The Internet Society is pleased to announce INET Cape Town 2010, where experts and laymen will examine just what it will take to enable Internet access at much lower costs and at much higher speeds.

Since 1994, the Internet Society has organized INET conferences around the world. Originally staged as annual global conferences, over time it has refined their focus, targeting the specific needs of each region with a focus topics most relevant to the communities involved.

“ISOC-ZA recognises the need to address the state of wholesale Internet, subsequent to the introduction of competition in the sector. We believe that with competition, the sector has become more complex, but there is not yet a significantly marked reduction in pricing, nor is there a marked improvement in the quality nor quantity of people with Internet access,” explains Alan Levin, ISOC-ZA Chairman. “This is a clear case of ‘good enough’ is not good enough.” ISOC will examine the important role of open access to Internet infrastructure in order to bring affordable access to all South Africans.

The keynote address will be delivered by J. Scott Marcus Director of WIK. Scott has worked as senior adviser to the FCC (USA regulator) and advised the European Commission on how to regulate for Internet growth. Prior to serving on the ARIN board of trustees he was CTO of one of the largest global Internet networks (GTE – Genuity). Scott will present models of regulation that have failed and worked as well as business models that ‘work’ for users versus those that work for operators.

The one-day event will also feature panel discussions between the providers of gigabit internet connections in South Africa. Those in the industry as well as regulators will get a good idea of what developments they can expect and how they can plan ahead. The full agenda can be found here

“At this crucial juncture, the last thing we can afford to do is rest on our laurels. We may have won some key battles, but the war is far from over. The biggest risk for the South African economy at this point is complacency. ISOC intends to equip our selves with the ideas and knowledge to take the next step in creating a truly accessible Internet,” Levin concludes.

The event will be held on the May 24 at Le-Vendome in Sea Point Cape Town. Entrance is free thanks to the kind sponsors, ISOC, more information and registration can be found here: http://isoc.org.za/.

The conference is sponsored by the Internet Society (global), Dark Fibre Africa and the CO.ZA Registry, a division of UniForum SA

About ISOC
The Internet Society (ISOC) provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organisational home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).

The Internet Society of South Africa or ISOC-ZA is one of the 80 global chapters. It was formed in 1997, to serve the interests of the South African segment of the global Internet community

About Dark Fibre Africa
Dark Fibre Africa owns, operates and maintains a state-of-the-art, secure ducting infrastructure, which enables users of communications capacity to enjoy logical separation and ownership of communications capability, whilst sharing the same physical right of way access routes with their customers. DFA is responsible for financing and constructing ducting infrastructure and making discrete fibre strands available to individual operators of telecommunications services. These operators are then responsible for “lighting” the fibre and onward selling the capacity to their customers. www.dfafrica.co.za

About Uniforum SA
UniForum SA is not for profit organisation that has administered the .CO.ZA Internet domain name space since September 1995. Under UniForum’s stewardship, the .CO.ZA name space has grown to its current level of over 550,000 domain name registrations. Excess proceeds from domain registrations are used to fund Internet industry initiatives, including social upliftment projects relating to education and enterprise development. UniForum SA is a level II BBBEE contributor.

Date: Monday 24 May – see ISOC-ZA calendar
Venue: Le-Vendome – see Map here
20 London Road, Sea Point Cape Town
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