Late next week the local chapter of the Internet Society, ISOC-ZA, plans to commemorate "10 years of leased-line Internet connectivity in SA".
It may have been far more impressive to celebrate the 10-year birthday of Internet use rather than leased-lines, but that would be rather difficult, as nobody really knows when the birth-date would be.
The date endorsed by Mike Lawrie, a founding father of local Internet connectivity, is 15 November 1991. This is the date on which the Post Office, now Telkom, declared the first leased data line to be in place.
The first ping on that line, however, was recorded on 12 November. And even then Internet applications were in use years before. Lawrie says e-mail to the broader Internet was generally available on the Rhodes campus in Grahamstown in February 1989.
It is friendly pseudo-arguments such as these and anecdotes about the struggles to keep early lines available that are expected to dominate the official commemoration in Sandton on 28 February. A talk by Lawrie titled "A funny thing happened at Rhodes one day" is also scheduled.
Yet far more serious issues are to be discussed, as ISOC-ZA is also to reveal its plans for the next year. Saving the soul of the Internet is on the agenda.
"We will be looking at growing our membership," says ISOC-ZA chairman Rosi Stevenson. "In the past, ISOC was a techie group but in the past few months we have seen people like lawyers get involved."
With more such members, the body wants to become more involved in regulatory debates that affect the Internet, such as the controversy sure to be stirred by the imminent tabling of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Bill in Parliament.
Stevenson says this is the area where ISOC must apply itself now that its original objective - to get as many people as possible connected to the Internet - has been nearly achieved. Now the body must redefine its purpose or come to an end.
Lawrie for one believes there is still a great and ongoing need for ISOC.
"If there is any entity in the world that can claim oversight of the Internet, it is the Internet society," he says. He believes ISOC has to remain a place where people with vision and technical ability congregate to look at the issues much broader than commercial interests. Although applauding the commercial use of the Internet, he fears the network would die if it became nothing but a medium for business transactions.
"What inspired me and many others was the openness of approach to it," he says. "If the design of the Internet were written down on paper, people would say it would never work. It is the openness of spirit which allowed it to evolve and expand. The folk who have got vision need the freedom to run with crazy ideas."
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