Sarua-Fibre project

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Sarua-Fibre project

• Challenges involved in the establishment of an
  academic broadband backbone in Southern and East
  Africa
• Supported by IDRC

Björn Pehrson ltbjorn_at_it.kth.segt KTH, Stockholm
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A modest requirement

• Universities are key to all communities wanting
  to keep up with the development towards the
  global knowledge society
• African universities need the same network
  connectivity as their peers on other continents
  to fulfill their tasks
• Education, Research, Community Service
• All agree?

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Sarua-Fibre Objectives

• Broadband Internet access for universities in
  Southern and East Africa based on optical fibre
• A parallel track to coordinated VSAT procurement
  addressed in other projects
• Both are needed in a foreseeable future
• Even a sparse fibre infrastructure will bring
  VSAT islands back to Africa from all other
  continents

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Goals 2008

• Gbps links rather than Kbps
• National Research and Education Networks
• Regional Backbone

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Why NRENs?

• VSAT connections are vertical, fiber connections
  are horizontal
• Save costs sharing the access network
• Share resources like caching servers,
  supercomputers, a national grid
• Pool human and financial resources
• Increase your lobbying power

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Why a regional Backbone

• Consortial procurement of Internet access for all
  NRENs
• Transborder academic peering in Africa
• Global academic peering via Géant, Internet2,
  Eumednet, TEIN, ALICE,...

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It turns out there is fibrenot everywhere and
not always possible to use

• Policy and regulations in the way
• Or lack of business models
• Or market pricing, even higher than VSAT
• Fibre-database sponsored by IDRC
• More fibre is being rolled out as we speak, in
  power grid extension programmes, along railways
  and pipelines, etc.

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Telecommunications Infrastructures of EDM Optical
Fiber Geographic location

• The fiber is installed in the Southern part of
  the country
• New lines must include a fiber by default
• There is a proposal for a fiber on Mozambique
  Malawi interconnection

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Tanzania
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Facilitator1 is political willTalk to
politicians in terms of deliverables

• Cf Rwanda
• National fibre infrastructure
• Internet Exchange
• All schools being wired
• Other early birds .mz, .mw, .zm, .tz........
• Open to others to join when they are ready

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The messages

• Universities can contribute to a dynamic
  development of society, in all sectors, if
• They get broadband
• Soon also access dark fibre to build
  high-performance, non-commercial private networks
  for research and education
• Universities, as public organisations benefitting
  all parts of society, should get access to public
  goods, such as infrastructure (ducts, fibre)

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Facilitator2 is the regulatory frameworkWork
with the regulators to clarify and push the limits

• Universities should be allowed to build and
  operate non-commercial private networks with
  domestic and transborder traffic.
• Publicly owned fiber infrastructure should be
  licensed or leased, similar to radio spectrum,
  but unlimited.

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Status Existing NRENs

• South Africa
• SANREN (planned)
• TENET (procurement consortium)
• Kenya KENET
• Holds a license for international traffic
• Tanzania TENET
• Tanesco, Tazara, TRC, Songas, TTCL

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NRENs in progresshave/will get licenses,
negotiate dark fibre

• Mocambique MoRENet
• Maputo - Inhambane Beira - Nampula-Quelimane -
  Pemba (TDM, EDM)
• Malawi
• Blantyre-Lilongwe,Mzuzu, Zomba (ESCOM, MTL)
• Zambia
• UNZA, Lusaka - CBU, Kitwe. (ZESCO, CEC)
• Rwanda
• NUR, Butare KIST, Kigali
• Uganda

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Blantyre campuses
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Status Regional Backbone

• Available routes
• SAT3
• SAFE
• Terrestrial
• SA-Namibia-Zambia-Tanzania-gt
• DRC-Zambia-Zimbabwe
• EASSy, including access networks
• Internet access/global peering in the Red Sea
• Managed by a regional organization (DANTA?)

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2008 is the year when it all comes together, if
not before
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Universities can support the establishment of
sustainable broadband markets

• Academia can host neutral, non-commercial,
  pre-competitive pilots
• Public sector can provide critical mass and take
  infrastructure investments
• Traffic from
• Public administration
• Education
• Healthcare
• provides 20-40 of all traffic in developed
  markets and the proportion is even more in
  developing markets
• Then, private sector and civil society will add
  to the sustainability of business models