The Namibian Internet is under siege …

Not because of Telecom Namibia who declare to “share the world”, but flagrantly use their monopoly to try to make criminals of what could only be termed astute entrepreneurs in any other part of the world.

They do this “to secure a fair return on its huge investments in a balanced and competitive business environment”, and we believe them. Not because of IWAY who sell to us a 4k bit/s line for N$700 per month, while you can have 3000k bit/s for N$200 per month in Europe.No, this is not Europe.But is this not what we are aiming for? No, it’s not.IWAY knows that every minute our modems spend on the phone create even more revenue for Telecom (which they in turn will share with us.Whenever.) But because of an outfit called NA-NIC.NA-NIC, with its main member Dr E Lisse, is responsible for the DNS server for Namibia; which means that any website my faithful reader has, and that ends with .na or com.na, or even gov.na, is brought to the www by Dr Lisse.A very powerful person then, who occupies a very responsible position.* This person was not appointed by the tender board as far as I know.In fact, no one seems to know who appointed NA-NIC.Unfazed by this confusion, NA-NIC (presumably because several cases of defamation are pending against it) decides to leave the reselling of these services to NA-NIC accredited companies only.To fill the glaring market niche Dr Lisse registers ONDIS CC (with himself as the main member; the writer wonders why he is thinking about Austin Powers here) and accredits it.Astute entrepreneurship, perhaps? * Neither NA-NIC nor ONDIS may be called during office hours; Since Dr Lisse is a gynaecologist during the day, such calls would obviously be an inconvenience to him.Neither are they reachable by fax.They are only reachable by “plain seven bit un-encoded ASCII” e-mails, by mail (I didn’t know we had a post office still!) or by personally delivered letters.By prior appointment only, of course! * NA-NIC occupies the most important Internet position in this country, and they are unable to code a simple, informative and, above all, intuitive website as their homepage.Paying clients are left to sift through endless instructions and warnings if they want to attempt registration by themselves.They will get something wrong.I always do.And attract the wrath of the good doctor, who will threaten them with appropriate charges.Of course, Dr Lisse will decide what is appropriate, and what not.The Namibian domain belongs to the people, and should be administered by the people, or at least by a fair representation of them.I urge the Office of the Prime Minister to investigate the matter, and appoint a few willing and able companies to handle DNS registration in Namibia.After all, you owe as much to the free market society we have so significantly bled for, and continue to do so every single working day.Anyone who wishes to partake in this petition is welcome to e-mail his or her support to georgearthur_namibia@yahoo.com.Arthur Goetz Via e-mailNot because of IWAY who sell to us a 4k bit/s line for N$700 per month, while you can have 3000k bit/s for N$200 per month in Europe.No, this is not Europe.But is this not what we are aiming for? No, it’s not.IWAY knows that every minute our modems spend on the phone create even more revenue for Telecom (which they in turn will share with us.Whenever.) But because of an outfit called NA-NIC.NA-NIC, with its main member Dr E Lisse, is responsible for the DNS server for Namibia; which means that any website my faithful reader has, and that ends with .na or com.na, or even gov.na, is brought to the www by Dr Lisse.A very powerful person then, who occupies a very responsible position.* This person was not appointed by the tender board as far as I know.In fact, no one seems to know who appointed NA-NIC.Unfazed by this confusion, NA-NIC (presumably because several cases of defamation are pending against it) decides to leave the reselling of these services to NA-NIC accredited companies only.To fill the glaring market niche Dr Lisse registers ONDIS CC (with himself as the main member; the writer wonders why he is thinking about Austin Powers here) and accredits it.Astute entrepreneurship, perhaps? * Neither NA-NIC nor ONDIS may be called during office hours; Since Dr Lisse is a gynaecologist during the day, such calls would obviously be an inconvenience to him.Neither are they reachable by fax.They are only reachable by “plain seven bit un-encoded ASCII” e-mails, by mail (I didn’t know we had a post office still!) or by personally delivered letters.By prior appointment only, of course! * NA-NIC occupies the most important Internet position in this country, and they are unable to code a simple, informative and, above all, intuitive website as their homepage.Paying clients are left to sift through endless instructions and warnings if they want to attempt registration by themselves.They will get something wrong.I always do.And attract the wrath of the good doctor, who will threaten them with appropriate charges.Of course, Dr Lisse will decide what is appropriate, and what not.The Namibian domain belongs to the people, and should be administered by the people, or at least by a fair representation of them.I urge the Office of the Prime Minister to investigate the matter, and appoint a few willing and able companies to handle DNS registration in Namibia.After all, you owe as much to the free market society we have so significantly bled for, and continue to do so every single working day.Anyone who wishes to partake in this petition is welcome to e-mail his or her support to georgearthur_namibia@yahoo.com.Arthur Goetz Via e-mail