Following on from the recent agreement between the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and SchoolNet Namibia, we are very proud to announce the launch of our first completely offgrid Local Area Network (LAN) solution at the Spring Energy Fair, new Engineering Faculty, Polytechnic of Namibia in Windhoek from Friday 7 through Saturday 8 September!

The LAN consists of a server and upto 20 *DISKLESS* refurb workstations running KOffice, StarOffice, Konqueror and a fleet of MS office lookalikes, which are tamper-proof, virus-free and considerably more stable than MS office. The server is a refurb P2 with cheap 512mb RAM, 2 hard-drives with RAID, running Linux freeware. The system design was brought to fruition by Madryn Cosburn and Kyle Johnston, with support and advice from Evan Sommers of Obsidian, SA. This system alongside a Mulitchoice decoder and small colour TV, wireless ethernet bridges courtesy of Wireless LAN Namibia, data-broadcasting and asynchronous satellite downhook solutions courtesy of NetDay and Central Point Communications, as well as other small peripheral devices use very little power. The Solar power solution has been optimised with considerable tolerance and modularity in mind by Solar Age Namibia. MWeb Namibia generously provided the Satellite dish, decoder and PC card/software to make the asynchronous internet solution possible.

Schoolnet Namibia aims to install Internet enabled computers into all schools in Namibia by end-2005. Presently, there are over 1500 schools in the country, of which more than 900 are 'off-grid', do not have access to electricity, phone lines, nor libraries nor, in many cases, running water. Installing a wired infrastructure is currently too expensive and is also dictated by the roll-out programmes of Telecom Namibia and Nampower, so SchoolNet is evaluating large-scale wireless solutions. One single communications solution will not work for all off-grid schools for a variety of reasons including regulatory issues, limited access to utilities, terrain, location of the schools, and the distance between schools.

Schools that are close enough together, will use wireless Ethernet bridges with high gain antennas to link schools to a central wired node. Schoolnet is currently testing WiLan Hopper Plus bridges, and we understand that with proper antennas, ranges of up to 60 km are possible. WiLan bridges operate in either the 2.4 gHz or 5.8 gHz ISU frequency bands, which help overcome some regulatory issues. The test bridges have a data transfer rate of 4.5 mpbs, but 12 mbps bridges are also available. While the initial capital outlay for these bridges is high, there are virtually no monthly operating costs and minimal maintenance requirements.

Satellite connections on their own are not a valid option at this stage since regulation requires that such systems only provide a receiving feed. Currently, Schoolnet is looking at using mobile phones or Ultraphones (Siemens radio telephone) as a sending feed. Both of these sending solutions have a low speed connection. Since most of the traffic will be from the receiving feed, the speed differences will be almost unnoticeable to the end users. While this hybrid solution will have a lower initial cost than the wireless bridges, there are ongoing fees to be paid to both the satellite provider and Telecom Namibia for their services. In some of the more dense areas, a cell-node setup will be used, where a central school has a satellite or fibre feed and wireless bridges link other nearby schools. This will allow multiple schools to share the expense of the ongoing fees from the satellite provider and the Telecom Namibia phone bill.

The demonstration at the Spring Energy Fair uses a modified portable classroom to house a computer lab consisting of one server and six workstations. A complete PV system including solar panels, regulators, 600Ah 24v batteries, inverter and controls, have mounted on a portable frame to provide electricity. Both a satellite feed and a wireless bridge are running to provide Internet connectivity. This will be the first public testing and demonstration of our diskless freeware LAN and wireless internet models. This demonstration has been made possible by the very generous support of Polytechnic of Namibia, Solar Age, REINNAM, Grinaker, Obsidian, MultiChoice, MWeb, Central Point Communications, Wireless LAN Namibia and NetDay.

Please find a moment to come look at and try out the system!

Kind regards

Joris Komen
SchoolNet Namibia
6 September 2001