Aspiring to Monopolisation

Aspiring to Monopolisation

FTLComm - Canada - Wednesday, September 5, 2001

back
home
Yesterday morning Kevin McIntyre from San Jose California was checking out the news back home and made a startling discovery. At 11:09 California time the Star Phoenix site would not load.

trace
A resourceful source from Saskatoon was contacted by Kevin and he did some checking and discovered that something odd was going on, below is the trace and what it revealed.

Southam

No,the URL is still http://www.saskatoonstar.com but it seems they've
moved the website server to within the Southam backoffice. The domain
"canada.com" is owned by the Southam empire.

There's presently an Internet problem between here and Southam and you're
likely seeing the same thing:
# IP address Host name Round trip time
1 198.169.27.126 gaia.qcc.sk.ca 1 ms
2 204.83.154.242 QCC1gw.innovationplace.com 2 ms
3 207.195.94.33 Unavailable 10 ms
4 142.165.3.53 Unavailable 128 ms
5 142.165.5.254 Unavailable 17 ms
6 206.108.110.129 dis1-regina-atm12-0-0-33.in.bellnexxia. 29 ms
7 216.209.0.2 Unavailable 10 ms
8 206.108.102.6 core1-toronto12-pos7-6.in.bellnexxia.ne 61 ms
9 206.108.107.198 bx2-toronto12-pos2-0.in.bellnexxia.net 59 ms
10 206.108.111.126 Unavailable 51 ms
11 216.191.65.241 srp2-0.core1-tor.bb.attcanada.ca 108 ms
12 216.191.67.18 pos5-0-0.hcap3-tor.bb.attcanada.ca 53 ms
13 216.13.1.54 Unavailable 166 ms
14 No response
15 No response

It's HUNG here!! Three Cheers for AT&T 1, 2, 3

abolish
Though I was aware last week that plans were afoot to link all of the various parts of the newspaper chain together I did not realise they planned to abolish all local sites. Our trusty source did some more digging yesterday afternoon and here is what he came up with at around 4:30.

local
content

So the IT guy at the S-P returned my call, and is he pissed.

Seems the corporation that bought the former Southam Newspaper group has
done some kind of consolidation exercise and moved all the newspaper
websites to Hamilton and relieved ALL local IT departments of website
responsibility. And they screwed up royally. And continue to do so.

He was laughing as he told me that the S-P site finally came up today, but
had yesterday's news on it. The day before, it had read "Regina Star
Phoenix" so he was thinking that even yesterday's news was positive
progress. Down the road is yet another consolidation, probably at a site
in Winnipeg and transfer of the Southam-registered Internet domains and
address space to the new ownership.

But www.star-whatever.com is truly gone from Saskatoon and with it,
likely a job or two and some local flavor to the content as well as the S-P
brand recognition. Onward & upward, as they say.

toast
Today, using Ensign's "news sources" page I checked them out and Saskatoon, Regina, Vancouver and Edmonton are all toast. They are all now the same content, and none of them function, they attempt to load but they stall after minutes of trying to get beyond the top banner.

suggestions
We will update the News Sources page on Ensign eliminating all the garbage and repetition, if you have suggestions for this page let me know. You will notice that I do not include any US papers simply because at this time I believe that they are all commerically sencored so that I do not consider their news acceptable. Clearly that was the case with Canadian papers as well but even under the heal of Conrad Black or Lord Thompson Canadian papers still were less gingoistic than "America, America" the slanted cheerleaders to the South.

Timothy W. Shire


Aspiring to Monopolisation
FTLComm - Canada - Wednesday, September 5, 2001
back home	Yesterday morning Kevin McIntyre from San Jose California was checking out the news back home and made a startling discovery. At 11:09 California time the Star Phoenix site would not load.

trace	A resourceful source from Saskatoon was contacted by Kevin and he did some checking and discovered that something odd was going on, below is the trace and what it revealed.

Southam	No,the URL is still http://www.saskatoonstar.com but it seems they've moved the website server to within the Southam backoffice. The domain "canada.com" is owned by the Southam empire. There's presently an Internet problem between here and Southam and you're likely seeing the same thing: # IP address Host name Round trip time 1 198.169.27.126 gaia.qcc.sk.ca 1 ms 2 204.83.154.242 QCC1gw.innovationplace.com 2 ms 3 207.195.94.33 Unavailable 10 ms 4 142.165.3.53 Unavailable 128 ms 5 142.165.5.254 Unavailable 17 ms 6 206.108.110.129 dis1-regina-atm12-0-0-33.in.bellnexxia. 29 ms 7 216.209.0.2 Unavailable 10 ms 8 206.108.102.6 core1-toronto12-pos7-6.in.bellnexxia.ne 61 ms 9 206.108.107.198 bx2-toronto12-pos2-0.in.bellnexxia.net 59 ms 10 206.108.111.126 Unavailable 51 ms 11 216.191.65.241 srp2-0.core1-tor.bb.attcanada.ca 108 ms 12 216.191.67.18 pos5-0-0.hcap3-tor.bb.attcanada.ca 53 ms 13 216.13.1.54 Unavailable 166 ms 14 No response 15 No response It's HUNG here!! Three Cheers for AT&T 1, 2, 3

abolish	Though I was aware last week that plans were afoot to link all of the various parts of the newspaper chain together I did not realise they planned to abolish all local sites. Our trusty source did some more digging yesterday afternoon and here is what he came up with at around 4:30.

local content	So the IT guy at the S-P returned my call, and is he pissed. Seems the corporation that bought the former Southam Newspaper group has done some kind of consolidation exercise and moved all the newspaper websites to Hamilton and relieved ALL local IT departments of website responsibility. And they screwed up royally. And continue to do so. He was laughing as he told me that the S-P site finally came up today, but had yesterday's news on it. The day before, it had read "Regina Star Phoenix" so he was thinking that even yesterday's news was positive progress. Down the road is yet another consolidation, probably at a site in Winnipeg and transfer of the Southam-registered Internet domains and address space to the new ownership. But www.star-whatever.com is truly gone from Saskatoon and with it, likely a job or two and some local flavor to the content as well as the S-P brand recognition. Onward & upward, as they say.

toast	Today, using Ensign's "news sources" page I checked them out and Saskatoon, Regina, Vancouver and Edmonton are all toast. They are all now the same content, and none of them function, they attempt to load but they stall after minutes of trying to get beyond the top banner.

suggestions	We will update the News Sources page on Ensign eliminating all the garbage and repetition, if you have suggestions for this page let me know. You will notice that I do not include any US papers simply because at this time I believe that they are all commerically sencored so that I do not consider their news acceptable. Clearly that was the case with Canadian papers as well but even under the heal of Conrad Black or Lord Thompson Canadian papers still were less gingoistic than "America, America" the slanted cheerleaders to the South.

	Timothy W. Shire