Sarua-Fibre project

Challenges involved in the establishment of an academic broadband backbone in Southern and

East Africa

Supported by IDRC

Björn Pehrson <bjorn@it.kth.se>KTH, Stockholm

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?

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

Goals 2008

• Gbps links rather than Kbps

• National Research and Education Networks

• Regional Backbone

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

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,...

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.

Telecommunications Infrastructures of EDMTelecommunications Infrastructures of EDMOptical Fiber – Geographic locationOptical Fiber – Geographic location

• The fiber is installed in The fiber is installed in the Southern part of the the Southern part of the countrycountry

• New lines must include a New lines must include a fiber by “default”fiber by “default”

• There is a proposal for a There is a proposal for a fiber on Mozambique – fiber on Mozambique – Malawi interconnectionMalawi interconnection

Tanzania

Facilitator#1 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

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)

Facilitator#2 is the regulatory framework

Work 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.

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

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

Blantyre campuses

Status: Regional Backbone

• Available routes– SAT3– SAFE– Terrestrial

• SA-Namibia-Zambia-Tanzania->• DRC-Zambia-Zimbabwe

– EASSy, including access networks

• Internet access/global peering in the Red Sea• Managed by a regional organization (DANTA?)

2008 is the year when it all comes together, if not before

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• Healthcareprovides 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