Tusu Tusubira, CEO, UbuntuNet Alliance Presentation to CLARA UbuntuNet Alliance and AfricaConnect www.ubuntunet.net; www.africaconnect.eu Tusu Tusubira, CEO, UbuntuNet Alliance Presentation to CLARA

Alliance Membership (14) Southern Sudan (de facto) REN Growth in Africa Alliance Membership (14) Eb@le, DRC EthERNet, Ethiopia *KENET, Kenya *MAREN, Malawi *MoRENet, Mozambique XNet, Namibia *RwEdNet, Rwanda SomaliREN, Somalia SudREN, Sudan Southern Sudan (de facto) *TENET, South Africa TERNET, Tanzania RENU, Uganda ZAMREN, Zambia ASREN (1 year old) WACREN (2 years old) UbuntuNet Alliance (6 years old)

UbuntuNet Alliance 2006: Formally incorporated as a non-profit association in the City of Amsterdam 5 founding NRENs: KENET, MAREN, MoRENet, RwEdNet, TENET Board elected by Member NRENs Chair + CEO + 7 independent directors Head office in Lilongwe, Malawi 2012: Incorporating as a Trust in Malawi Will retain Dutch entity as a subsidiary

Growth, leading to AfricaConnect 2006 – first approach to EU by the Alliance Initial Focus: Starting NRENs and ensuring readiness of campus and NREN networks Engagement of cable providers, leading to major educational discounts by SEACOM, + IRUs POP (router donated by Cisco) established in London, connected to GÉANT – enabled NRENs to connect using own international capacity Feasibility study by EUC: led to UbuntuNet Alliance as the target of AfricaConnect (cf ALICE) Note: the data network is called UbuntuNet

Capacity Building a Priority Just in time capacity building Based on justified requests Targeted at NREN staff Encourages twinning (South-South and South-North), e.g. KENET-DFN; RENU-SurfNET Approaches: Attachment; Secondment; Workshop style Participating NRENs must be in good standing in terms of payment of dues and agreed contributions

Sustainability a Key Principle

Current Operations AMSIX LINX UbuntuNet, Amsterdam UbuntuNet London Internet UbuntuNet London UbuntuNet, Mtunzini LINX Géant AMSIX UbuntuNet, Amsterdam KENET ZAMREN MoRENet TENET TERNET 8

Operations: IP services to NRENs Worldwide REN connectivity via Géant Worldwide commodity Internet BUT not delivered in Africa!!! Delivered in London (or Amsterdam) AfricaConnect and other initiatives will fix this Light-path services (see next slide)

Growing Traffic – e.g. TENET

HartRAO to JIVE light path 2 Gbps light path Transfers e-VLBI data in real time HartRAO (Hartebeesthoek Radio-Astronomy Observatory, South Africa) JIVE: (e-VLBI Dataprocessing at Zwingeloo, Netherlands) UbuntuNet Géant+ TENET SurfNet HartRAO

UbuntuNet Tomorrow AfricaConnect will build the major part of the UbuntuNet Backbone However there will be sections that others build The Backbone will carry traffic to and from all connecting NRENs… and all gateways.

AfricaConnect Contractual structure UbuntuNet Member NRENs . . . . . . . . NO! YES!

Business Principles Sustainability Charges in US Dollars UbuntuNet responsible for all payments to DANTE UbuntuNet must recover full costs from Member NRENs Charges in US Dollars per month per Mbps of bandwidth Geographic Agnosticism The same base prices apply everywhere

Financing the backbone NRENs must come up with €2.8 million Each NREN asked to commit to €280k Treated as advance payments for services to be rendered by UbuntuNet Proper contract between NREN and UbuntuNet UbuntuNet obliged to deliver these services Discounted unit charges Creates positive incentive for NREN’s to do it Other NRENs pay full base price

Tomorrow’s basic REN services Regional REN connectivity Connection at specified b/w to UbuntuNet backbone IP interconnectivity with other African NRENs Initially, only other UbuntuNet NRENs Later, also WACREN and ASREN NRENs International Transit Delivered at backbone port; or Delivered at London or Amsterdam

Regional RENs: Bringing Africa Together Internet Géant and RENs worldwide UbuntuNet WACREN ASREN

“Glue” NRENs An NREN whose geographic location is within membership region of two RREN Eb@le (WACREN and UbuntuNet) SudREN (ASREN and UbuntuNet) Principles agreed: Regional RENs should not try to avoid overlapping membership regions Regional RENs should welcome “glue” NRENs as members.

Muchas Gracias! “When the webs of a spider combine, they can trap a lion” – Ethiopian proverb Muchas Gracias!