An African perspective on R&E networking in sub-Saharan Africa Meeting on enhancing research and education networking within and to Africa Washington DC, 5 May 2005 Duncan Martin CEO of TENET

2 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa What’s meant by “Research and Education Networking”? In the developed world: ensuring that advanced networking traffic is not disabled by congestion from commodity-type traffic developing next-generation networking and applications in research and higher education. In Africa, south of the Sahara: securing affordable Internet access; special “holy cow” deals for research and education institutions; relaxed VSAT license conditions enabling participation in collaborative international research projects.

3 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa The reasons are well-known Terrestrial communications infrastructure is sparse (except in South Africa) Many countries still have a single incumbent operator protected by restrictive license regulations Full cost of long-haul connectivity to “the Internet” in Europe and the USA has to be borne by the Africans Punitive cost of cross-border circuits within Africa

4 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa The University of Witwatersrand 11.3 Mb/s Internet access Cost breakdown Appox. unit cost ($ per kb/s per month)$4.00 Carrier transit cost in UK7 % Long haul to UK (via SAT-3 cable) cost63 % Transport and peering within South Africa30 %

5 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa The University of Swaziland 192 kb/s Internet access Cost breakdown Appox. unit cost ($ per kb/s per month)$ Carrier transit in UK3 % Long haul to UK (via SAT-3 cable)25 % Transport and peering within South Africa12 % Trans-border link: S African half-circuit30 % Trans-border link: Swazi half-circuit30 %

6 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa SAT-3 / SAWC / SAFE

7 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa SAT-3 connectivity to and from South Africa Layer 2 pipes between Cape Town or Johannesburg and New York, NY Ashburn, VA London Amsterdam Back up pipe via SAFE cable Westwards around the World from New York GRE tunnel between Géant and TENET network Géant PoP in London  TENET’s Cape Town gateway Shares TENET’s SAT-3 bandwidth (~ 100 Mb/s)

8 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Cable versus VSAT (1) In South Africa TELKOM SA’s exclusive SAT-3 landing rights last through 2007 Sentech has satellite landing rights (as does TELKOM SA) TELKOM SA has a comprehensive broadband national network Capacity leased by commercial ISPs TELKOM SA is by far the largest ISP…. 3 other 1 st tier ISPs; 200+ resellers Long haul via SAT-3 and SAFE cables, satellite TENET institutions have a special deal from TELKOM SA Latency via SAT-3 to New York: 220 ms Cost of Internet access to TENET institutions in SA around $ 4.00 per kb/s (full duplex) per month

9 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Cable versus VSAT (2) Second Network Operator (SNO) has extensive fiber connectivity into neighboring countries will become useful one day (2006?) EASSy cable planned for 2008 Tata Communications has shareholdings in SNO and EASSy

10 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Cable versus VSAT (3) Elsewhere: Sparsity of terrestrial infrastructure limits usefulness of SAT-3 Even in Nigeria, Ghana, …. Campuses rely mostly on VSAT services Some exceptions (e.g. U of Dar-es-Salaam) Consortial procurement (“Partnership universities”) Carnegie Corp, Ford, MacArthur, Rockefeller Leadership from African Virtual University Latency to New York: 550 ms Cost to institutions Special deals around $2.00 per kb/s (half-duplex) per month (plus cost of satellite dish)

11 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa About TENET Non-profit, private company Incorporated in 2000 Owned jointly by the 24 public universities in SA Extending ownership to public research institutions Appointed by each institution as its agent for procuring Internet access 45 institutions; 90 connected campuses; 100 Mb/s on SAT-3 Negotiated special deals with TELKOM SA Runs program to develop IT support capacity Training, coaching, technical workshops Funded by Andrew W Mellon Foundation

12 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa The SARUA initiative Southern African Regional Universities Association Launched in March public universities in the SADC region 26 have access to SAT-3 20 use VSAT connectivity SARUA envisages adopting a TENET-like agency model Negotiating a common VSAT deal for SARUA universities Lobbying, where necessary, for relaxation of VSAT license restrictions and/or fees Achieving a shared connection to Géant / Internet2

13 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa The “strong agent” model Each participating institution authorizes the Agent to Negotiate and enter into service provider agreements on its behalf Administer the agreement (handling orders, billings, payments,..) Levy an agency fee to cover the agent’s direct costs. This puts the Agent in a very strong negotiating position Moral and political pressure can be very helpful on incumbent operators from international donors and agencies

14 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Beyond Internet access – becoming part of the global REN SA Government is creating SANReN Department of Science and Technology (DST) Has contracted TENET’s assistance Needs of “big e-science” projects Radio and optical astronomy, VLBI, ALICE Project, tropical medicine Inter-connection with TENET network “Connectable” institutions in other countries welcome Will support IPv6 EC very supportive dedicated connection to Géant (1 Gb/s?) In place by year-end SKA bid grabs the imagination!

15 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Beyond Internet access – high performance computing Center for High Performance Computing Being planned as a national facility To be located in Cape Town Operated by CSIR Supported by SA Government (DST) Accessed via SANReN

16 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa