From rcole@IPROLINK.CH Tue Aug 26 18:39:05 1997
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997  

This report from Uganda was forwarded to the Development Special Interest Group of the
Geneva Chapter of the Internet Society. I hope you will be interested in a status
report on how an HF installation is being used to service that area.

The initial paragraph is from Daniel Stern, who can be contacted via Caroline Wieland at 
[connectu@starcom.co.ug]

     Upcountry connectivity got a boost yesterday with the installation of

     a pilot network in the northwest of Uganda.  Uganda Connect, in

     collaboration with the World Food Program, set up a Codan HF radio and

     9002 modem for sending and receiving e-mail over the Internet for

     neighbouring hospitals, agricultural projects, NGOs and mission

     stations.



     The single engine Cessna on which I flew brought a mailbag for the

     local hospital containing e-mail printouts from Kampala!

     It gives you a pretty good idea of the significance of this new

     network and how it will benefit the local community.  All the

     equipment is being run off of deep cycle batteries charged by solar

     panels (and supplimented each evening by a couple of hours of power

     from the main grid).


Here is the report from Paul Wyse:
ARUA PILOT E-MAIL PROJECT

Arua is located 500 kms north west of Kampala near the Sudan and
Congo borders. Communications outside of Arua is mostly by HF
radio. There is an automatic dial telephone within the town of 220
subscribers. There is one outside line which is a VHF link to
Kampala which is very busy during the day with often 10 people queued
up at the post office to place a call. The post office closes at 6
and after that sometimes it is possible to place a call.

My phone was not working for 8 1/2 months due to a bad under ground
cable. It was finally repaired several weeks ago and I tried to pick up
my e-mail from Nairobi at 9 PM one night. The first connect was
interrupted. The second and third calls did not establish hand
shaking. The 4th call was successful and sent one message and
received 7. The cost for this was nearly 7,000 shillings. I have
tried many times since and have not been able to establish a link.

I have been using amateur radio to send personal e-mails via a
station in South Africa. This has worked fairly well but is based
on having an amateur assigned here and is also no good for any serious
type traffic. My use of e-mail has raised the hopes of a number of
entities and individuals here in the area.

Kuluva Hospital a mission hospital is located 12 kms from Arua. It
has the reputation of being the best hospital with in miles. Two
years ago a project from German put in a 150 KV hydro plant so it is
the only hospital in the North with 24 hour electricity. They have
the best stock drug store in the North. Kuluva is working jointly
with several labs in the UK and regularly send specimens back by
DHL. The problem is that results take so long to get back. Kuluva
is known for it's preventive medicine approach as well as
reconstruction for children who have had polio and leprosy work.
They are very anxious for an e-mail connection.

A small non profit organization working in Aringa County, called Here is
Life, runs various agricultural projects such as a rice project complete with a rice
huller, Two posho mills, oil
processing plant, medical services and a library - all community based
projects. Their offices are in Arua and they are anxious for e-mail
services.

In Aru, Congo, CMS has a medical agriculture development project.
Aru is 25 kms from Arua. I am in VHF contact with them. Their
project encompasses a number of health centers along the borders
from Bunia to the Sudan Border. They also have an agriculture
development project which includes fish farming, rabbits, ducks as
well as use of donkeys as draft animals for plowing and pulling of
carts. There is also introduction of new varieties of seeds and
improved agriculture practices. Aru has no communication with the
outside world with the exception of some private two way radios.

Besides the above there are two theological schools in the area. One
training Sudanese pastors and the other Ugandan pastors. One also
has a demonstration farm connected with it. The leaders of these
organizations are begging for some e-mail services. Simon Martin
teaches in one of the schools and is also deputy director for the
African Inland Mission and is frustrated with the limited
communications here in Arua.

My Organization, The summer Institute of Linguistics is working in a
number of language projects and needs communications to organize
language and literacy workshops for a number of vernacular language
groups in the area.

My vision for e-mail for the Arua area is to have a hub in the SIL
offices with VHF links to Kuluva, Aru and Simon Martin. The
possibilities exist for some telephone modem connections within
the city as well. The interest is here. The help of Uganda
Connectivity Project in collaboration with WFP is a big step in e-mail
for the area to be come a reality.

Paul Wyse
Support Service Manager
Box 414
Arua, Uganda
Uganda Connectivity Project
P O Box 23500
Kampala
tel: 256 41 347 400
uconnect@starcom.co.ug / uconnect@easynet.co.uk