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The Acacia conference has better connectivity than most African cities. A total of five different routes for Internet data have been set up for the event - four direct satellite circuits and one ISDN connection. Only a few of the major urban areas in Africa have as many connections, often due to local restrictions on international links and the use of VSAT.

The total incoming bandwidth to the conference is about 2.3Mbps, with about 1.2Mbps of outgoing bandwidth. Usually an Internet service provider with this much bandwidth would have many thousands of users.

SPECIALIST ARTICLE

By Mike Jensen

While some broadband users in developed countries have as much bandwidth for their personal use (notably in South Korea), even some entire countries in Africa have less bandwidth, including Burundi, Eritrea, Niger, Central African Republic, Chad and Equatorial Guinea.

In support for the Acacia conference, and underlining how easily bandwidth can be provided anywhere it is needed, Telkom (the Public Telecom Operator) and the two other South African satellite connectivity providers (Sentech/Infosat and Transtel) took less than a day to set up their services at Kwa Maritane.

The four satellite antennae and a dialup ISDN line serve an average of about 30 simultaneous users at the site.  These are spread between the 8 PCs donated by Mecer for the cybercafe, the three wireless local loop links provided by the local corDect distributor Multisource, the 10-15 users of the WiFi hotspot provided by WirelessG, along  with the exhibitions and the media office.

Measuring the amount of traffic of the wireless users in the conference room offers the interesting possibility of guaging the level of interest in the presentation at the time.

Sentech has provided its two-way corporate 1.2 metre VSAT solution for the Mecer PCs. This provides the most bandwidth per PC on the site - the 8 machines share a 1Mbps downlink with a 256Kbps upstream path. WirelessG's WiFi service is being used simultaneously by an average of 10-14 people in the conference room. Depending on the quality of the user'sWiFi card, coverage extends all around the building and into the hotel reception area.

Also, those lucky enough to be staying in the rooms opposite the conference centre also have access. The wireless service is linked to the Internet via the 128Kbps dialup ISDN link for the upstream path and a 256Kbps downlink (burstable to 300Kbps) via a standard satellite TV antenna. This also provides access for the three PCS connected to the corDect wireless local loop (WLL) system which provides up to 70Kbps to each PC. If the voicetelephone which is connected to the system is used at the same time, this drops to 35Kbps. Sentech's service uses the Panamsat PAS7 Ku-band satellite bandwidth which has a footprint over Southern Africa.

Transtel's 1.8 metre satellite dish is being used in a practical demonstration of an extension of a LAN. The PCs at the Transtel stand in Kwa Maritane are all on the same network as those in the corporate head-office in Johannesburg - the satellite link simply acts a bridge to link the PCs intoa uniform Wide Area Network. The demonstration has been configured for320Kbps on the downlink and 256Kbps on the uplink using Panamsat's PAS10 satellite which covers most of sub-Saharan Africa.

Telkom's new Gilat-based VSAT service provides connectivity to four of the PCs at the Acacia conference media office.