, now they are
calling ATM/FR legacy!

So which is really the legacy protocol:

(i) A LAN technology that's over 20 years old *without any* inherent
management/OAM functionality, scalable address structure (i.e. routable
addresses) or the ability to provide hard QoS guarantees/customer traffic
isolation  - that's in the process of being retrofitted for the WAN?

(ii) A newer WAN technology that *already has* well defined
OAM/management/addressing/routing, and provides hard QoS guarantees/customer
traffic isolation?

I wish you success in helping the rural communities in Africa, and have
utmost respect for all individuals committed to work of this nature.

Best Regards,

Richard

 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: Richard Bell [mailto:[email-masked]]
 > Sent: 20 June 2003 09:48
 > To: [email-masked]
 > Cc: [email-masked]
 > Subject: [PWE3] Support For Axerra FW: I-D
 > ACTION:draft-vainshtein-cesopsn-06.txt
 >
 >
 > Dear Danny,
 >
 > I run a large Data Network in Kenya. Our African markets are
 > only just
 > beginning to liberalize.  We are confronted with a dilemma
 > of whether to
 > build Broadband Ethernet or Legacy networks.   Obviously it
 > makes sense to
 > use Broadband, but many of our customers want legacy
 > services such as Frame
 > Relay and TDM.  We have adopted Axerra's technology to
 > overcome the dilemma.
 > We have built a layer 2 Ethernet network, which is cheap and
 > robust and then
 > use Axerra to run legacy services ontop.  We have been doing
 > this for some
 > time in Nairobi and it has proved extremely effective.  We
 > are now rolling
 > out the technology countrywide.  We strongly support
 > Axerra's technology and
 > what they are planning with ietf for  CESoIP (under CESoPSN)
 > and hope that
 > you will move into a working document phase with all haste.  Once the
 > standard is achieved and chip sets are available our costs
 > will begin to
 > come tumbling down and the technology will then be
 > affordable even in rural
 > areas of Africa.  This will have tremendous social and
 > economic benefits on
 > rural communities.
 >
 > Best Regards
 > Richard Bell
 > Managing Director
 > Swift Global Kenya Limited
 > &
 > Kenya Data Networks Limited
 >
 >
 > _______________________________________________
 > pwe3 mailing list
 > [email-masked]
 > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/pwe3
 >