Update on NREN developments in South Africa Progress and Challenges in Building National Research and Education Networks In Africa: A View from the Field Philadelphia, 18 September 2005 Duncan Martin CEO of TENET

2 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Thank you to… Internet2 for organizing this special meeting in collaboration with IDRC, Network Start-Up Resource Center, Partnership for Higher Education in Africa For inviting me to participate Carnegie Corporation of New York for the grant to Internet2 that covered the costs of my coming here

3 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa What’s meant by: “Research and Education Networking”?

4 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa 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. (Extracted from Internet2’s standard MoU with international partners)

5 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa In Africa, south of the Sahara: securing affordable Internet access for universities and research institutions special “holy cow” deals relaxed VSAT license conditions enabling participation in collaborative international research projects.

6 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa The TENET network Inter-connects 100 sites of 40 institutions 165 Mb/s aggregate connection b/w 105 Mb/s dedicated Internet connection via SAT-3 submarine cable tunneled connection to Géant Provider/operator is TELKOM SA Configured as a VPN within TELKOM’s MPLS-enabled national IP network Entirely paid for by user institutions

7 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa What’s changed since the Internet2 Spring meeting?

8 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Awareness and resolve have reached critical mass Govt. determined to force telecom costs down Even Pres. Mbeki has said so TELKOM has reduced some prices Independent Regulator has criticized TELKOM’s broadband offerings will regulate accordingly Inter-country comparisons galore Government intends to create and fund a gigabit NREN TENET is assisting

9 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Second National Operator (SNO) Shareholders’ agreement signed Tata Communications (India) in control PSTN license imminent First service delivery in 1Q2006? Questions about access to submarine fibre effect on the prices of basic services

10 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa Regional developments Failure to improve connectivity to U of Swaziland SPTC (Swaziland) not willing to reduce cross-border half-circuit charges TELKOM SA not willing to take an initiative SARUA Fibre Study Southern African Regional Universities Assn. Funded by IDRC and World Bank Institute (Americo Muchanga)

11 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa TENET developments Internet2 MoU to be signed today Thanks to Heather Boyles, Ana Preston Details of connection being finalized First conversations with IEEAF Participation in performance monitoring SLAC Pinger beacon site NLANR AMP site IPv6 tunnel broker commissioned /32 announced to OCCAID, Real two sites have active connections and projects IRC server commissioned

12 Tertiary Education Network of South Africa