₦airaland Forum

Parole officer? What does this have to do with the Visa Lottery?

("In criminal justice systems, parole is the supervised release of a prisoner before the completion of their sentence. Wikipedia"

Someone was kind enough to give me the following information a minute ago:
"When I contacted Nitel a few months back for the service, the minimum bandwidth on sale was 1 megabit bit full duplex i.e. 1mbit/1mbit which came to about roughly $7,500 monthly. In the first year of operations, payment is same as VSAT, on a quaterly basis."

For those of us in the ISP business, how does this compare with VSAT?

Why don't you give me 2 million and see what I would do with it?

Originally: Gulder Ultimate Search: What's the big deal?

Someone I know very well reports,
"My dad is a busy executive, so he only has time to watch the news and important soccer matches. But yesterday he was watching Gulder Ultimate Search with a smile on his face and discussing about the contestants. Since he does not even drink Gulder, I do not understand his interest in the programme!"

Someone else reports,
"My mum doesn't drink Gulder either. Despite being a trader and she doesn't believe in selling alcoholic drinks. eithe. She doesn't watch football or any foreign movies or soaps. She watches programmes like 'Super Story' and 'NTA Newsline'. But now she's watching Gulder Ultimate Search and I don't know what she sees in the show."

I have a similar story to share, but I'll keep it for later. What is it that [I]you[/I] enjoy about Gulder Ultimate Search?
- Is it the money that the contestants are going to win?
- Is it the fact that they are sleeping in the jungle?
- Is it because of the puzzles they are asked to solve?
- is it the fictional story of 'General Maximilian' that draws you in?

Other Gulder Threads:
Gulder Ultimate Search 2: Introduction & registration.
Gulder Ultimate Search 2: Meet the contestants.!

Someone told me that what she likes about Gulder Ultimate Search is "Suspense Seun, suspense! The sheer thrill of the unknown ..."

What about [I]you[/I]? Now that you know you are not one of those who will win millions for the show, what is it that keeps you glued to your TV set when the show is running? What do you love about Gulder Ultimate Search?

The Satellite Doom article tells us that Globacom was able to offer a consortium of banks a price that is 20% of what they are paying to VSAT providers currently charge them to link their branches. Globacom is using its fiber optic backbone to provide this service.

I hope to be able to tell you how much NITEL is charging ISPs to use its IP Wholesale service.

In an Interview, the Daily Sun asked Engineer Joseph Makoju, "what does it really cost to build a power station?" His response follows:

[I]"A standard project showed that on the average, for every megawatt, every new capacity, you are talking about half a million dollar per megawatt. So, if you want to put in 10 megawatts, that is $5 million. If you want to put in 100 megawatts, that’s $50 million.

"Now, if I am telling you as we are sitting down here that our supply, everything is about 3,000; our installed capacity, let's say 4,000 installed. And I am saying the demand is about 6,000; if we say we want to close the gap between demand and supply, it means you need 2,000 more megawatts at half a million dollar per megawatt. That would be $1,000 million.

"Convert to naira and everybody will collapse. But that is the truth of the matter."[/I]

Source: I almost kill myself on this job, says NEPA boss, Eng Joseph Makoju

So it will cost 140 trillion billion naira to build enough power stations meet up with our country's current demand for electricity.

Chief Cornelius Adebayo, Minister of Communications:
[I]"With the introduction of this product [NITEL IP Wholesale] using optical fibre, gone are those days of VSAT as a means of providing Internet services in Nigeria with limitation in speed and reliability."[/I]
Source: Satellite Doom - Sun News Online

I think it's time for companies that provide Internet Gateways based on VSAT technology to jump on the NITEL IP Wholesale bandwagon before it's too late. Nigerians are simply not going to buy your less reliable, high latency, Internet service at a higher price!

For more Information: What would you need to create broadband Internet access in Nigeria?

Seven New Varsities Approved
Jun 1, 2005, 23:17

The Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by Vice President Atiku Abubakar on 1 June approved the licensing of seven new private universities in the country after receiving report of the stringent and rigorous screening exercise conducted by the National Universities Commission (NUC) through which they emerged.

The New Institutions are:

. Bells University of Technology, Badagry, Lagos state,

. Crawford University, Ogun State,

. Wukari University, Taraba State,

. Crescent University Abeokuta, Ogun State,

. Novena University, Delta State,

. Renaissance University, Enugu state and

. University of Mkar, Benue State

Education minister, Mr Liyel Imoke who gave the briefing on the outcome of the day's council meeting said that the seven scaled through the screening out of a total of 145 applications received between 1996 and 2002.

The screening included, among others, security reports on the trustees, their integrity, the quality of the academic programmes and the source of funding.

He disclosed that the institutions are expected to provide entrepreneurial and technical studies to complement those provided by existing tertiary educational institutions and noted that the approval brings to 23 the total number of private universities in the country.

The Minister also said that the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) was processing applications for private polytechnics and that those that will be recommended would also be brought to FEC.

Source: http://www.nigeriafirst.org/article_3231.shtml

---

My reaction:
[list][li]This is good news! We desperately need more Universities in Nigeria because the demand for University education for exceeds the supply. In addition to this, most of the federal and state universities are overcrowded.[/li]
[li]Federal Government, please, give us more Universities. What about the other 146 that applied?[/li][li]In view of the widespread discrimination againsy HNd. holders, why is the Government encouraging the creation of private Polytechnics?[/li][/list]

Hotpikin: How Much To Charge Nairaland Users? (we're going commercial)

In that case, what makes the honeymoon different from, say, the Christmas Holidays or your normal weekend break?

So what's the point of the honeymoon when you've done it before?

- 'Registered Guests' (via free registration) will be able to read and post at will. But they will only be able to send PMs to paying members who can also send them PMs.

- Registered Members (via paid membership) will be able to display their contact information (e-mail address, website, signature, etc) to the public, send PMs to anybody and recieve PMs from anybody.

- There may be several higher membership levels with more features at a higher price, though one could argue that the best thing to do with extra money is to use it to pay for someone else's membership!

- Demmy: With Flash me cash, there is a transaction fee of 300 naira. If you're paying for a year's membership this would be insignificant, but otherwise it is. We'll support it anyway.

- I'll be reading the contributions in this thread over and over again and taking them into consideration. It will take 2-4 weeks to set up and properly test the system once the decision has been made.

- As a paying customer, you will now be able to 'vote with your money' and help to make the site a place that you and all the people you know will like to visit any time you're online.

I don't think they swindled Benny Hinn. The organizers simply didn't live up to expectations.

The story has given birth to some ideas about what we can do to enrich this forum. Watch out!

Demmy, Nairaland is promoted as 'the Nigerian Forum'. It will always remain a forum first and foremost, regardless of the features we add to it. I don't believe in portals.

Delarontus, posting and reading will always be free. I believe that information wants to be free so I cannot charge for it. In addition, it would be absurd to charge people for sharing information!

I agree that there should be various levels of membership.

A number of people have volunteered to take part in moderation. This has been noted and after we go commercial we will move into that and make sure we give out little tokens to say 'thank you' to these people.

Legry is assuming that the slap was delivered by a girl/woman. I have it on good authority that women of all ages are lovers of drama.

Rita Dominic,

Please pay up, I have just made you a convert! (ashley, welcome to the family).

Seun.

I'm doing just that at the moment. Watching Star Wars Episode 3, 'the Revenge of the Sith' on my PC and enjoying every moment!

Too bad I can't boast of having a legal copy. The people behind Silverbird Cinemas are doing what they're doing legally, and that's probably why it's so expensive.

Yes, I would love to be able to accept Interswitch credit cards but the company is just too elitist - the money they are demanding I just don't have because I'm a one man shop. They won't even reply your mails without a 'formal company introduction'; they seem to think you must be a scammer if you're not a (big) company. I stand to be corrected.

But people outside Nigeria can't use Interswitch. For people within Nigeria, the method we've proposed is the use of the 250 naira MTEL 'Multicard' unit, which I can eventually turn into cash.

Yes, kodewrita, go ahead and analyse/criticize the faith but not in this thread. That is all I am saying.

Since the person that created the thread has said clearly that she's not interested in the debate you should show her that respect and create a new thread to discuss those issues!

I don't believe in the advertising model for a community website. I'm sure you know that I must have considered advertising.

Advertising simply means I'm 'selling out' my users. I do not want to do that. I want to act in the best interest of the people using the forum at all times, and I can only do that if they are the ones paying me. There is a [I]fundamental conflict of interest[/I] when you're trying to serve both advertisers and community members.

For example, there are news sites that force you to click several pages to read just one article. You know why? Because they are being paid based on the number of 'impressions', so the more pages you click the more they make even if the extra pages you visit cause you to waste your precious browsing time.

Some other sites, for example Yahoo Mail, use animated ads which distract you from the main purpose of visiting the site and makes the pages to take a long time to load. This is not in the best interest of the users, of course, but they do it because they are offering a free service and they have to pay the bills!

Ultimately, my belief is that if what you are doing [I]is worth doing[/I], then [I]the people you are doing it for[/I] will be ready to pay you. If it is not worth doing, they won't pay. If I work to create the best forum in Africa and people are not willing to pay, then it means the forum is not really helping people. It means the venture is not worth it.

Since Public TV is free, why are people willing to pay for DSTV? Because DSTV is better. Why is DSTV better? Because DSTV is focused on the needs of [I]its subscribers[/I], while Public TV stations are focused on the needs of their advertisers. The resulting difference is very clear.

Nairaland wants to be focused on satisfying [I]your[/I] needs!

trish: Why not go separate ways like people in the western world and find happiness with someone else?

Because most of the time, when couples go their separate ways, they do not find happiness with someone else! The divorce rate for people who have once been divorced is higher than for those who are getting married for the first time.

It's worth thinking about. Perhaps the problem is not chemistry but something in the lifestyle of the partners themselves that makes it hard for them to maintain their marriages? Maybe some people don't know the basic things they need to kow to make marriage work?

I really do believe that our higher institutions should have compulsory courses titled 'Marriage 101' and 'Parenting 101'!. It would make our country 100 times as good as it is today.

Oops. I didn't see the part where you said the door is locked. Sorry.

Ok, how about this one: A glass house cannot be 'on fire'?