UbuntuNet

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UbuntuNet
Planning Workshop amongst IEEAF, RENU and
UbuntuNet Kampala, 16 17 October 2007
Duncan Martin
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What is UbuntuNet?

• Organisation
• Purpose
• Strategy
• Projects

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UbuntuNet organisation

• Born at WSIS in 2005
• Incorporated in 2006 in Amsterdam
• Non-profit association
• Members are African NRENs
• KENET, MAREN, MoRENet, RwEdNet, SUIN, TENET
• Soon also RENU, TERNET, ZAMNET, others
• Board of 9 directors
• Chairperson Prof Zimani D Kadzamira
• Company Secretary Margaret Ngwira
• Development plan
• Establish services and concomitant revenue
• Establish home base in Nairobi
• Appoint CEO, technical officer, admin officer

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UbuntuNet purpose

• Develop and improve connectivity between member
  NRENs and
• other member NRENs
• other RENs worldwide
• the Internet generally.
• Provide related auxiliary services to member
  NRENs
• Develop the knowledge and skills of ICT
  practitioners in universities and research
  institutions in the region

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UbuntuNet strategy

• Focus on optical fibre
• Help manage the migration from VSAT
• Develop UbuntuNet regional backbone
• Vision REN backbone for Sub-Saharan Africa
• Strategy Develop sub-regional clusters
• Reality Not one cross-border link realised yet
• Worldwide REN connectivity
• The vision High-speed connectivity to the World
• The reality No submarine cables no backhaul
• BUT what about the SEACOM? IEEAF?
• The Géant connection
• Tunneled connections to Géant for all
  institutions
• Connect via an UbuntuNet hub in Europe

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Projects Cluster development
UbuntuNet East Cluster
UbuntuNet South Cluster
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Projects The Géant connection
Géant
General Internet
UbuntuNet router
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• Completed tasks
• ASN, IPv4 and IPv6 address space from AfriNIC
• CISCO 7606 router donated by CISCO
• Installed in DANTEs cage in Telecity, London
• REN transit connection to Géant
• To be organised in next few weeks
• 1 Gb/s connection to LINX
• Settlement-free peering with all comers
• Internet transit
• Soon
• 1 Gb/s connection to Abilene

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Projects Incorporating VSAT campuses
UbuntuNet router
Backhauls to London
UbuntuNet routers at VSAT teleports in Europe
VSAT-dependent campuses all over Africa
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Projects Incorporate PHEA Bandwidth Consortium

• Existing consortium of universities that buy VSAT
  capacity
• 6 in Nigeria 3 in Ghana, Makerere, Nairobi, Dar
• Consortium initially created by PHEA
• Located in AVU, Nairobi
• Needs new home
• Can UbuntuNet provide that new home?
• IDRC and PHEA sounded out UbuntuNet
• But UbuntuNet needs to establish capacity
• Leadership from IDRCs Steve Song
• Matter being finalised

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• Thanks for listening!