MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
Extending connectivity and improving bandwidth
availability to all educational institutions in Namibia
June 2006
Draft Discussion Document
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ICT Policy Objectives
MINISTRY OF
EDUCATION
•
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
MINISTRY OF
EDUCATION
•
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
MINISTRY OF
EDUCATION
End Users
Service Providers
•High cost of bandwidth
•Lack of large enough demand to drive down
prices of international bandwidth
•Over subscription of already insufficient
bandwidth available resulting in poor service
•Inefficient financial payment model between
schools and service providers
•Lack of adequate connectivity for schools in
remote locations
•Platform dictates levels of service
•Limited regional reach of high capacity
wireless network in highly populated northern
region
•Confusion in public mind where SchoolNet
ends and XNET begins
•Need to ensure sustainability of XNET
initiative
•Unable to aggregate demand to negotiate
better prices based on economies of scale
•Lack of understanding by end users of
allocation of commitment by Telecom to XNET
•Lack of SLAs with service providers
•Undefined and unclear process of technical
service commitment between partners
(Telecom, XNET, SNN and Polytechnic)
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Proposed Solution - Connectivity Provision
MINISTRY OF
EDUCATION
• 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
•GeSCI has begun discussion with African Virtual University / Partnership for Higher Education in Africa to
facilitate provision of international bandwidth for all educational institutions at a price of N$16,000 per Mbps
per month or N$64,000 for the 4 Mbps required per month for dedicated international bandwidth
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Proposed Solution - Administration and Financing
MINISTRY OF
EDUCATION
• 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 N$7million 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 Namibia’s contribution of N$13
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
•For EDUNet ISP overheads e.g. staff salaries, costs to be covered under fees collected from educational
institutions for payment of international bandwidth
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Implication for partners
MINISTRY OF
EDUCATION
•Creation of education ISP must recognize contributions from all partners and stakeholders to date.
• Domain names for each educational institution type will reflect the partner organization that has
been most prominent in providing/championing connectivity issues;
– All schools currently connected by SNN and all future schools connected by SNN will have the
domain schoolnet.na thus propelling SNN brand at no financial cost to SNN
– All users at the University of Namibia will have access to the domain name @unam.na
– All users at the Polytechnic will have access to the domain name @polytechnic.na
• SNN to continue to act as ISP for all schools and will be in charge of billing, invoicing, collections
and support to schools
– EduNet will in turn serve SNN as a “whole sale” customer
–EduNet will directly serve other non school institutions such as universities, COEs
• Neither SNN nor any other educational institution will have to deal with Telecom Namibia or any
other service provider in the future
– Edunet will be responsible for relationship management will all service providers including Telecom
Namibia
•All educational institutions must cede control and agree that EDUNet will handle all matters related
to the negotiation, purchase and distribution of internet connectivity
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Benefits of Proposal
MINISTRY OF
EDUCATION
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
MINISTRY OF
EDUCATION
High level take-away concepts
• Embrace, enhance and expand XNet structure with an independent stand alone
education ISP to cover all educational institutions
• Bandwidth requirements of all educational institutions to be aggregated to benefit from
economies of scale
• OPM to facilitate agreement between Telecom Namibia and possibly MTC to expand
network reach to educational institutions in all regions
• Utilise independent VSAT connectivity for part or all international bandwidth thereby:
– lowering cost of connectivity and increasing bandwidth for all educational
institutions
– Allowing for efficient connection to other educational networks and resources
around the world
• One VSAT to be hosted by UNAM at Northern Campus and another at Polytechnic
thus providing a redundant gateway
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