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| BRIDGING THE AFRICAN DIVIDE WITH SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS | | The lack and stability of local infrastructure, Telco monopolies, legislation, physical country borders and limited exposure to global infrastructure paths such as the SAT-3 cable system for landlocked countries are some of the common communication problems being experienced by African countries today.... more | | | CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL | | John Kuria, Systems Manager at AIG Global, long time customer of UUNET, narrates his experience with Kenya’s leading Network Solutions provider after four years of service.... more | | | STAFF CHANGES | | With the fast changing environment, UUNET has responded by adapting to the changes internally.... more | | | MAKING FULL UTILITY OF THE INTERNET PROTOCOL NETWORK | | The Internet Protocol network, otherwise known as IP network, is the largest interconnection between computers spanning the globe. It is indeed, what is ordinarily referred to as the Internet.... more | | | DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING | | Due to the increased numbers of disasters whether through terrorist attacks or natural calamities, more and more boards are focusing on this issue.... more | | | NEW STAFF: JOSEPH MWAURA | | A profile on UUNET Kenya's newest employee.... more | |
| NAMIBIA | | | VALENTINE’S SPECIAL AT MAERUA MALL | |
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The stability and lack of local infrastructure, Telco monopolies, legislation, physical country borders and limited exposure to global infrastructure paths such as the SAT-3 cable system for landlocked countries are some of the common communication problems being experienced by African countries today. Satellite communications bridge this immense gap and it delivers on the business goals and objectives of multi-national companies throughout the continent and abroad without the concern of having established communication routes.
UUNET has strategically decided to make the investment necessary for extending its world-class networks to a Pan-African market and is changing the way Africa communicates; no longer will businesses in Africa have to grapple with Internet reliability and availability.
UUNET's experience and skill has enabled us to deploy, operate and manage a Pan-African satellite network with a hub at Intelsat's Teleport facility at Fuchsstadt, Germany. The Fuchsstadt teleport is a fully redundant facility with facilities managed by Intelsat and service delivery managed by UUNET in South Africa. From here Fuchsstadt peers directly with the MCI global IP cloud to enable customer communications worldwide. UUsat products provide access in varying transmission speeds to the global IP backbone with more than 3800 Points-of-Presence (POP's) on the globe.
For its space segment UUNET chose C-band capacity due to its superior reliability, especially in bad weather conditions experienced in rainy seasons. C-Band's superior network availability meets stringent network performance standards required by major corporations, ISPs and telecommunications companies for carrier class services. The Intelsat 904 Zone beam, which spans more than 30 of the sub-Saharan countries, provides our coverage.
Companies that insist on full-time, dedicated Internet connection will benefit from the UUsat Satellite Solutions family of products that offers a permanently open, high bandwidth solution coupled with a dedicated connection to the Internet. Through UUsat, your business will be assured of high Internet service levels, improved time to market as well as a cost effective service offering. UUsat strives to ensure that customers feel more secure with their entire network operation and systems under the control of UUNET. The UUsat product family offers Internet access via satellite to customers requiring superior Internet access services in Africa - regardless of local infrastructure. .
UUNET has built up considerable expertise in Africa and currently operates in five countries, namely Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia. Satellite communication has enabled UUNET to offer and extend "end-to-end" global services to our customers in the above, as well as, other countries in Africa.
Successes even prior to launching have seen us providing services to more than ten customers that span countries such as Botswana, Angola, Zambia, Guinea, Mozambique, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria.
Existing customers have seen the value in UUsat as indicated by the following testimonial. "Atlas Copco, Zambia has been using the services of UUNET since May 2003 and during this period we have only experienced one outage. The services were moved from a local ISP using a radio link to UUNET providing a VSAT solution. This has improved our latency and reliability therefore a better service to our customer. We are also notified prior to a maintenance being performed. Most important for us is the presence of UUNET in Zambia to receive the personal attention. In the near future we plan to install more sites in Africa." H Muggan, I.T. Manager, Atlas Copco
Our trust in our ability to offer excellent services is further proven by the fact that we currently provide international gateway access to our customers through our operations in Zambia and Kenya (receive only as the Kenyan market is legislated for transmit paths).
UUNET is a firm believer in the NEPAD initiative in Africa and its high priority placed on infrastructure development, particularly in the ICT arena. We are therefore committed to provide, through UUsat, the continent with well-proven communication solutions.
UUNET launched UUsat Satellite Solutions at the SatCom Africa 2004 conference that took place between 17 - 18 February 2004 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
By:Dirk de Jongh-UUNET AFRICA |
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 John Kuria, Systems Manager at AIG Global, long time customer of UUNET, narrates his experience with Kenya's leading Network Solutions provider after four years of service.
As a company that heavily relies on the Internet for real time trade transactions, working with an Internet Solutions provider that matches our needs is of great essence.
More often, Internet service in Kenya is prone to interruption mainly because of the inefficient nature of the national backbone provider, JamboNet, which enjoys monopoly status.
Having migrated from Africa Online with UUNET on dial up connection, our huge portfolio management operations necessitated that our online business links be matched by an expansion in the communication arrangement to 128KB lease line on a virtual Private Network (VPN). Uniquely, UUNET has invested in equipment and skilled manpower capable of handling the load of information we manage.
The AIG data centre with the main server located in Dublin recognizes UUNET operations through the MCI network. What is amazing, is the level of transformation that e-commerce has undergone since the entry of big players such as UUNET in this market. The one thing that has happened is Telkom viewing the technological competitiveness of private sector players as reason enough for it to improve its service provision levels. While hiccups occasioned by Telkom's incompetence prevailed, UUNET, boasting some high level of technical expertise and international experience always attempted to maintain business continuity online.
For us in fact, one trade that previously would take five minutes now takes less than a minute. But the important thing for other companies to remember, is to train their staff who use the network to be able to trouble shoot on direction by techies from the service provider. AIG brought in trainers from Dublin for the same.
However, UUNET must watch against overconfidence by the technical staff. While the response time has been quite admirable, there are times that what one may call overconfidence creeps in and the monitoring of certain clients ignored.
Despite its reliability, and as a market leader, UUNET and other network solutions providers need to do, is set up disaster recovery sites separate from the normal links. Since Internet has become part of everyday business, there really is a need to operate servers synchronized with the links to prevent loss of essential data in cases of disaster. |
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 With the fast changing environment, UUNET has responded by adapting to the changes internally. The changes are aimed at providing better customer experiences countrywide as well as enhancing our business relationships.
A new department, Service Delivery has been created with the responsibility of taking care of the customer relationship, right from inception, via strong presales function, to the lifespan of the customer. Wilfred Waithaka heads this new department which we hope will embody the spirit of customer intimacy that we have embraced as a company.
One of the most important additions to this department is the pre-sales function, which was previously non-existent, which will reside with Ms. Lunde Mwendwa. Lunde, will also double-up as the Africa Online Account manager.
Peter Othino has moved to Mombasa as the area manager. His move is meant to align operations regionally with a view to delivering better service levels.With this new structure, all Mombasa matters will be handled independently by Othino. He was previously based in the lakeside city of Kisumu. |
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 The Internet Protocol network, otherwise known as IP network, is the largest interconnection between computers spanning the globe. It is indeed, what is ordinarily referred to as the Internet.
The IP network has various functionalities that if utilized to the full and properly, would provide business enterprises with more cost effective means and ways of conducting their business. For instance, instead of the traditional and archaic Public Switch Telephone line (PST), used by your ordinary landline telephony company, and which is extremely limited with regard to executing voice, data and inter-branch connectivity within an operation, enterprises can leverage on the IP network by connecting to the local ISP through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for unlimited value added functionality with voice, data, security services (Central Locking Systems, Closed Circuit Cameras), PABXs, data recovery backups, among other applications.
The ISP therefore generates adequate bandwidth at a relatively lower cost, and thus provides connectivity to the global IP network. What customers need to understand, however, is that there is a whole range of applications for which the IP network is able to deliver.
The IP network, by its very design, is a packet network, which ensures proper utilization of capacity through the use of routers (and not switches as is the case with PST). Thus, even on applications that are not IP-enabled, such as old mainframe computers or point of sale facilities such as ATMs, the equipment can be piggybacked on the IP backbone by simulating a legacy application on traditional IP platform over a more cost effective IP network.
Since, it would not make business sense for most companies to buy bandwidth capacity of say, 164KB from ISPs to access such services as video conferencing, email, data transfer, voice communication, among other core communication applications, (don't forget that full capacity would not be utilized anyway), it makes more sense therefore, to have the ISP deliver these benefits drawing from their advantage with scale economies. (Which is to say, that a bandwidth of 164KB-practically speaking-can be used by the ISP to suffice for four major users)
So what should you do to maximize utility of the IP platform? Well, for starters, the need to appreciate the worth (cost efficiency and cost effectiveness) of such an investment is of paramount importance. For instance, if your company deals in very sensitive data that are backed-up at a separate physical stations, it is highly likely that in case of a fatal blow-up of your station, all the data would be lost. Yet the IP network provides ample functionality through which a company can host a Data Recovery Backup facility with the ISP as an insurance against the unexpected.
Such value added functionality is also possible with your internal PABX lines, which -using the IP platform-can be configured across a company's network, such that incase of a failure at say the head office, staff can still access the branch office and conduct normal and unfettered communication.
Products such as UUhost are designed to enhance the functionality of the IP network within the province of the application range. At UUNET, we have invested in fully redundant fiber connectivity, redundant power supply control and redundant fire protection equipment that make delivery of every IP-based application both cost efficient and cost effective.
And, this includes local hosting of what is 'local' since local circuits tend to be more reliable.
By: Peter Mwondi, Technical Manager - UUNET |
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 Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP) is a sensitive topic amongst most IT Managers. Due to the increased numbers of disasters whether through terrorist attacks or natural calamities, more and more boards are focusing on this issue. The events of 7 August 1998 are still fresh in our minds. Many organizations were affected and were it not for some form of DRP, they would have lost everything. Even with these plans in place recovery for all the affected organizations was slow.
The IT staff in most companies is very capable of recovering from many types of outages. After all, these are the very people who designed and built the system in the first place. They know where every wire in the organization runs and have more committed to memory about the infrastructure than most of us could learn in a decade. Therein lies the problem. What if the very same people who are supposed to perform the recovery are themselves unavailable? A good DRP should be well known by all as any co-worker can be called upon to execute it in the absence of those who are normally responsible for it.
A good DRP requires the adoption and support of disciplines such as: - Backup Management
- Storage Management
- Configuration Management
- Security Management
Each of these individual disciplines contributes to the organization's recovery planning efforts. The objective of the systems management disciplines is to document, implement and support standard procedures, tools and measurements that allow the distributed computing environment to be managed effectively and efficiently. With standardization and documentation being two of the most significant challenges encountered when creating a Disaster Recovery Plan, these disciplines can prove very valuable when incorporated into the planning effort.
The distributed computing environment also has complicated Disaster Recovery Planning. In the past, the critical IT functions could, in the event of a disaster, be performed by a limited number of individuals with specifically defined skills. In a distributed environment with numerous operating systems and protocols, a large number of skills may be required to reestablish and support an organization's computer systems following a loss or failure. Because these skills are likely to be represented by a large number of personnel, possibly dispersed over a large geographical area, the mobilization and coordination of the participants should be specifically addressed within the organization's Disaster Recovery Plan.
Additionally, many companies have made users responsible for backing up data residing on their own workstations and some have even implemented systems that are supported entirely outside the IT organization. Depending on the criticality of the data and processing involved, it may be necessary to incorporate these systems and the corresponding personnel into the DRP.
While the migration to LAN/WAN environments has caused Disaster Recovery Planning to become significantly more complex than it was in the past, the distributed computing trend also has contributed to recovery planning in a number of ways that are worthy of consideration. The most obvious benefit is the decentralization of the risk of a disaster. It is no longer imminent that a loss of the organization's primary computer, or a collection of computers, will necessitate the recovery of all critical data and functions. With the distribution of data and processing, the risks associated with losing both also have been distributed. Similarly, the distributed computing environment has created a certain amount of system redundancy that can be leveraged effectively within the organization's Disaster Recovery Plan.
By Robert Mugo, Technical Director |
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 Joseph Mwaura joined UUNET in January this year from another ICT company and already has a high opinion of the company. He says the future in the communication industry will be characterized by massive improvement on service levels as liberalization of Telkom Kenya Ltd becomes a reality later on in the year or whenever it does happen. "This will herald uniformity in service delivery as a number of ISPs/organization will expectedly go for VSAT". Thus the distinction on our Service Level Agreement will be more focused on customer intimacy than the service itself. "I expect there will be big service mergers with formation of centralized call centers and dial-in centers. Overall the future looks bright but we must start early preparations for this phenomenal take off". |
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UUNET Namibia sponsored the Radio Wave Valentine’s Special at Maerua Mall where radio personalities covered themselves in chocolate. This we believe is the beginning of a long and valuable relationship with Radio Wave which saw us jointly sponsoring the Tour de Windhoek cycle challenge at the end of last year.
The proceeds of this event will go to a Children’s home in Namibia. Watch this space for more news on UUNET Namibia’s involvement with the local community.
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BRIDGING THE AFRICAN DIVIDE WITH SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS
