Gadi Evron wrote:

On Mon, 18 Sep 2006, Sean Donelan wrote:

...

Intelsat has shutdown the primary satellite link for Zimbabwe's state communications company for non-payment, which has affected most of the ISPs in the country.

I can't really blame them. I doubt the Internet is considered critical infrastructure over there yet, and I doubt Intelsat would care... but this is interesting in the sense that even if you can't fault intelsat in any way... Intelsat, Inmarsat, etc. run quite a bit, and if it's a "country" that gets disconnected, that is a problem even if it's not "their" problem.

Gadi.

http://www.itu.int/africainternet2000/countryreports/zwe_e.htm http://www.comone.co.zw/ http://www.telone.co.zw % Information related to '194.133.122.0 - 194.133.122.255' inetnum: 194.133.122.0 - 194.133.122.255 netname: TelOne-BLK01 descr: TelOne (formerly ZPTC) country: ZW The nameservers and internet sites can be seen here (europe) but they are slow. Kind regards Peter and Karin -- Peter and Karin Dambier Cesidian Root - Radice Cesidiana Graeffstrasse 14 D-64646 Heppenheim +49(6252)671-788 (Telekom) +49(179)108-3978 (O2 Genion) +49(6252)750-308 (VoIP: sipgate.de) mail: peter@peter-dambier.de mail: peter@echnaton.serveftp.com http://iason.site.voila.fr/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/iason/

On 2006-09-19, at 03:59, Brandon Galbraith wrote:

Does any fiber run into Zimbabwe? Or is everything via satellite?

Having fibre to your neighbiour is the exception in Africa, not the rule.

There has to be a remaining uplink (albeit low-capacity) if nameservers within the country are still accessible.

There's more than one satellite operator with footprints that cover Zimbabwe. Joe

On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Joe Abley wrote:

There's more than one satellite operator with footprints that cover Zimbabwe.

And numerous licensed ISPs in the country, some with their own external connectivity arrangements. http://www.nsrc.org/db/lookup/country.php?ISO=ZW Steve Huter

On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Jack Bates wrote:

Zimbabwe's government owned telephone company controls Internet access. When I was working there in 98ish, it was mandatory for all providers to interlink with the telephone company and use their satellite uplink at outrageous pricing. There was a few exceptions, mostly companies that were faster than the telco at setting up Internet connections and had the political power to hold on to them. The only other connectivity feeding Zimbabwe outside of the satellite uplinks was microwave to South Africa where it picked up fiber. I believe this link was primarily for phone, and not Internet.

I doubt much has changed since I was there. Towards the end of my visit, riots broke out and shortly after I left it paid not to be white in Zimbabwe and definitely not a white farmer. The economy didn't fare well. A beautiful country, but unfortunately not very ideal for a network engineer.

Jack Bates

Many countries, not just developing ones, have the same issues or at least had them when the Internet was originally introduced. In Israel we were under the iron fist of a government owned telco for a long time, paying quite a bit per minute. That changed significantly since `94 when Hank introduced us to the Internet, but it's a known issue wherever you turn. Naturally, we di dnot have riots to overthrow the government.... so I am not sure how true the comparison is. On another level, Brazil which is now introduced to the broadband revolution has many of the massive security issues impacting the Internet, much like Israel used to have when we underwent the Internet revolution. (not to say anything against Brazil. Nice people, serious professionals and very hot (and fun!) women). Gadi.

On Tue, Sep 19, 2006 at 12:00:36AM -0500, Gadi Evron wrote:

On Mon, 18 Sep 2006, Sean Donelan wrote:

...

Intelsat has shutdown the primary satellite link for Zimbabwe's state communications company for non-payment, which has affected most of the ISPs in the country.

I can't really blame them. I doubt the Internet is considered critical infrastructure over there yet,

i guess that would depend on who you are, i'm sure a number of aid organizations and other NGO's are quite dependent on the internet.

and I doubt Intelsat would care... but this is interesting in the sense that even if you can't fault intelsat in any way... Intelsat, Inmarsat, etc. run quite a bit, and if it's a "country" that gets disconnected, that is a problem even if it's not "their" problem.

i would imagine that this was a last option for intelsat, as they have been the backbone for many places, especially those away from western infrastucture for a long time. "The state company TelOne acknowledged receiving a final demand for payment of its satellite arrears last month and asked the central bank to provide hard currency which has so far not been allocated." -- [ Jim Mercer jim@reptiles.org +971 50 436-3874 ] [ I want to live forever, or die trying. ]