Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!rice!uw-beaver!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!percy!m2xenix!quagga!hippo!ccfj From: ccfj@hippo.ru.ac.za (F. Jacot Guillarmod) Newsgroups: comp.society.development Subject: Re: Who is on the net? Message-ID: Date: 26 May 91 09:01:11 GMT References: <1991May23.115550.966@darwin.ntu.edu.au> <1991May23.211452.17937@netcom.COM> Sender: usenet@quagga.ru.ac.za (Rhodes University NNTP server) Organization: Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa Lines: 52 In <1991May23.211452.17937@netcom.COM> jms@netcom.COM (John Schonholtz) writes: >The net reaches South Africa. It doesn't seem to make it anywhere else >on that continent, at least not yet. Which "net" is that? ;-) The zone 5 (Africa) Fidonet gateway is sitting here at Rhodes University and we are dialling Botswana, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ethiopia. We also have users from neighbouring countries (e.g. Namibia) that have guest accounts on our Unix systems and dial in via X.25 (cheaper than direct dial via modem). There are a few problems with this - these Fidonet nodes are inherently "single user" systems and just because there is an individual running a system in say, Kenya, doesn't mean that the country is actually "connected". It does show, however, that email access to less developed countries is more than just possible. South Africa has bootstrapped its way from a Fidonet gateway up to uucp and (shortly) full TCP/IP connectivity over a period of two years. Another problem is internal infra-structure. How badly do universities in the same country need to talk to each other? Our experience was that local networking only took off after we got international email access. Up until then, an "email culture" doesn't exist, and has no reason to exist because it is easy enough to pick up the phone and talk to somebody. However you can sell international email as being "cheaper than a fax", and once this is accepted, local networking (even within an organisation) booms because the culture is acceptable. Conversely, if you don't have internal networking, sites don't develop the skills or experience required to handle international traffic. In short, it is a complex and non-obvious set of causes and effects that gets a developing country (as opposed to a single individual in that country) "on the net". Lastly, you can have all the will and skills and hardware in the world in a given place, but if you can't get a reliable telephone connection across town, let alone into a neighbouring country, you will land up frustrated. Other problems, such as reliable power, hardware maintenance etc pale into insignificance compared to lack of comms infrastructure. In South(ern) Africa, there are many people at many sites (Fidonet, uucp and TCP/IP) who are more than willing to provide connectivity and technical assistance to sites in neighbouring countries. -- F.F. Jacot Guillarmod - Computing Centre - Rhodes University Artillery Road - P.O Box 94 - Grahamstown - 6140 - South Africa Internet: ccfj@hippo.ru.ac.za Phone: +27 [0]461 22023 xt 284 uucp: ..!uunet!m2xenix!quagga!hippo!ccfj Fax: +27 [0]461 25049