Telecom Namibia is main provider for the access network b

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• Extending connectivity and improving bandwidth
  availability to all educational institutions in
  Namibia
  
• June 2006

Draft Discussion Document
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ICT Policy Objectives

• The ICT Policy for Education sets out a series of
  clear objectives that must be met for the policy
  to be a success.
  
• The objectives for connectivity are as follows
• All educational institutions will have network
  access, irrespective of geographic location
  
• Connectivity will be equitable between rural and
  urban institutions
  
• Connectivity will be affordable
• National ICT goals will be supported by
  sufficient bandwidth
  
• Connectivity and service will not be platform
  dependent platform neutrality will be
  guaranteed
  

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Current Status of Connectivity in the Education
Sector

• XNET was formed as a partnership between
  SchoolNet Namibia and Telecom in 2003 as a
  vehicle to provide affordable bandwidth
  connectivity to a variety of social sectors (such
  as agriculture, health, SME etc) beginning with
  the education sector
• However, XNET has no dedicated staff or premises,
  and relies on secondments from SchoolNet and
  GeSCI, and services from Polytechnic technical
  staff
• XNET does not own an ISP or any part of the
  network and does not currently have a contract or
  service agreements with Telecom/service
  providers. (contract has been under negotiation
  for a long time)
• SchoolNet, through the XNET structure, has been
  providing affordable connectivity to
  approximately 250 schools throughout the
  country
• UNAM, Polytechnic and various other educational
  institutions do not benefit from the XNET
  structure and have independent connections to the
  Internet.
• Telecom Namibia is main provider for the access
  network - between institutions and national
  backbone and major provider with access to
  international gateway in Namibia
• Telecom Namibia also provides the National Fiber
  backbone, which now covers major portion of the
  country. However, UNAM regional centres and
  Northern Campus not adequately serviced with
  necessary bandwidth
• Wireless access currently available in
  Swakopmund, Windhoek and parts of northern
  Namibia with planned roll out to other parts of
  the country

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Current Issues
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Proposed Solution - Connectivity Provision

• Embrace, enhance and expand the existing XNET
  structure to address the connectivity issues that
  exist in the education sector
  
• Expedite the creation of an independent stand
  alone Education ISP (EduNet) hosted by Poly
  
• All educational institutions to be covered under
  XNET structure
  
• Bandwidth to all institutions will be increased
  to realistic and useful levels and aggregated to
  leverage economies to scale
  
• UNAM Centres to have 64/128 kbps each
• UNAM main campus to have 1/2 Mbps and Northern
  Campus to have 512/1024 Kbps
  
• Total national bandwidth for all educational
  institutions to increase to 20 Mbps
  
• Total international bandwidth to all educational
  institutions to increase to 4Mbps
  
• Local access and national backbone (through
  dedicated VPN) to be provided primarily by
  Telecom Namibia
  
• In areas where Telecom Namibia is unable to
  extend its network, XNET to explore MTC to
  provide GPRS/EDGE technology (utilization of
  NamPower dark fibre to also be explored)
• International bandwidth could be provided by
  independent VSAT connection or partly by Telecom
  to all educational institutions
  
• One VSAT at Polytechnic, one VSAT at UNAM
  Northern Campus
  
• Negotiations with Telecom to be conducted and
  licenses required from NCC for this to happen
  

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Proposed Solution - Administration and Financing

• EDUNet has own dedicated staff (2-3 staff)
  housed under NETSS Centre
  
• ISP physical infrastructure collocated at
  Polytechnic data centre
  
• Service and support for connectivity to be
  provided through the NETSS structure
  
• SNN to continue to act as ISP for all schools
  purchasing its bandwidth in bulk from EDUNet
  
• Via ETSIP, Ministry of Education will commit up
  to N7million over the next 5 years to this
  initiative to cater primarily for infrastructure
  
• To cover cost of acquiring VSAT and ISP
  infrastructure
  
• To cover costs of access equipment for
  educational institutions
  
• OPM has also indicated a willingness to
  providing funding support for this initiative
  
• For national bandwidth, some costs could be
  covered under Telecom Namibias contribution of
  N13 million to XNET initially.
  
• For international bandwidth, all educational
  institutions pay directly to XNET/EDUNet for
  bandwidth consumed
  
• MoE subsidizes schools but still schools expected
  to pay a small fee (argument that nothing should
  be for free if schools are to take it as a
  valuable resource)
• SNN collects and aggregates all schools payments
  except for MoE subsidy which is paid directly to
  EDUNet
  
• NETSS collects aggregates all educational
  institutions payments
  

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Implication for partners
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Benefits of Proposal
Ten of thousands of N are unnecessarily being
spent currently on connectivity for an
insufficient amount of bandwidth.
It is critical therefore that this initiative is
progressed as quickly as possible.
All educational institutions will be able to
increase their bandwidth by at least 100 within
the same budget and bandwidth will be dedicated
and not shared as is the case today
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Summary