The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) is set to acquire a gadget it will use to measure and monitor internet bandwidth within Uganda as it attempts to regulate this segment of the communications market.
Currently, there is no mechanism of establishing whether the bandwidth Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offer internet users including UCC itself is the actual agreed upon capacity
“We are planning to get equipment that will help us in monitoring the bandwidth. If you agree with the service provider to give you, say, 60 kilobytes there is no mechanism of establishing that it is the actual bandwidth you are getting,” Isaac Kalembe, the media and public relations specialist at UCC said.
A lack of proper regulation of ISP’s activities has raised concern among internet users over the years. Users have always complained that UCC does not have a way of regulating especially the efficiency of ISPs in respect to the services they offer users.
Equipment that measure bandwidth can measure it both as raw capacity and available bandwidth.
From a user’s perspective, with this equipment, UCC will be in position to know how much bandwidth is available to every individual user and will be in position to monitor ISPs better.
This development is ever more urgent considering that despite the shift away from satellite connectivity by a lot of ISPs to SEACOM’s fibre optic cable, users said they have not experienced a difference in the speeds of the connections.
“We have problems with our service provider. We were promised double the bandwidth at the same cost but you find the Internet fluctuating most of the time. We are yet to realise the bandwidth speeds that were promised,” an official attached to a regional office of one of the leading computer software companies said.
She said her company had not noted any difference in speeds since the ISP they are subscribed to announced they had connected to SEACOM.
Teopista Aboa, the IT officer at Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) said the standards body had not realized any change in speeds despite being told that they had been connected to the undersea optic fibre cable.
Professor Venansius Baryamureeba, dean faculty of Computing and IT, Makerere University said there is need for regulation because the lay person cannot establish whether they are being cheated or not because they do not have the equipment to measure or ascertain whether they are getting their money’s worth.
“If there is no monitoring, your Internet Service Provider might see that you paid for more bandwidth than you actually use and try to divert some of it. There is really need for monitoring,” he said.
Kalembe said that despite a lack of equipment to monitor internet bandwidth, internet users can still use Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to ensure that they are not exploited.
“Some people get connected without signing SLAs or sometimes when they sign them they do not read them properly,” he said adding that the major problem is that most people do not know their rights regarding communication services.
He said signing SLAs would, for instance, help in establishing whether the bandwidth agreed upon will be at the point of entry or reception.
“If this does not happen you need to contact your service provider and if there is no change you can contact UCC for action,” Kalembe said.
He however did not mention who the vendor of this equipment is, how much it will cost and when the equipment will be installed.
Ends ……/1
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Innovation, use of IT still low at 50 universities in East Africa
By Edris Kisambira
An e-readiness survey of higher institutions of learning in East Africa that was carried out in 2008 has indicated that region’s universities are limited on innovativeness and use of information technologies (IT).
The report, which was released last week in Kampala, the Uganda capital focused on accessibility, usage and availability of information communication technologies (ICTs) services in 50 universities around the East African region.
The East African region takes in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.
According to the study, which was commissioned and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, only 43% of the student population at the 50 campuses were taking part in global IT competitions that would otherwise give them international recognition.
Such competitions involve students or lecturers in developing innovative software like the Google Cup that takes place annually in Paris, France.
“Innovative projects give the universities more credibility in the world,” Professor Meoli Kashorada from the United States International University (USIU), Kenya said. “This can be achieved both by students and lecturers.”
The report indicates that the limited innovation is due to the student computer ratio and the availability of cheap bandwidth.
Rwandan universities had the best ratio at an average of seven computers per 100 students, 6.8 per 100 students in Uganda, 5.2 per 100 students in Kenya, 2.7 per 100 students in Tanzania and 1.5 per 100 students in Burundi.
This according to Professor Kashorada, the senior investigator of the report, is below the target which is 10 computers per 100 students.
The limited innovativeness at the universities has translated into poor records management and admission processes that are characteristic of long queues at universities when new students are being admitted and old ones are renewing their status.
An example is Makerere University, Uganda, the oldest university in East Africa that has the best IT facility in the region but still there is no computer programme that has been developed and installed to electronically register students without them having to queue for hours if not days.
“There is need for IT department heads to clearly present projects that benefit the whole university and push for reforms. The young people need to be given the opportunity to be innovative,” Professor Venansius Baryamureeba, the dean of the faculty of Computing and IT at Makerere University said.
Rwanda despite having the best student to computer ratio and the cheapest internet costs in the region due to a government subsidy also has high number of students leaving campus to go to Internet cafes to do research online. This though is blamed on the stretched university budgets and few facilities.
Burundi, which is just recovering from years of instability, has 70% of the student populations at its universities using Internet cafes.
It is hoped the switch from the expensive satellite connectivity to fibre optics could reduce the cost of bandwidth which will make the connectivity much faster and closer to the students.
The report reveals that fibre connectivity could lead to a rise in access from between 300 – 700 kilobites per second to 1 megabite per second for 1,000 students.
“I hope we shall not be embarrassed if we fail to absorb the fast Internet that is coming to our region. We need to have the capacity to utilise it,” Proffessor Francis Tusubira of Directorate for ICT Support at Makerere University said.
The report mentions Uganda as one of the countries where university websites are non-interactive and there is still low budget financing for ICT programmes.
According to Professor Timothy Waema of the University of Nairobi, there is still time for this to change. He says that university heads need to play a major role because they needed to make sure atleast 3% of their budgets go to ICT in general.
This annual report is compiled by the Kenya Education Network in conjunction with the Tanzania Research and Education Network, Rwanda Research and Education Network and Research and Education Network of Uganda (RENU) with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
A local search engine for Uganda
As the drum beats for the development and use of locally generated Internet content in Uganda and indeed Africa get louder, someone has gone ahead to develop a search engine that indexes all the available local content as well as that which will be created in the future.
Reinier Battenberg, the brain behind this search engine calls it a sort of Google or Yahoo. The search engine which can be found at http://search.mountbatten.net is exclusively Ugandan, the same way Google or Yahoo were for the US before they spread beyond the US borders.
Battenberg says the search engine; the first of its kind in Uganda and possibly the East Africa region, is limited to searching websites that are within Uganda and are connected to local Ugandan internet.
“It lets you search Uganda-based websites. People say there is no local content but we have indexed all Ugandan web pages. They are just over 100,000 pages and that is quite substantial. So the argument that there is no local content is not entirely true,” Battenberg said.
Battenberg who is also the director Mountbatten ldt., a local web hosting and developing provider says local hosting in Africa is underestimated and a lot of internet users don’t know what local content is, but that there is a lot of potential for locally hosted Uganda websites with local content.
“It could be your local lawyer, accountant, dentist – all these people need websites and if they are targeting audiences in Uganda, there is no reason for them to host their websites outside the country,” Battenberg said.
Battenberg says hosting one’s website within the country comes with its pluses including your site downloading faster, it being cheaper and being more accessible. However he says a lot of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don’t encourage local hosting because their networks are not configured well.
If a site is hosted in the USA or Europe it costs the ISPs US$750 per megabit per second to download websites, which they then show their clients.
Locally hosted content is free for them to access, no matter which network the content is hosted on. Currently, the ISPs are pocketing the difference, but the potential of having even cheaper rates for content that is hosted locally are quite amazing.
The trigger for Battenberg’s search engine he said was a copy of Wikipedia he was hosting locally. The copy is static, you cannot search it. “So I decided to make it searchable and after it finally worked, I was like why don’t we do the entire Ugandan Internet,” he said.
The search engine, which started as a weekend hobby has taken him a few months to create and he did this over the weekends. “Using the free Internet crawler Nutch, I developed the search engine,” Battenberg said.
When Ugandans or Africans host websites in Europe or the US, it keeps the knowledge and skills outside there, yet if the reverse was true and those servers were managed here, local ICT professionals would earn a living, which is a good thing for the economy.
From a user perspective, the search engine is all about Uganda and the speed of the network is really important. Battenberg said he does not know of a local website in Kenya or Tanzania that is indexing local content.
Mountbatten’s core business is building intelligent websites for any type of customer; provide local hosting services and training. “We also foster discussion by raising a few issues on topical ICT matters and that helps create awareness of ICT's potential,” Battenberg said.
Asked why he developed this search engine, Battenberg said, it helps to promote the use of local content, which in the end is good for everyone in the ICT field and for the people who surf the internet, which hopefully soon, will be almost everyone.
Reinier Battenberg, the brain behind this search engine calls it a sort of Google or Yahoo. The search engine which can be found at http://search.mountbatten.net is exclusively Ugandan, the same way Google or Yahoo were for the US before they spread beyond the US borders.
Battenberg says the search engine; the first of its kind in Uganda and possibly the East Africa region, is limited to searching websites that are within Uganda and are connected to local Ugandan internet.
“It lets you search Uganda-based websites. People say there is no local content but we have indexed all Ugandan web pages. They are just over 100,000 pages and that is quite substantial. So the argument that there is no local content is not entirely true,” Battenberg said.
Battenberg who is also the director Mountbatten ldt., a local web hosting and developing provider says local hosting in Africa is underestimated and a lot of internet users don’t know what local content is, but that there is a lot of potential for locally hosted Uganda websites with local content.
“It could be your local lawyer, accountant, dentist – all these people need websites and if they are targeting audiences in Uganda, there is no reason for them to host their websites outside the country,” Battenberg said.
Battenberg says hosting one’s website within the country comes with its pluses including your site downloading faster, it being cheaper and being more accessible. However he says a lot of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don’t encourage local hosting because their networks are not configured well.
If a site is hosted in the USA or Europe it costs the ISPs US$750 per megabit per second to download websites, which they then show their clients.
Locally hosted content is free for them to access, no matter which network the content is hosted on. Currently, the ISPs are pocketing the difference, but the potential of having even cheaper rates for content that is hosted locally are quite amazing.
The trigger for Battenberg’s search engine he said was a copy of Wikipedia he was hosting locally. The copy is static, you cannot search it. “So I decided to make it searchable and after it finally worked, I was like why don’t we do the entire Ugandan Internet,” he said.
The search engine, which started as a weekend hobby has taken him a few months to create and he did this over the weekends. “Using the free Internet crawler Nutch, I developed the search engine,” Battenberg said.
When Ugandans or Africans host websites in Europe or the US, it keeps the knowledge and skills outside there, yet if the reverse was true and those servers were managed here, local ICT professionals would earn a living, which is a good thing for the economy.
From a user perspective, the search engine is all about Uganda and the speed of the network is really important. Battenberg said he does not know of a local website in Kenya or Tanzania that is indexing local content.
Mountbatten’s core business is building intelligent websites for any type of customer; provide local hosting services and training. “We also foster discussion by raising a few issues on topical ICT matters and that helps create awareness of ICT's potential,” Battenberg said.
Asked why he developed this search engine, Battenberg said, it helps to promote the use of local content, which in the end is good for everyone in the ICT field and for the people who surf the internet, which hopefully soon, will be almost everyone.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
First CDMA operator launches Uganda operations
The first Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) mobile telephone operator in Uganda, I-telecom has launched its operations in Uganda’s highly competitive telecommunications market – bringing to six the number of mobile telephone operators.
I-telecom has initially invested some US$30 million in its Uganda operation, which apparently covers only half of the country from east to west according to Augustine Mulenga, the chief executive officer of the company.
“Our investment will rise to more than $100 million over the next 18 months when we hope to have expanded coverage to reach the entire country,” Mulenga said in an interview.
Mulenga said I-telecom is anchored on the latest CDMA platform which performs faster than the GSM platform. All the other five operators operate on the GSM platform, which seems to be the preferred platform in this part of the world.
“We promise our subscribers that we shall bring to them the best products and services in voice and data networks and solutions,” Mulenga said.
Mulenga said I-telecom will employ the more powerful and high performance EVDO technology that also enables high speed wireless broadband connectivity.
I-telecom has been testing its service with about 1,000 subscribers for the last eleven months from across the country from the east to the west.
Mulenga said that their company was way above other players in the market because of the technology they are using.
I-telecom has apparently entered the market with the cheapest call offerings on the market today. While a call especially on the large players today costs about 20 US cents at peak hours at, I-Telecom has come into the market with a call costing about 12 US cents at peak time.
He added that I-telecom has been testing its services with about 1,000 customers for the last 11 months from the East to the deepest end of Western Uganda.
“We have certainty of service from where the sun rises to where it sets across the south and central Uganda. We shall steadily roll out to the rest of the country,” Mulenga said.
Asked how he intends to survive in a brutal market that analysts have described as saturated, Mulenga said there was still room for business.
“See Uganda has a population of more than 30million. And about 55% of this population is actively working but the telecom industry is just jostling for 8-10million people. It means that we have an opportunity to command and bring on board customers that other operators have not been able to attract,” Mulenga said.
I-telecom is a joint venture between local Uganda investors with investors from southern Sudan, where they run the pioneer mobile service provider Gemtel.
While CDMA has been the dominant network standard for North America and parts of Asia, its take up of preference has been limited with almost a few mobile phone networks in the region running on the GSM standard.
In Kenya, it is only Orange/Telkom Kenya that runs on the CDMA standard while in Tanzania, it is only the national operator Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation Limited (TTCL) that runs some of its services on the CDMA standard.
As I-telecom commences its operations, another provider, Sure Telecom from South Africa is waiting in the wings readying itself for launch.
I-telecom has initially invested some US$30 million in its Uganda operation, which apparently covers only half of the country from east to west according to Augustine Mulenga, the chief executive officer of the company.
“Our investment will rise to more than $100 million over the next 18 months when we hope to have expanded coverage to reach the entire country,” Mulenga said in an interview.
Mulenga said I-telecom is anchored on the latest CDMA platform which performs faster than the GSM platform. All the other five operators operate on the GSM platform, which seems to be the preferred platform in this part of the world.
“We promise our subscribers that we shall bring to them the best products and services in voice and data networks and solutions,” Mulenga said.
Mulenga said I-telecom will employ the more powerful and high performance EVDO technology that also enables high speed wireless broadband connectivity.
I-telecom has been testing its service with about 1,000 subscribers for the last eleven months from across the country from the east to the west.
Mulenga said that their company was way above other players in the market because of the technology they are using.
I-telecom has apparently entered the market with the cheapest call offerings on the market today. While a call especially on the large players today costs about 20 US cents at peak hours at, I-Telecom has come into the market with a call costing about 12 US cents at peak time.
He added that I-telecom has been testing its services with about 1,000 customers for the last 11 months from the East to the deepest end of Western Uganda.
“We have certainty of service from where the sun rises to where it sets across the south and central Uganda. We shall steadily roll out to the rest of the country,” Mulenga said.
Asked how he intends to survive in a brutal market that analysts have described as saturated, Mulenga said there was still room for business.
“See Uganda has a population of more than 30million. And about 55% of this population is actively working but the telecom industry is just jostling for 8-10million people. It means that we have an opportunity to command and bring on board customers that other operators have not been able to attract,” Mulenga said.
I-telecom is a joint venture between local Uganda investors with investors from southern Sudan, where they run the pioneer mobile service provider Gemtel.
While CDMA has been the dominant network standard for North America and parts of Asia, its take up of preference has been limited with almost a few mobile phone networks in the region running on the GSM standard.
In Kenya, it is only Orange/Telkom Kenya that runs on the CDMA standard while in Tanzania, it is only the national operator Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation Limited (TTCL) that runs some of its services on the CDMA standard.
As I-telecom commences its operations, another provider, Sure Telecom from South Africa is waiting in the wings readying itself for launch.
Uganda Telecom and Rwandatel buy SEACOM capacity
Uganda’s largest internet service provider (ISP), Uganda Telecom has come online the SEACOM submarine cable following a purchase of capacity a few weeks ago.
The signing of a service level agreement between Uganda Telecom, which controls 70% of the internet segment of the communications market, and SEACOM is set to end a lot of anxiety from users who are eager to enjoy the high-speed broadband experience.
Since SEACOM went live late last month, internet users have been anxious, wondering why the largest ISP in the country had not signed onto the broadband network.
Today, only Infocom Uganda, who hold SEACOM’s point of presence (PoP) tenancy agreement is signed onto SEACOM.
The fact that Uganda Telecom had not signed onto SEACOM led to speculation that the firm would not actually sign onto SEACOM because they are shareholders in the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), which lands in June 2010.
According to an official, Uganda Telecom has signed onto SEACOM for now as it waits for EASSy.
At the same time that Uganda Telecom purchased capacity, its sister company Rwandatel S.A. (RTL) from neighbouring Rwanda also purchased capacity to take high-speed broadband internet connectivity to that country.
SEACOM’s purchase of the UTL and RTL’s backhaul solution guarantees that Rwanda will be connected immediately.
The purchase agreement with Rwandatel will further extend the reach of international broadband capacity across eastern Africa but under the same agreement, SEACOM has secured backhaul network between Kampala and Kigali.
Through the concurrent deals, Uganda Telecom and Rwandatel, both subsidiaries of the Libyan Africa Portfolio LAP Green Networks, have purchased a significant amount of international broadband capacity from SEACOM whilst SEACOM has in turn secured a backhaul solution for Rwanda on the two regional players’ terrestrial networks between Kampala, Uganda and Kigali, Rwanda.
“Under the terms of the partnership agreement, both entities will have immediate access to the SEACOM network,” Brian Herlihy, the chief executive officer, SEACOM said.
While Uganda has been connected to the SEACOM network since its commercial launch on July 23 last month, this agreement means that Rwanda will benefit from the newly available broadband capacity as soon as September 2009 according to Herlihy.
Herlihy said the Uganda/Rwanda development is in line with SEACOM’s objective to provide connectivity solutions to landlocked countries across the east and southern African region.
Because many countries set out to deploy massive terrestrial networks in anticipation of the arrival of real and affordable international bandwidth connectivity, Herlihy said it is now making it easy to connect to SEACOM.
Now that Rwanda is connected to SEACOM, Herlihy said it will make it easier for neighbouring Burundi in the south of Rwanda to connect to the rest of the world.
“The capacity purchase by Uganda Telecom on the SEACOM network will dramatically modify the local Internet market and we look forward to a new era of true broadband across the region,” AbdulBaset Elazzabi, the managing director LAP Green Networks and Uganda Telecom said.
On Rwandatel’s behalf, the chief executive officer Patrick Kariningufu said that in line with its strategy to extend affordable connectivity to the Rwanda population, Rwandatel took major steps in developing its infrastructure.
LAP Green Networks is a telecommunications operator owned by Libyan African Investment Portfolio and specialises in the acquisition and management of telecommunications networks across Africa.
LAP Green Networks’ other investments on the continent include Sonitel Niger, Sahel Com Niger and Oricel Green Cote D'Ivoire.
SEACOM’s undersea fibre optic cable system will provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting east and southern African economic growth.
The signing of a service level agreement between Uganda Telecom, which controls 70% of the internet segment of the communications market, and SEACOM is set to end a lot of anxiety from users who are eager to enjoy the high-speed broadband experience.
Since SEACOM went live late last month, internet users have been anxious, wondering why the largest ISP in the country had not signed onto the broadband network.
Today, only Infocom Uganda, who hold SEACOM’s point of presence (PoP) tenancy agreement is signed onto SEACOM.
The fact that Uganda Telecom had not signed onto SEACOM led to speculation that the firm would not actually sign onto SEACOM because they are shareholders in the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), which lands in June 2010.
According to an official, Uganda Telecom has signed onto SEACOM for now as it waits for EASSy.
At the same time that Uganda Telecom purchased capacity, its sister company Rwandatel S.A. (RTL) from neighbouring Rwanda also purchased capacity to take high-speed broadband internet connectivity to that country.
SEACOM’s purchase of the UTL and RTL’s backhaul solution guarantees that Rwanda will be connected immediately.
The purchase agreement with Rwandatel will further extend the reach of international broadband capacity across eastern Africa but under the same agreement, SEACOM has secured backhaul network between Kampala and Kigali.
Through the concurrent deals, Uganda Telecom and Rwandatel, both subsidiaries of the Libyan Africa Portfolio LAP Green Networks, have purchased a significant amount of international broadband capacity from SEACOM whilst SEACOM has in turn secured a backhaul solution for Rwanda on the two regional players’ terrestrial networks between Kampala, Uganda and Kigali, Rwanda.
“Under the terms of the partnership agreement, both entities will have immediate access to the SEACOM network,” Brian Herlihy, the chief executive officer, SEACOM said.
While Uganda has been connected to the SEACOM network since its commercial launch on July 23 last month, this agreement means that Rwanda will benefit from the newly available broadband capacity as soon as September 2009 according to Herlihy.
Herlihy said the Uganda/Rwanda development is in line with SEACOM’s objective to provide connectivity solutions to landlocked countries across the east and southern African region.
Because many countries set out to deploy massive terrestrial networks in anticipation of the arrival of real and affordable international bandwidth connectivity, Herlihy said it is now making it easy to connect to SEACOM.
Now that Rwanda is connected to SEACOM, Herlihy said it will make it easier for neighbouring Burundi in the south of Rwanda to connect to the rest of the world.
“The capacity purchase by Uganda Telecom on the SEACOM network will dramatically modify the local Internet market and we look forward to a new era of true broadband across the region,” AbdulBaset Elazzabi, the managing director LAP Green Networks and Uganda Telecom said.
On Rwandatel’s behalf, the chief executive officer Patrick Kariningufu said that in line with its strategy to extend affordable connectivity to the Rwanda population, Rwandatel took major steps in developing its infrastructure.
LAP Green Networks is a telecommunications operator owned by Libyan African Investment Portfolio and specialises in the acquisition and management of telecommunications networks across Africa.
LAP Green Networks’ other investments on the continent include Sonitel Niger, Sahel Com Niger and Oricel Green Cote D'Ivoire.
SEACOM’s undersea fibre optic cable system will provide African retail carriers with equal and open access to inexpensive bandwidth, removing the international infrastructure bottleneck and supporting east and southern African economic growth.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Gorilla tourism goes online in Uganda
Mountain gorilla tracking is hard work; up steep slopes, through dense but fascinating scenery.
A good level of fitness and patience is a must and that means gorilla tracking is not a holiday for tourists who want instant, easy viewing from the comfort of an air conditioned van or jeep.
It is for those with determination and the reward for the lucky ones sometimes is to be in the presence of one of the world’s gentlest, rarest and most reclusive gentle giants.
Technology is however set to change things and make gorilla tracking easy and cheap for those who cannot afford a trip to Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in the southwest of the country near the Rwanda and DR Congo borders.
The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), the apex body on park tourism in the country has introduced an online gorilla programme – a new initiative aimed at addressing the global demand for conservation tourism.
The online project, which is due for launch on September 26, is also aimed at bringing attention to the plight of mountain gorillas that have suffered at the hands of man over the years.
Users will have to donate a minimum of $1 to be able to track the movements of individual gorillas through a custom-made website.
Strategically placed video cameras in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park will stream video footage of the gorillas to audiences worldwide.
“Through the www.friendagorilla.org website, gorilla lovers will have a chance to befriend any individual gorilla from the seven habituated gorilla families in the Bwindi National Park at $1," Serapio Rukundo, the junior minister for tourism said.
Moses Mapesa, the UWA executive director said the website’s menu will include sections like geo-track that will allow users to track gorillas using GPRS coordinates.
"The platform will also allow users on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to 'befriend a gorilla," Mapesa said.
In executing this world first in park tourism, game rangers will track the gorillas using the normal methods and will register the location of the gorilla families using GPRS.
Social interactions within the groups will also be recorded, allowing subscribers to keep up to date with the whereabouts and activities of gorillas they will have befriended. Only gorillas accustomed to human contact will be included in the project.
Last year gorilla tourism raised $225 million for Uganda, providing 37 percent of the country’s national annual earnings from tourism, and more than half of UWA’s internally generated revenue.
The online tracking initiative UWA officials reckon will raise an additional $700,000 a year.
Tracking gorillas physically costs upwards of $500 per person, and visitors are strictly limited to small groups in order to minimize contact between gorillas and humans.
Permits for such journeys are often fully booked months in advance and this has always caused friction between tour operators and UWA. With the online initiative, it will be possible for tourists to follow the gorillas from the comfort of their home or office.
There are an estimated 720 mountain gorillas left worldwide, over half of which live in Uganda. According to The World Conservation Union, three of the four species of gorilla are in danger of extinction.
This new online initiative has been designed to coincide with the United Nations declaration of 2009 as the year of the gorilla.
A good level of fitness and patience is a must and that means gorilla tracking is not a holiday for tourists who want instant, easy viewing from the comfort of an air conditioned van or jeep.
It is for those with determination and the reward for the lucky ones sometimes is to be in the presence of one of the world’s gentlest, rarest and most reclusive gentle giants.
Technology is however set to change things and make gorilla tracking easy and cheap for those who cannot afford a trip to Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in the southwest of the country near the Rwanda and DR Congo borders.
The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA), the apex body on park tourism in the country has introduced an online gorilla programme – a new initiative aimed at addressing the global demand for conservation tourism.
The online project, which is due for launch on September 26, is also aimed at bringing attention to the plight of mountain gorillas that have suffered at the hands of man over the years.
Users will have to donate a minimum of $1 to be able to track the movements of individual gorillas through a custom-made website.
Strategically placed video cameras in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park will stream video footage of the gorillas to audiences worldwide.
“Through the www.friendagorilla.org website, gorilla lovers will have a chance to befriend any individual gorilla from the seven habituated gorilla families in the Bwindi National Park at $1," Serapio Rukundo, the junior minister for tourism said.
Moses Mapesa, the UWA executive director said the website’s menu will include sections like geo-track that will allow users to track gorillas using GPRS coordinates.
"The platform will also allow users on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace to 'befriend a gorilla," Mapesa said.
In executing this world first in park tourism, game rangers will track the gorillas using the normal methods and will register the location of the gorilla families using GPRS.
Social interactions within the groups will also be recorded, allowing subscribers to keep up to date with the whereabouts and activities of gorillas they will have befriended. Only gorillas accustomed to human contact will be included in the project.
Last year gorilla tourism raised $225 million for Uganda, providing 37 percent of the country’s national annual earnings from tourism, and more than half of UWA’s internally generated revenue.
The online tracking initiative UWA officials reckon will raise an additional $700,000 a year.
Tracking gorillas physically costs upwards of $500 per person, and visitors are strictly limited to small groups in order to minimize contact between gorillas and humans.
Permits for such journeys are often fully booked months in advance and this has always caused friction between tour operators and UWA. With the online initiative, it will be possible for tourists to follow the gorillas from the comfort of their home or office.
There are an estimated 720 mountain gorillas left worldwide, over half of which live in Uganda. According to The World Conservation Union, three of the four species of gorilla are in danger of extinction.
This new online initiative has been designed to coincide with the United Nations declaration of 2009 as the year of the gorilla.
Fibre link from Uganda to Rwanda to cost $9m
Technology firm Altech Stream East Africa will invest US$9 million to expand its terrestrial fibre optic cable from the Uganda capital, Kampala to the Rwanda capital Kigali.
Altech Stream East Africa is made up of three companies including Kenya Data Networks (KDN), one of the leading internet service providers (ISPs) in the Kenya market, Infocom Uganda with a 30% market share in Uganda and Altech Stream Rwanda.
Altech Stream today boasts of a terrestrial fibre optic link that stretches ……kilometers from the Kenyan city of Mombasa at the coast to Kampala.
On the Kenyan side of the fibre, KDN built and owns the network while on the Ugandan side, Infocom has leased fibre from power company Uganda Electricity Transmission Company (UETCL).
This is how the company, which holds the point of presence (PoP) tenancy agreement for the Seacom fibre cable and its subsidiaries in the two countries, have been able to deliver high speed broadband to users.
“The link from Kampala to Kigali will cost between $8-$9 million and work will start within a month,” Hans Heardtle, the chief executive Infocom said. Today, there is no existing fibre optic link between Kampala and Katuna at the Uganda/Rwanda border.
However, Altech Stream East Africa has just completed work on a high-powered microwave link that is on test. It is this link that will in the meantime connect Rwanda to the Seacom submarine fibre optic cable that went live last month.
“Rwanda missed out on the launch of Seacom because then we did not have a link to the cable, but when the tests are completed, they will come online and the microwave link will be complimented by the terrestrial cable when work is completed in four months,” Heardtle said.
Heardtle was speaking last week at the launch of Green Future Limited, a Kenyan company that builds and provides support to optic fibre cable infrastructure development companies by offering surveillance to their optic fibre networks.
Green Future builds and maintains optic fibre networks but their package comes with an environmental agenda and the company plans to plant some 5 million trees along the route of the cable between Kampala and Kigali.
“We call ourselves environmentalists first and then technology savvy scientists second,” Fred Sewe, the managing director Green Future said.
“For every meter of ground that we lay our fibre optic cables, we shall plant two indigenous trees. Our objective is to plant and nurture to maturity at least five to six million indigenous trees between Kampala and Kigali by the end of 2009.”
Green Future was among the groups of companies that laid down fibre between Mombasa and Bungoma in Kenya. Green Future developed the remaining distance to Kampala and that link enabled Uganda to be the only inland country to be part of the global information superhighway when Seacom went live last month.
Since December 2007, Green Future has been involved in surveillance and resolution of faults arising from fibre optic cuts all over East Africa.
Sewe said that along the way from Kampala to Kigali, Green Future will employ at least 100,000 people.
“It warms my heart that someone has found a way for correlation between modern technology and taking care of our natural habitat where others including first world countries have failed,” Uganda vice president Professor Gilbert Bukenya who launched Green Future’s operations in Uganda said.
“This is a challenge that we should give to all not just corporations but to each and everyone of us here today. Our future, our energy is dependent on our activities where the environment is concerned.”
Altech Stream East Africa is made up of three companies including Kenya Data Networks (KDN), one of the leading internet service providers (ISPs) in the Kenya market, Infocom Uganda with a 30% market share in Uganda and Altech Stream Rwanda.
Altech Stream today boasts of a terrestrial fibre optic link that stretches ……kilometers from the Kenyan city of Mombasa at the coast to Kampala.
On the Kenyan side of the fibre, KDN built and owns the network while on the Ugandan side, Infocom has leased fibre from power company Uganda Electricity Transmission Company (UETCL).
This is how the company, which holds the point of presence (PoP) tenancy agreement for the Seacom fibre cable and its subsidiaries in the two countries, have been able to deliver high speed broadband to users.
“The link from Kampala to Kigali will cost between $8-$9 million and work will start within a month,” Hans Heardtle, the chief executive Infocom said. Today, there is no existing fibre optic link between Kampala and Katuna at the Uganda/Rwanda border.
However, Altech Stream East Africa has just completed work on a high-powered microwave link that is on test. It is this link that will in the meantime connect Rwanda to the Seacom submarine fibre optic cable that went live last month.
“Rwanda missed out on the launch of Seacom because then we did not have a link to the cable, but when the tests are completed, they will come online and the microwave link will be complimented by the terrestrial cable when work is completed in four months,” Heardtle said.
Heardtle was speaking last week at the launch of Green Future Limited, a Kenyan company that builds and provides support to optic fibre cable infrastructure development companies by offering surveillance to their optic fibre networks.
Green Future builds and maintains optic fibre networks but their package comes with an environmental agenda and the company plans to plant some 5 million trees along the route of the cable between Kampala and Kigali.
“We call ourselves environmentalists first and then technology savvy scientists second,” Fred Sewe, the managing director Green Future said.
“For every meter of ground that we lay our fibre optic cables, we shall plant two indigenous trees. Our objective is to plant and nurture to maturity at least five to six million indigenous trees between Kampala and Kigali by the end of 2009.”
Green Future was among the groups of companies that laid down fibre between Mombasa and Bungoma in Kenya. Green Future developed the remaining distance to Kampala and that link enabled Uganda to be the only inland country to be part of the global information superhighway when Seacom went live last month.
Since December 2007, Green Future has been involved in surveillance and resolution of faults arising from fibre optic cuts all over East Africa.
Sewe said that along the way from Kampala to Kigali, Green Future will employ at least 100,000 people.
“It warms my heart that someone has found a way for correlation between modern technology and taking care of our natural habitat where others including first world countries have failed,” Uganda vice president Professor Gilbert Bukenya who launched Green Future’s operations in Uganda said.
“This is a challenge that we should give to all not just corporations but to each and everyone of us here today. Our future, our energy is dependent on our activities where the environment is concerned.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
