African Great Lakes Rural Broadband
Research Infrastructure
Peter KAHIIGI1, Eunice KARIUKI2, Victor KYALO2, Muthoni MASINDE3, Donart
NGARAMBE4, Amos NUNGU5, Julianne SANSA-OTIM6, Björn PEHRSON7
1
National IT Authority, Uganda, P. O. Box 33151, Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256 417 801 000, Fax: + 256 902 973 373, Email:peter.kahiigi@nita.go.ug
2
Kenya ICT Board, P. O. Box 27150, 00100 Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: +254 20 2089061, Email: Eunice.kariuki/vkyallo@ict.go.ke
3
University of Nairobi, Email:muthoni@uonbi.ac.ke
4
KIST/REHCE, Avenue de l'Armee, B.P. 3900, Kigali, 3900, Rwanda
Tel: +250 788302577, Fax: + 250 252571925/2525771924 , Email: don_ngrambe@yahoo.com
5
DIT, P. O. Box 2958, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
Tel: +255 22 2150174, Fax: + 255 22 2152504, Email: amosnungu@dit.ac.tz
6
Makerere University, P. O. Box 7062, Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256 77 231 0038, Fax: + 256 41 454 0620, Email: sansa@cit.mak.ac.ug
7
KTH, Forum 120, Kista, 164 40, Sweden
Tel: +46 70 625 6140, Fax: + 46 8 751 1793, Email: bpehrson@kth.se
Abstract: The African Great Lakes Rural Broadband Research Infrastructure
(AGLARBRI) addresses the establishment of sustainable broadband markets in areas
where there is demand but no supply of broadband services. The scientific objective
is to validate the reproducibility, scalability and extensibility of earlier successful
results from the Tanzania ICT for Rural Development program. The development
objective is to accelerate the deployment of commercial last mile links by
stimulating community based first mile initiatives. Under-served local communities
in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and eastern DRC are being targeted and
supported by local research and higher education institutions to support capacity
building. Innovative and affordable technical solutions based on off-the shelf
hardware and open source software are being packaged for industrial distribution.
The application focus is on inclusive ubiquitous access, and basic public services
such as Healthcare, education and local administration. The project is well aligned
with the new targets from the UN Broadband Commission, which clearly justify the
mainstreaming of the results from Tanzania to the other neighbouring countries.
Keywords: ICT4D, Inclusive Ubiquitous Access, eInfrastructures, eInclusion,
eAccessibility, eHealth, Health Information Systems
1. Introduction
The UN Broadband Commission has recently formulated four challenging targets for
broadband policy, affordability and uptake to be reached by 2015 [6]. The African Great
Lakes Rural Broadband Research Infrastructure (AGLARBRI) project, based on the results
from the Tanzania ICT for Rural Development program [1], addresses several of these
challenges. The results from Tanzania are discussed in a recent Ph.D.-thesis by one of the
co-authors [2] laying out a strategy for establishment of sustainable broadband markets in
areas where there is a demand for broadband services but no supply. The Broadband
Commission and national targets justify the mainstreaming of these results to the
neighbouring countries.
A basic assumption is that commercial providers will establish last mile links to underserved communities sooner rather than later if the communities themselves engage in social
businesses providing first mile connections demonstrating feasibility and mitigating risks.
Another basic assumption is that first mile initiatives raise interesting research and
development issues that motivate highly competent research and higher education
institutions to assist [3] while at the same time developing new learning and job
opportunities for their students.
The strategy laid out in [2] is conceptually simple: Attract investments by addressing
basic public sector services, such as healthcare, education and local administration. Then
turn every stone to find paying customers to cover operating costs. The challenge is in all
aspects of the implementation of this simple strategy.
The ownership and leadership, the technical solutions, the business models, the costbenefit analyses, the reorganisation of user work processes to take advantage of the
services, education and training, etc. All these challenges are processes in themselves.
The ownership and leadership often starts with one or a few entrepreneurs seeing
opportunities. In early phases, the first duty of such entrepreneurs is to stimulate the
community, the trusted local government, to take ownership with the motivation to improve
cost-efficiency in the provisioning of main-stream public services. Once the community is
in the driver seat as the main customer, it has to develop a skill as pre-commercial procurer
of development involving all entrepreneurs that can contribute in fair competition and with
time limited mandates. This process will consist of a series of iterative procurements with
time-limited private-public partnership contracts that eventually will develop a market with
supporting supply chains. It may, however, take a decade or two, and will require
transparent and audited iterative pre-commercial procurements to stay on track.
2. Objectives
The scientific objectives of the AGLARBRI project include validation of the
reproducibility, scalability and extensibility of the basic strategies and methods tested in
Tanzania. The geographical area in focus includes all EAC states and Eastern DRC in a
ring around Lake Victoria and with links from Kigali to Bujumbura and Goma. The pilots
in Tanzania include a network between the capitals of the Bunda and Serengeti districts in
the northern Mara region. In Rwanda, two districts in the Eastern region, Ngoma and
Kirehe are being considered. In Uganda, the three rural districts Isingiro, Mityana, and
Iganga are being considered for participation in the AGLARBRI project.
The primary application focus is on healthcare and rational drug management, except in
Burundi where secondary schools is a priority. The extensibility will be tested by
broadening the ICT4D content to other priorities in the regional and national strategic
development plans beyond the very basic public health, education and local administration
services.
One example of such a broadening is to include climate change issues important to
remote communities, including contingency strategies based on enhanced monitoring as
well as mitigation strategies reducing emission of greenhouse gases. Our contributions in
that area involves power-lean communication system designs with integrated power
management, the use of renewable energy sources to power them and the use of physical as
an alternative to chemical energy storage technologies based on batteries with ultracapacitor cells rather than lead-acid cells.
3. Methodology
The AGLARBRI project started out using the same strategy as the one developed in the
Tanzania ICT4RD program. The project is still only starting up and we expect the methods
and tools to develop. The approach to implement the strategy includes:
• Identification and invitation of local communities (LCs) to participate in AGLARBRI
and coach them in the formulation of their development plan
• Supporting the LCs in the establishment of their local area network
• Supporting the LCs to interconnect to each other and to their national networks
4. Technology Description
The technical solutions used in the Tanzania program are based on unlicensed radio
spectrum (wifi) in the first mile networks and a passive dark optical fiber pair in publicly
owned fibre cables for the access network. The active network components are all based on
open source software and standard off-the shelf hardware components, including Linux
routers, servers for network and end-user services, as well as Voice over IP and Video
Conferencing clients at the end-user premises. The router design includes integrated power
management supporting the use of alternative power sources and local power storage to
sustain operations even with power outages where there is a power grid. The ultra-capacitor
battery is still being tested in the laboratory environment.
Development is in progress regarding power-lean wireless sensor and actuator nodes
for monitoring the quality of drinking water and other environment data. This development
involves validating the ports of wireless senor network software platforms, such as TinyOS
and Contiki, to the latest generation of Microcontroller Units, such as Atmega128RF , and
interfacing sensors for monitoring of voltage, current, temperature and climate parameters
such as temperature, humidity, pressure and light. A special power-lean gateway is being
developed with all sorts of upstreams, including wired ethernet over copper and fiber, wifi,
GSM, IEE802.15.4 and HF.
Some of the health related services that will be provided (in some/all the participating
countries) include:
• A Drug Management Application (DMA) runs on tablet or regular PCs and
helps health facilities to keep track of drug inventory and to order new drugs.
• High Definition Video Conferencing (HDVC) supports high definition video
conferencing between multiple parties therefore suitable for medical purposes.
• Residential gateway enables patients to connect from their homes to the medical
network which health professionals can access in order to provide remote care.
• The Medical Records System provides a 360-degree patient records solution.
• The Sensor Gateway an Android-client interfaces with pulsemeters and pushes
data to a central server which then distributes it to targeted health professionals.
5. Developments
5.1 – Tanzania
Key actors in Tanzania include: 1)Universal Communication Access Fund (UCAF), tasked
to speed up implementation of universal access policies through expansion and coverage of
ICT services to rural and less profitable communities; 2)Tanzania Communication
Regulatory Authority (TCRA), the leading agency of the government with the obligation of
promoting efficient communication services and increase access to ICTs, and promoting
efficient, reliable and affordable communications infrastructure and applications; 3) the
Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology
(COSTECH) responsible for
coordinating research in the country; and 4) the Ministry of Science, Communication and
Technology which is currently planning to facilitate creation of 3,000 telecentres in the
country by 2015. A number of ICT initiatives have been taking place in the country
including the National ICT Broadband Backbone (NICTBB) which is expected to connect
all district capitals, as well as provide connectivity to almost all neighbour countries as
shown in Figure 1.
NICTBB has 7 objectives: i) To increase the usage of ICT for equitable and
sustainable socio-economic and cultural development of Tanzania; ii) To establish a Point
of Presence in all country’s administrative districts; iii) To facilitate the implementation of
e-government, e-health, e-commerce, and e-education initiatives; iv) To make ICT related
services particularly Internet affordable and readily available to common Tanzanians; v) To
Fig 1: Tanzania National Backbone Map [4]
provide access to international submarine fibre optic cables via Dar es Salaam landing point
to all landlocked neighbouring countries i.e. Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia
and the Democratic Republic of Congo; vi) To create a favourable environment for
cooperation and partnership in ICT among public and private sectors, civil society, and
between all stakeholders at local, national, regional and international levels; vii) To provide
equal access to the ICT backbone network to all licensed operators for the sake of creating
an open and healthy competitive environment in delivery of ICT services.
Other government ICT initiatives through the ministry of Communication, Science and
Technology (MCST) include the National ID Project, a network connecting Governmental
Ministries, Departments and Agencies and Community Resource Centers.
5.2 – Rwanda
In line with the Integrated ICT-Led Socio-economic Development Plan for Rwanda (NICI)
II which was concluded in 2010, that placed great focus on developing key ICT
infrastructure, the Broadband Infrastructure in Rwanda has 3 major broadband
infrastructure projects:
• The National Backbone (NBB) extends links to all major towns in Rwanda and provides onward connectivity to submarine cables through Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania
and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Fig. 2). The NBB Optical Fiber Network
has a total coverage of 2300 km connecting all districts headquarters; Schools and
Universities (supporting Rwednet); Hospitals and health centers; Social Security
fund offices; Rwanda Review Authority (RRA), Customs offices and Banks’
branches, judiciary offices, and ORTPN sites; Border posts and immigration offices
and police stations; and Border post connectivity for regional and international
traffic
• Optical fiber Kigali Metropolitan Network (KMN), which interconnects to the NBB,
and has coverage of 57 km around Kigali city, connecting 54 Government buildings
and 63 agencies. It has a capacity of 10 Gbps (STM-64), with 1 Gbps network
equipment for each government site.
• Wireless Broadband network (WiBro): Wireless Broadband network (WiBro) in
Kigali area, provides superior broadband data, voice and video services. The
network consists of optical fiber transmission, and wibro radio equipment. The
project is divided into phases: Phase 1 covers the Kigali City, and Phase 2 covers
other five provincial capital cities.
Fig 2: Rwanda's NBB Infrastructure
Infrastructure Challenges are being addressed by the efforts of the Rwanda
Development Board the branch of IT (RDB-IT), and the telecommunication operators
which include Rwandatel and MTN RwandaCell, and fiber networks and Several ISP
providing WiMax Solutions now existing in Rwanda. All the broadband infrastructure
services are now being privately operated by the Broadband System Corporation (BSC)
Ltd., a licensed Internet Service Provider (ISP). The company is engaged in the business
of providing advanced Information Communication Technology services based on
broadband connectivity.
Under the AGLARBRI project, two rural community sites in Rwanda have been
identified. These are Munini hospital in Nyaruguru district (bordering Burundi), and the
Kirehe district hospital, in Kirehe district (bordering Tanzania). Each district hospital is
responsible for an average of 14 health centers. Both these sites are in the most rural
parts of the country and face a communication challenge, currently information is
received during scheduled visits to the health centers. The project is already working on
plans to develop wireless networks to enable easy communications between the district
hospitals and associated health centers.
5.3 – Uganda
In Uganda the key actors include the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) and
National IT Authority of Uganda (NITA-U) both of which are government institutions
under the Ministry of ICT. UCC administers the Rural Communication Development Fund
(RCDF) which was established in 2003 and is funded from 1% of telecom operators’
licenses. It has implemented several projects including: 76 Internet points of presence
(POP) at districts, 106 Internet cafes, 78 ICT training centers, 78 District web portals, 13
Multi Purpose Community Tele-centres (MCT), 708 School ICT laboratories, 174 Health
ICT facilities, and 106 content development projects. The direct impact of these projects is:
100% data coverage for every district town of Uganda, teaching of Computer Studies as a
subject in at least 50% of government secondary schools and basic ICT equipment in all
district government hospitals.
Fig 3: Map Showing Proposed Phasing of the NBI/EGI Project, , source: NITA-U.
KEY: Phase I (Yellow) Phase II (Blue) Phase III (Green) and Phase IV (Maroon)
NITA-U is implementing the National Data Transmission Backbone Infrastructure
and e-Government Infrastructure (NBI/EGI) Project (illustrated in Fig 3), which aims at
connecting all major towns within the country onto an Optical Fibre Network and linking
all Ministries and Government Departments onto the e-Government Network. The NBI/EGI
project Phase I and phase 2 were completed in June 2008 and August 2011 respectively,
and involved the laying of Optical Fibre Cable of 168Kms and 1368.39kms respectively.
Phase 3 is currently under implementation. The expected benefits of the NBI/EGI Project
are: (i) Cost reduction of doing business and public administration in government,
improving communications between government agencies, and the delivery of EGovernment services within government, to citizens and businesses; (ii) Affordable
country-wide high bandwidth data connection; and (iii) A more accountable Govt. While all
these projects increase broadband access in Uganda, the following persist as challenges: (i)
Low usage of the existing infrastructure; (ii) Sourcing for low powered computers and other
networking elements; (iii) Honesty of project implementers.
The AGLARBRI project will contribute towards addressing the above challenges. The
participating rural districts in Uganda are yet to be agreed upon by all partners; however,
Isingiro, Mayuge and Mityana have been identified as suitable candidates. The Wireless
Networks and Systems Security (WNSS) Research group of Makerere University and the
Research and Education Network of Uganda (RENU) are already partners in the project.
Discussions are underway to ensure active participation of NITA-U, UCC, the Ministry of
ICT, and the Uganda National Council of Science and Technology (UNCST).
5.4 – Kenya
The Kenya Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) in its mandate to develop
National Information and Communication infrastructure and capacity has so far completed;
1. International Connectivity via submarine fibre. The government has achieved
international connectivity through TEAMS, SEACOM and EASSy submarine
cables. The LION2 cable is expected to be completed by 2012. This will in essence
provide quality and reliable international connectivity to the country and the region
at competitive costs.
2. National Connectivity Backbone: The 1st Phase of the National Optical Fibre
Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) which covers the major towns across the country
has been completed as illustrated in Fig 4 below. The government plans to expand
the network to cover more towns as well as complete the network loops for
redundancy routing in phase 2 of the project. This will also involve connecting
strategic institutions including public, social and learning institutions.
Fig. 4: Optic Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) Network
3. Last Mile Connectivity: The Government has invested in Government Common
Core Network (GCCN) to connect all government buildings in Nairobi. Leveraging
on NOFBI, connectivity will be extended across the country. This will enable the
Government to roll out e-services countrywide. The private sector such as instance
Kenya Data Network (KDN), TKL, Jamii Telkom, Access Kenya, Wananchi,
Safaricom, Airtel, TKL and Yu has also contributed substantially in the provision of
last mile connectivity. In addition Kenya Education Network (KENET) continues to
expand across the country and currently serves over 60 tertiary institutions
countrywide.
A major challenge is in the delivery of quality and affordable bandwith to
institutions and individuals in the far rural areas. Use of the network for delivery of
services to communities is paramount to the success and sustainability. AGLARBRI will
contribute greatly to achieving both connectivity and application (with a bias to health
sector) at the community level in rural areas. Discussions and collaboration between Kenya
ICT Board, KENET and the University of Nairobi (School of Computing) are currently
ongoing. The initial areas of focus are planned to be Western Kenya (around Lake
Victoria) and in the Eastern part of the country. Initial identification and contact with the
potential participating hospitals is ongoing.
6. Results
Cognizant that Community Broadband Networks (CBNs) stimulate rural broadband, this
project validates a framework for establishment of sustainable broadband markets [5] in rural underserved areas. This CBN integrated approach as implemented in the Tanzania ICT
for Rural Development program (illustrated in Figure 5 for the Serengeti Network) is being
reproduced at several sites in the participating countries. This approach ensures that CBNs
are sustainable by establishing local community good will (through the promotion of local
ownership and local communication needs identification & services provisioning), CBN
technical committee mentorship, ICT awareness raising and capacity building, methods that
support the consolidation of the ICT supply chains, universal access business models and
technical solutions to cater for the lack of infrastructure.
Fig 5: Serengeti Networks [5]
7. Business Benefits
The overall expected impact of the AGLARBRI project is to complement the UCAF
initiatives in each country, at a regional level, empowering the local communities to
participate in connecting their communities. This in turn will open up these locations to a
wider community of researchers for socio-economic development. The direct benefits will
be inclusive ubiquitous access, and improved quality of basic public services such as
Healthcare, education and local administration.
8. Conclusions
Stakeholders including academia, R&E networks, and government agencies in the
participating countries are collaborating to implement the AGLARBRI project. In each
country the pilot rural communities have been identified. Since the AGLARBRI project
contributes towards the national development plans of the participating countries, in some
countries the active participation of the relevant government agencies has been secured
while in others discussions are underway to secure this participation. Invitations to the local
communities are currently being designed.
The further work in the implementation of the AGLARBRI project include: coaching the
rural communities in the formulation of their development plan, supporting them in the
establishment of their local area network as well as interconnecting them to each other and
upstream to their national research and education networks.
References
[1] Tanzania ICT for Rural Development Program www.ict4rd.ne.tz
[2] Nungu, Amos, Towards Sustainable Broadband Communication in Under-served Areas: A Case Study
from Tanzania, ISBN:978-91-7501-154-7, http://kth.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:459238
[3] Björn Pehrson, Amos Nungu, DIT, Abdisalaam Mohamed, SHERnet, Boubakar Barry, AAU, Donart
Ngarambe, Kigali Regional eHealth Centre, Etienne Ntagwirumugara, Rwednet, Felix Akorli, National
University of Rwanda, Idris Rai, Makerere University, Lars L Gustafsson, Karolinska Institute, Marco
Zennaro, ICTP, Omo Oaiya, Eko-Konnect, Patrick Mangheni, RENU, Victor Kyalo, Kenya ICT Board,
Simon J E Taylor, Brunel University; "A First Mile Initiative", presented at UN Broadband Commission
Working Group on Broadband and Science, Paris, France, June 2011
[4] Eng. Dr. Zaipuna O. Yonah, Post-Independence ICT Sector Development, June 2011.
[5] Amos Nungu and Björn Pehrson, "Towards Sustainable Broadband Communication in Rural Areas", 5th
International Conference on Access Networks (LNCS, AccessNets 2010), Hungary, November 2010.
[6]
UN
Broadband
Commission
targets
for
2015,
available
at
www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/Broadband_Targets.pdf