Last year we pioneered South Africa’s first true Cloud hosting platform, allowing users to deploy and provision fully operational Linux servers in seconds. Our customers have deployed more than 1,250 Linux Servers to date.

We value all the feedback we receive from our loyal customers, and we have seen an unprecedented demand for our Linux Cloud Servers, but Microsoft Windows still remains the most requested features. So, after several months of internal trial and testing phases, we are very excited to finally release Microsoft Windows on the platform.

The technology behind our Cloud Servers allows users to buy Linux or Microsoft Windows servers from the web with full control over the server resources and operating system. CPU, RAM and SAN Storage can be added to the servers on the fly as usage or demand requirements change. Users are also not bound to lengthy contracts with us, and servers are purchased on a month to month basis.

Our Cloud Servers with Microsoft Windows are available in the following configurations or resources – all of which include FREE setup:

*Pricing excludes monthly Windows licensing fees, which are as follows:

• Windows Server Std 2008: R141 p/month
• Windows Web Server 2008: R171 p/month

Our Cloud Servers give you – the user – complete control with full administrator access to your server, allowing you to select you choice of operating system, applications and configuration.

We’ve got a special little something for those of you who are curious to experiment with Cloud Servers – a free trial! Simply click here and sign up.

The answer: Down below! We’re diving into the depths of the ocean, where all the fiber-optic cables live… where the Internet is.

Back in the 1850s the first transatlantic telegraph cable was laid in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean – although not considered particularly successful -it was destroyed after only one month of operation when someone decided to bolster the voltage in order to achieve faster operation… epic fail – it did however provide practical results which paved the way for future development.

The purpose of the first submarine communications cables was to carry telegraphy traffic, followed by telephony traffic, and eventually data communications traffic. Fiber-optic cables – which are cables that comprise of multiple pairs of fibers, and each pair has one fiber in each direction – were developed in the 1980s with the first transatlantic telephone cable, TAT-8, which went into operation in 1988.

Break-down of a fiber-optic cable

There are hundreds of these cables lying in the depths of oceans across the World, and are the longest tubes ever to be made.

TeleGeography has now developed an interactive (and free) map, which is available online. The company obtains their information from the cable owners, who share the location of active and planned submarine cable systems, as well as their landing stations and the current bandwidth capacity of their systems. TeleGeography has however limited how far you can zoom in on the map, thereby ensuring that the exact locations of the cables remain secret.

TeleGeography Submarine Cable Map

Selecting a cable route on the map provides access to data about the cable, including the cable’s name, ready-for service (RFS) date, length, owners, website and landing points. Selecting a landing point provides a list of all submarine cables landing at that station.

Cables shown include international and US domestic submarine cables with a maximum upgradeable capacity of at least 5 Gbps. Cable routes are stylized to improve readability, and not to reflect the physical cable location. Similarly, cable landing stations do not show the precise coordinates of the building, and are meant to serve as a general guide to where a cable system lands.

 Here are a few fun Internet facts:

#1: In 1971 Ray Tomlinson made the decision to use the “@” symbol to separate the username from the computer name (which later became the domain name), thus creating email.

#2: John Vittal, a programmer at the University of Southern California developed the first modern email  program in 1975.  The biggest technological advancement this program (called MSG) made was the addition of  the “Reply” and “Forward” functionality.

#3: Gary Thuerk -  the inventor of SPAM. In 1978 young Gary created the first unsolicited commercial email message (which later became known to all as SPAM) when he mailed 600 California Arpanet users.

#4:  The first ‘modern’ emoticon was used by Scott Fahlman in 1982 when he proposed that “:-)” be used after a joke, and “:-(” to be used for matters that are not a joke.

#5: Internet Relay Chat (IRC) was first deployed in 1988, paving the way for real-time chat and IM programs.

#6: 1990 saw the first commercial dial-up ISP, The World.

#7: MP3 File format was first accepted as a standard in 1991.

#8: The first webcam was deployed in 1991 at a Cambridge University computer lab, with the sole purpose of monitoring a particular coffee maker so lab users could avoid wasting time going to an empty coffee pot.

#9: .gov and .org domain names were first used in 1993 when the White House and the United Nations went online.

#10: 1998….. GOOGLE! #ThatIsAll

We received an overwhelmingly positive response when we announced our ADSL line price-cuts – an indication that the broadband war is still raging. Well, we’re taking it to the next level – we’re taking the price cuts to the businesses.

In addition to lowering the line rental costs, we’ve also adjusted our data prices to be more competitive, and we’ve implemented extra features. Our Business DSL products offer a true business-grade service, with lower contention ratios, higher redundancy, network prioritization for business uses and business features like static IPs and soft-capping.

Here’s how our new pricing compares to the competition:

*Telkom prices as of 17/10/2011 & include VAT.

We’ve noticed that the majority of the customers who have moved across to us since we launched our cheaper line rentals, are frustrated Telkom users who are looking for a better deal; and we fear that a large portion of the market is unaware that they can have their ADSL line hosted with an ISP other than Telkom… like us, for example. Transferring your ADSL line to us is quick, easy and involves no additional costs, simply speak to one of our Helpdesk Consultants and they’ll take care of the rest.

These new prices are effective immediately, so it will apply to all our existing customers on 30GB and 50GB Super DSL packages. If you’re not an existing customer, feel free to hop over to our website to check out our latest offerings.

If you already are a RSAWEB customer, and this offer seems particularly enticing, you can upgrade in MYRSAWEB or contact our Help Desk and one of our friendly consultants will take you through the process.

Super low line rentals

Don’t forget, we also offer SA’s lowest ADSL line rental prices, with savings of up to 30% per annum over our competitors.

Want one point of contact? Why not transfer your line over to us.

Moving your ADSL line from Telkom to us is quick and easy, with no additional costs involved. We’ll fully support your line and save you money. Simply contact us and we’ll do the rest.

We thought it was imperative to get involved with WordCamp as we have a long history and passion for hosting WordPress websites – everything from small personal blogs to media companies publishing content on a large scale. WordCamp has an amazing global reputation as the premier WordPress community event, and enabling this type of event to come to South Africa is a great way to support the local WordPress community.

We’ve used WordPress for many years – we’ve tried others, but WordPress remains the top performer – from the increase speed and the much improved API for the all-important widget-creators, to the ease at which we’ve been able to assist our customers scale their sites to cope with high volumes of pageviews, WordPress doesn’t fail us.

For those who are unfamiliar with WordCamps, they are informal community-organised conferences that focuses on everything WordPress. Established in San Fransisco in 2006, local communities worldwide have organised over 100 WordCamps – this being the second one hosted in Cape Town.

This year’s WordCamp Cape Town featured 2 tracks of workshops and presentations: Tech and Development, and Publisher tracks.

The Tech and Development track was focused on those delegates interested in the interface, plugins and various technical aspects associated with WordPress, while the Publisher track was targeted towards bloggers and content managers.

All the presentations, videos and photos from WordCamp Cape Town will be published on their site soon, however,  here are a few presentations which the speakers themselves have published.

Today we are proud to announce the release of our new ADSL line rental prices, featuring the lowest ever line rental prices seen by the South African market since the service was introduced in 2002. The new prices offer savings of up to 30% and R1 092 per annum which we’re sure will come as welcome relief to local consumers plagued by a fragile economy, rising inflation and sky-rocketing fuel and electricity costs.

We firmly believe that the high cost of ADSL line rentals is the last barrier to providing affordable broadband access to all South Africans. Consumers have benefitted from the recent price wars over data, but when you add the cost of line rentals, the barrier still remains too high – especially for the lower income groups that have been hardest hit by recessionary pressures and rampant inflation.

Despite the steady fall of ADSL and mobile data costs due to healthy competition over the past two years, the cost of ADSL line rentals has not followed suit.

It’s true that ICASA is making strides in the right direction with LLU (Local Loop Unbundling), but the progress is too slow and too late in the game.

These new prices will not only benefit consumers, but the industry at large. By removing the barriers of high line rental costs, broadband penetration can grow at a faster pace, creating a much larger pool of Internet users. The new prices will also put pressure on the existing incumbents to lower the wholesale prices of line rentals, as we’ve seen was the case with the recent broadband data price wars.

The new prices are available on our consumer Capped ADSL products.

Moving your ADSL line from Telkom is quick and easy. Why not chat to one of our support consultants to get you started?

Check out the full details of our ADSL packages here.

A lifetime supply of ADSL and Web Hosting?

Nope, it’s not a typo. During the month of September, 10 lucky people will win a lifetime supply of ADSL and Web Hosting – plus we’ll throw in a FREE .co.za domain registration to get you started. Sound good?

The prize package includes:

• • A 10GB ADSL Account. (for life)
• • A Home Web Hosting Account with unlimited bandwidth. (for life)
• • 1 x FREE .co.za domain registration.

How to enter

It’s really easy. Simply wish us a happy 10th birthday via Twitter (wish must be sent to @RSAWEB) or Facebook (wish must be posted on our FB wall).

From the list of Twitter wishes, we’ll select 5 winners randomly. From the list of Facebook wishes, we’ll let our community decide on 5 winners – the wishes that get the most ‘likes’ by our fans wins. Simple.
You may enter using both Twitter and Facebook, but only one entry per person is allowed on each platform.

Are you a winner?

Winners will be announced each week (for 4 weeks) via Facebook and Twitter each Tuesday, starting with Tuesday the 6th of September.

Additional mystery spot prizes will also be given to entrants showing extra creativity or love in their birthday wishes.

Be sure to stop by and wish us!

All entrants are subject our competition Ts & Cs.

Check out some of the new features:

Improved navigation

The new, slick, drop-down menu system highlights our key services in – Cloud, Hosting Solutions, Web Hosting and Broadband – and makes finding the perfect solution for your needs a breeze.

New design aesthetic

The look-and-feel of the latest version of rsaweb.co.za is more streamlined, cleaner, and represents our commitment to fast, friendly and efficient customer service.

Space to breathe

Full-width column layout and larger, easy-to-read matrixes makes reading up about any RSAWEB product an absolute pleasure.

Get support faster

We’ve paid close attention to improving our support mechanisms on the site – particularly the live chat function – now both our Support and Broadband Sales teams are ready to assist you as you browse.

Integrated blog

Our blog (previously at www.shoutout.co.za) is also fully integrated into our site – you can now see all our latest blog posts on the home page in the ‘News’ banner or click through to our blog to see what we’ve got to say. We often chat about new products offerings, latest developments, news about our sponsored cycling teams – Team RSAWEB, and sometimes we just like giving away some of our Geek Gear  to our loyal followers and fans.

We’d love to hear your feedback/comments on the new site. Leave a comment on this post, or drop us an email.

“We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.”

- Lynn Hall

We’ve just upgraded our shared Web Hosting packages to include unlimited traffic (bandwidth) – it’s like uncapped Internet for your Hosting.

Unlike other ISPs who’ve recently launched this service, we’ve kept all the original package features like the number of databases and email accounts to add real value. Why should customers lose out?

Check out our range of uncapped Hosting packages:

We hope that this encourages customers to host with local companies instead of overseas. There’s no reason why South African companies shouldn’t be able to get the same quality and value. In the past we haven’t charged our Web Hosting customers for overage, but now it’s official.

Uncapped Hosting is really ideal for smaller businesses on tight budgets, who can now offer a better user experience to their customers through reduced latency.

The full details of the new packages can viewed here.

Want to take advantage of our uncapped Hosting? Contact us now.

ICANN identifies “established” companies as:

“Established corporations, organisations, or institutions in good standing may apply for a new gTLD. Applications from individuals or sole proprietorships will not be considered. Applications from or on behalf of yet-to-be formed legal entities, or applications presupposing the future formation of a legal entity (for example, a pending Joint Venture) will not be considered.”

ICANN feels that the “new gTLDs will change the way people find information on the Internet and how businesses plan and structure their online presence. Internet address names will be able to end with almost any word in any language, offering organisations around the world the opportunity to market their brand, products, community or cause in new and innovative ways.”

This shift towards IPv6, a numbering system for Internet addresses that expands the number of devices that can be connected directly to the Internet, and the rapidly expanding number of languages used on the Internet are listed as the main factors behind the need for a larger number of gTLDs.

Want to claim a “vanity domain”?
Be prepared for a rather drawn out procedure! Companies are required to produce an application rumoured to be 360-pages, and endure background checks on its officers and financial statements. Applicants endure a 2-month long review process where each new TLD will be evaluated for potential issues which may compromise the integrity of the DNS.

Don’t forget the cost implications…
Companies will need to hand over a cool $185,000.00, and an additional quarterly fee of $6,250 to keep the domain running.

2012: The year the Internet changes
ICANN will receive applications for new domain names for 90 days from 12 January 2012, and it’s said that the new website suffixes will appear in late 2012. We can expect to see them categorised by subjects including industry, geography and ethnicity, and will include Arabic, Mandarin and other scripts.

The availability of gTLDs is the biggest change in the Internet DNS since the arrival of .com 26 years ago.

So, if you’re interested in claiming your “vanity” domain, we suggest you save you pennies…. alternatively, you can have a look at the multitude of domain extensions we have on offer.