Connectivity Providers Database

From: NRobinson@f1.n761.z5.fidonet.org (NRobinson) Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 14:59:18 -0500 Following Karen Banks questions I guess it's time that we were a little more public about the acquisition of full IP access for Zambia and how we got there, although I'll have to be brief. There's a lot to do! (There are papers around that do describe the Zambian e-mail situation up to December 1993). Zambia has taken over three years to develop its e-mail network from a purely academic network serving the University of Zambia to a public, although non- commercial network of some 270+ e-mail points serving NGOs, health institutions, devlopment and aid organisations. As Karen mentioned these institutions have been using a DOS based store and forward mail system with a thrice daily dial up connection to the Internet through Rhodes University in South Africa. It is the success of this network and its rapid growth that confirmed in our minds that the demand existed to support financially a full IP connection in the medium to long term. It also confirmed that the local telecommunications infrastructure was strong enough and sufficiently widespread to support e-mail communication beyond the urban areas of Lusaka and the Copperbelt, and that good quality telephone lines existed within the capital to support interactive data communication. The step up to full IP access has not been an easy one however, and has taken far longer than we had anticipated. The capital costs of equipment to provide the right quality of service to fee-paying commercial customers is substantial. To provide an interactive service to the public we have made available twenty telephone lines and modems linked to the network via a modem server. The cost of installing the line itself has also been *very* high. As I understand it, while countries immediately adjacent to South Africa benefit from a tariff structure for leased lines based on distance and comparable to that used for lines wholely within South Africa, a satellite link to Zambia (the only link that could guarantee the quality that we require) is charged by Telkom at the same rate as a link to the United States. Zambia is regarded as an 'intercontinental' link. Thus our leased line charges are some US$60,000 per year, although we hope that South Africa's participation in SADC might lead to a reduction in this fee. (Hopefully other countries in the region do not face such high comms costs) We have been fortunate in receiving support for our first year capital equipment, comms and consultancy costs from the World Bank. 'Internet Africa' in Cape Town (formerly The Internet Company of South Africa - TICSA) have also been very supportive in providing our Internet access point at the South African end of the leased data circuit. However our budgets, and the huge interest generated by some very limited marketing so far, suggest that even with quite high recurrent annual communications costs we can recover those costs and grow. The link to the Internet is in place and a company has been established (ZAMNET Communication Systems Limited) to provide and sell Internet services, including e-mail, to commercial and non-commercial subscribers. This company has been set up as a 'campus company' by the University of Zambia, the company's main share holder and of course a major beneficiary itself of full Internet access. (The establishment of a company itself has both legal and financial implications and we have involved accounting and legal advisors to assist us.) Currently full interactive Internet services are only available to users of the small Computer Centre network although all international mail for the 270+ e- mail users around the country is gated to the Internet locally and carried over our leased circuit to Cape Town. We hope to be able to provide an initial interactive service to a select group of users before the end of January and a full public service by March 1995. Hopefully that outlines where we are now and how we have got there. There are sure to be many unanswered questions and I'll be more than happy to try to provide any missing information and participate further in any debate about prospective IP access in other African countries, although the similarities that may exist between many countries in Southern and East Africa probably do not hold further north and west within Africa. Regards, Neil Robinson University of Zambia Computer Centre E-Mail: neil@unza.zm