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This is the content of a talk I gave at Engineers Without Borders in Oxford, 21 February 2006. The presentation is here (2.9MB), in OpenOffice format.

Copper Cables and Wireless

Telecomms and Internet in Zambia

Robert Schumann, February 2006, Engineers Without Borders (Oxford)

Where it is

• Landlocked
• Neighbours:
  • DRC
  • Tanzania
  • Malawi
  • Mozambique
  • Zimbabwe
  • Botswana
  • Namibia
  • Angola

History

• Administered by UK as Northern Rhodesia until 1964
• Kenneth Kaunda leader until 1991
• Politically stable (considering neighbours)
• Economy relies on copper and agriculture

• Decline in copper revenue 80s & 90s, revival since 2002

Vital Statistics

• Ranked 166th out of 177 in the 2003 UN Development Report

• HDI decline since 1973 (according to UNDP)

• 87% of population living on < $2 per day

• From the CIA world factbook (2003):

Infrastructure

• Major donor investment in roads
  • Lusaka is a city of international offices

• Great East/North/West Roads and TaZaRa railway link to Tanzania form “corridor of development”

• Electricity is irregular and parastatal (Zesco)
• Rural areas underserved

Telecommunications milestones

From ZamTel.

• 1913 First manual telephone exchange installed in Livingstone.

• 1931 Second telephone exchange installed in Ndola.

• 1967 Lusaka – Kabwe 960 Channel microwave link commissioned.

• 1974 First Satellite Earth Station, Mwembeshi I commissioned.

• 1985 First digital exchange introduced serving as International Gate-way.

• 1986 First digital local exchange installed in Ndola.

• 1988 Second Satellite Earth Station Mwembeshi II commissioned.

• 1996 Wireless Local Loop introduced Mkushi, Chisamba, Lusaka, Choma and Mazabuka.

• 1996 Cellular Mobile Telephone Services was commissioned.

• 1997 Commissioning of the Zamtel Internet Service and On – Line Billing.

• 1998 Digitalization of Mwembeshi II was commissioned.

• 2002 Digitalisation of Exchanges and Transmission System in Eastern Zambia

Wireless Local Loop (WiLL)

• Fixed cellular
• Introduced 1996
• Ubiquitous both in towns and in rural areas
• Requires yagi antenna at customer premises
• Range ~ 50km

Mobile phones

• Celtel, Cell Z, Telecel
• Mobile phone use is booming
  • 240 000 in 2003
  • 900 000 in 2005
  • Expected 2m by 2008
• Along line of railway and Copperbelt
• Innovative payment solutions via mobile
• Phone kiosks are enormous business
• 99% prepaid

Internet: Last mile access

• Six ISPs
• Typically dial-up (copper or WiLL)
  • Monthly ISP fee ~ $30, call charges extra

• Proprietary wireless (BreezeAccess)

  • Upwards of $100 per month
• Internet cafes along railway/Copperbelt
  • $0.31 per 15 minutes to $4 per hour
  • 60% of internet use
• VSAT in use outside railway corridor ~ $100-1000 per month

• PowerLine being investigated (Zesco...)

Internet: Backhaul

• Microwave links between major towns
  • ~ 10mpbs
• Only Points Of Presence are in Lusaka and Copperbelt
• Optical fibre has reportedly been a problem due to theft

  • Not in Rwanda!

Internet: International access

• Satellite connectivity through USA
  • Each ISP has own connection, although there is peering
  • ~10mbps in total
• Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System

  • http://EASSy.org

  • Initially 20gbps @ $200m

Internet Access: Mfuwe

• Safari destination in Eastern Province
• Dial-up is expensive and unreliable
• Bushlinks.com internet cafe?
• Safari operators typically spending over $800 per month on internet and telephone
• No mains electricity
• Wireless ISP project?

FOSS: Free Software

• Free and open source

  • License conditions of GPL

  • Open source approved licenses

• A thousand definitions, ways of open sourcing
• Extol virtues....

• OSS in Africa

  • http://wiki.robertschumann.co.uk/Resources

  • “Virus” (Bill Gates, because Africa's IT workers will be forced to give away their intellectual property)

FOSS: ICT in Zambia

• Mines were major users of mainframes 1960s-70s
• $2 per day doesn't buy you much....
• National ICT policy, January 2005

  • http://www.coppernet.zm/ictpolicy/index.php

FOSS: opensource.org.zm

• http://www.opensource.org.zm

  • Temporarily at http://wiki.robertschumann.co.uk

FOSS: Open Source Zambia

• Projects
  • CD burning (Freedom Toaster?)
  • Public presentations
  • Recycling computers
• Finding existing FOSS users
  • Schools, parliament, ISPs, training centres, software developers, NGOs...
• News and events
  • 3 major workshops in the last 3 months on Africa/OSS
  • Pub meets
• Policy input

Computer Recycling

• Partly an open source advocacy exercise
• An OSZ member is interested in receiving old computers for use in various projects

  • http://drupal.vanstam.net/

• Charities:

  • http://www.computeraid.org

  • http://www.computeraid.org

  • http://www.itforcharities.co.uk/pcs.htm

• Word of caution about dumping computers

  • http://www.tacticaltech.org/recycling

• Oxford, ICT policy, colleges and departments....

Photos