[Community-Discuss] "Fighting Internet Shutdown" - Any Role for AFRINIC?

[sm+afrinic at elandsys.com]

Hi Ish,
At 00:27 16-04-2017, Ish Sookun wrote:
>I was referring to the tweet you sent to the alleged president of ISOC MU.

I gather that you noticed the issue of which of the two local ISOCs 
is the local chapter.  One of them has links to a political party.

>Yes, there are several issues related to the internet like:
>
>- the price difference of broadband 1M vs 10M in different parts of the
>country
>- the exorbitant price of broadband for business (except that Mauritius
>Telecom has recently reviewed some of the packages)

Promoting the development of the internet also entails discussing 
about those two issues.  In doing that, Afrinic may have to work 
against the interests of one of its members to do what is in the 
interests of users.

The price of internet access is a significant concern in the region 
as the high cost acts as a barrier to access.  I pointed out to the 
government that it makes local small businesses uncompetitive in 
comparison with small businesses from another country; I'll mention 
that it was an issue for one of my local customers.

>- what if the government shuts down access to a newspaper website?

Did the newspaper consider that it could happen and take measures against that?

>- the government is still helpless over gov.mu

Please see http://www.elandsys.com/~sm/govmu-org-domain-name-issues2.html

>- the .mu multi-stakeholder forum failed

A COO of Afrinic advised the government about the forum.  I don't 
know what was said.  I pointed out that the costs for the initial 
proposal [1] were too expensive and that it would not look good when 
the press takes a look at it.  I put in a significant amount of time 
and effort to bring that down to one-third of the initial cost.  The 
forum failed because the government assumed that everyone on the 
"committee" would rubber-stamp whatever it said.

>- the ICT Act of Mauritius has an Internet Management Committee which is
>worrying

According to the Act, the minister appoints its members.  There isn't 
any information about the members of that committee on the 
regulator's web site.   Are you worried because the committee will do 
the bidding of the government?

>- the ICT Authority is smeared in scandals

Yes.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy

1. It was drafted after the proposal which was described as "clumsy".