<<August 5, 2007>>

<<August 5, 2007>>
Archived distributions can be retrieved at;
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Prof. Stuart A. Umpleby <umpleby@gwu.edu>

Greg Cole, Ph.D. <gcole@gloriad.org>

Dr. Anatoliy Fedotov, professor, <fedotov@ict.nsc.ru>

Eng. James Rege <jamesrege@africaonline.co.ke>

Rita Hindin, Ph.D., MPH <rhindin@gmail.com>

Joseph Sebarenzi <sebarenzi@hotmail.com>

Dear Stuart:

(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I).

(2) You asked “Who built the ring in the Northern Hemisphere?”

I think you meant GLORIAD:

As far as I know, Greg Cole and Natasha Bulashova (who was in Moscow at that time) initiated the so-called MIR-NET with high speed Internet line between the US and Moscow with the NSF money, -- after they demonstrated their first MOSAIC (a predecessor of Netscape Internet browser) multimedia presentation at our “Global Lecture Hall (GLH)” multipoint-to-multipoint, multimedia, interactive videoconference on July 7th of 1994 which connected the University of Tennessee in Knoxville with a distance education conference in Moscow and many other universities in between, e.g., the University of Milan, Italy, etc.

He then painstakingly made tremendous efforts to negotiate with many countries’ telecom authorities to interconnect broadband Internet among the US, China, Russia, Netherlands, Canada, etc., which goes through Novosibirsk, Russia with 150 Mbps (when I visited last September), and 622 Mbps (by now), and 2.5 Gbps (in the coming near future) -- these were told by Prof. Fedotov who is a Russian counterpart to Greg, and when I visited him last September. Prof. Fedotov told me at that time that Japan would join in the GLORIAD in this year of 2007.

According to YOMIURI ONLINE web site of December 12, 2006, Japan’s KDDI will install optical fiber lines between Japan and Nakhodka which is about 50 miles east of Vladivostoke in eastern Sibria, from this summer which is to be operational in March of 2008. Its total cost is Yen 5,000,000,000 (which is about US$42 million) to have two lines for redundancy in case of breakdown. Those two lines will cross the Sea of Japan which is about 900 Km (which is about 560 miles). The speed per line is 640 Gbps, thus, total 2 x 640 = 1,280 Gbps (or 1.28 tera bit per second)!!

This means that the unit cost would be US$42 million/(2 x 560) miles = $37,000/mile (or about $23,000/Km).

I presume that this will connect Japan to GLORIAD, which goes through trans-Siberian rail road.

(3) Many thanks also for your reminding me the following article;

The New York Times, July 22, 2007
“Africa, Offline: Waiting for the Web”
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yswb3r

(4) As said in this New York Times article, Africans are now switching from satellite to optical fiber, since the former costs too much — for example, US$ 1.5 million/month for 45 Mbps (which is full transponder on a satellite) -- which is about 10 times cost than in developed countries, $ 5,000/month for 512 Kbps downloading and 0.5 Kbps uplinking via VSAT at many of universities in Nigeria, $ 20,000/month for 2 Mbps up/down in Uganda, etc. These can be compared with $40/month for my accessing Internet via cable at 6 to 9 Mbps downlink and 0.5 Mbps uplinking in New York — which is about 2 to 5 time more than in Japan.

Subsequently, albeit vast expanse of the African continent, as mentioned in my previous list distributions, many of African countries are now installing optical fiber networks.

(5) One good example is the case of Ethiopia with a fund from the World Bank (about $25 million);

Information and Communication Technology Assisted Development Project
<http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ogkcs>

This project was to construct Multimedia Broadband Internet (MBI) which I mentioned in several previous list distribution after I attended a conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in October of 2004. I was told that this MBI was to extend an optical fiber line at 2.5 Gbps from Kenya.

The chief of the Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) in Addis Ababa told me that, if the GUS/Ethiopia would be an activity of the MBI under the Ministry of Education, the JICA would be willing to financially support its activities. I have been waiting for our Ethiopian colleagues to come forward to create it.

(6) However, I was greatly dismayed when I learned that the outside connection from Kenya is through a ground earth station which is certainly a great bottleneck for high speed Internet access to the outside world — though Kenya itself has an extensive fiber network within its country;

To circumvent this bottleneck is to go through a submarine cable;

Namely, this is to construct East Africa Submarine System (EASSy):

For Global Connectivity;

As far as I know, this EASSy project raised US$ 200 million so far, and needed to have another $ 100 million;

When I met Jim Rege at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, Tunisia in November, 2005, I mentioned of my idea of utilizing the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) fund to get the cable boat of KDDI to deploy submarine cable for the EASSy, but I haven’t heard any reply yet.

Jim was a Fulbright exchange student at Polytechnic University (both my alma mater) graduating from it with BS.EE during 1974-76.

However, I was requested to raise $ 1 million from Japan to match the same from Canada and Sweden, for the member universities of the Association of African Universities (AAU) to get substantial discount to access EASSy.

(7) There are a couple of other groups who are working to lay giga bps high speed submarine cables around African continent. However, I think they would require several more years for their operations — anyway, competitions would drastically reduce high transmission cost.

On the other hand, the important thing to do is to figure out how to sustain such expensive deployments, i.e., how to realize sustainable business operation of those high cost broadband Internet. On this regard, I was happy to read that one of Rwandians said that since they don’t have enough natural resources, their future industries have to focus on the promotion of knowledge society — which is our GUS project is aiming for.

Dear Rita and Joseph:

(8) Since the New York Times story is about your Rwanda, I took the liberty of attaching your msgs (ATTACHMENT II) below.

Dear Joseph:

(9) I replied to your request on May 10th, and waiting your response — if you have lost my msg, I would be happy to re-send it to you.

Keep in touch.

Best, Tak

ATTACHMENT I

From: Stuart Umpleby <umpleby@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2007 11:35:40 -0400
To: Takeshi Utsumi <utsumi@columbia.edu>
Subject: Fwd: NYTimes.com: Africa, Offline: Waiting for the Web

Dear Tak, I hope you can access this article. It says that Africa needs fiber optic cable connections or a new satellite. Current connections are slow and very expensive. Perhaps the World Bank or Japan could help, or an entrepreneur. Who built the ring in the Northern Hemisphere? Best wishes, Stuart

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: umpleby@gwu.edu <umpleby@gwu.edu >
Date: Jul 22, 2007 11:22 AM
Subject: NYTimes.com: Africa, Offline: Waiting for the Web
To: umpleby@gmail.com

<http://www.nytimes.com/> <http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&page=www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/business/yourmoney&pos=TopRight-EmailThis&camp=foxsearch2007-emailtools02b-nyt5-511278&ad=SUN_88x31.gif&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom>
This page was sent to you by: umpleby@gwu.edu

BUSINESS / YOUR MONEY | July 22, 2007
Africa, Offline: Waiting for the Web <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/business/yourmoney/22rwanda.html?ex=1185768000&en=b9bbee97c42fc49e&ei=5070&emc=eta1>
By RON NIXON
About 75 percent of African Internet traffic is routed through Britain, or even the United States, making it the least connected region in the world.

--
Stuart Umpleby, Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning
2033 K Street NW, Suite 230, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052
www.gwu.edu/~umpleby <http://www.gwu.edu/~umpleby> , tel. 202-994-1642, fax 202-994-5284

ATTACHMENT II

> From: Rita Hindin <rhindin@gmail.com>
> Date: Wed, 9 May 2007 10:37:06 -0400
> To: Takeshi Utsumi <utsumi@columbia.edu>
> Cc: Joseph Sebarenzi <sebarenzi@hotmail.com>, Connie Clarke
> <birchbrk@berkshire.net>
> Subject: introduction to Joseph Sebarenzi of Rwanda
>
> Dear Takeshi,
>
> I had the good fortune to recently hear a presentation by Joseph
> Sebarenzi - Rwandan genocide survivor, former Speaker of the Rwandan
> House of Parliament, and Peace Educator. I shared with Joseph
> information about GUS. As I did with you, I also shared with Joseph
> the email that I received from Maurice Mars about his South African
> tele-medicine initiative, as his project extends into Rwanda.
>
> I write now to put you and Joseph in contact with each other because I
> see great potential for collaboration. I'm including at the bottom of
> this email Joseph's response to the information I provided him; as
> you'll see, it includes his request to be introduced to you. I hope
> you will be in touch with each other and do let me know if there is
> anything further I can do to facilitate your contact.
>
> Besides cc'ing this email to Joseph, I am also copying it to Connie
> Clarke who arranged Joseph's visit to our area. Below is Joseph's
> bio, prepared by Connie.
>
> Best,
> Rita
>
>
> Joseph lost both his parents and all but one of his 8 siblings in the
> 1994 genocide when over a period of 3 months members of the Hutu
> ethnic group massacred almost a million of their Tutsi neighbors and
> sympathizers. Joseph's response was to seek the roots of forgiveness
> and reconciliation first in himself and then in all humanity. As
> Speaker of the House of Parliament he spoke out against corruption and
> ethnic violence and worked tirelessly for good governance,
> constitutional law, restorative justice and human rights. He was
> forced to resign because of his outspoken positions and then to flee
> with wife and children after learning of a plot to assassinate him.
>
> After finding political asylum in the U.S. Joseph earned his Masters
> in Conflict Transformation at the School for International Training in
> Brattleboro, where he is now adjunct faculty. He holds an honorary
> doctorate from Marlboro College and currently is writing his doctoral
> dissertation with the goal of teaching at the college level full-time
> while he continues to lecture and lead trainings in conflict
> transformation and peacebuilding throughout the world.
>
> Joseph writes, "I hope to promote change, reconciliation, and
> progress in my country, in Africa, and in communities around the
> world."
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: joseph sebarenzi <sebarenzi@hotmail.com>
> Date: Apr 23, 2007 10:26 AM
> Subject: RE: thank you for sharing; about Global University System, GUS
> To: Rita Hindin <rhindin@gmail.com>
> Cc: birchbrk@berkshire.net
>
>
> Dear Rita,
>
> Thank you very much for your kind message. It was a pleasure meeting
> you at Connie's house and sharing my story. And thank you for coming
> to both of my appearances - at Connie's house and at GCC. I got home
> on weekend, and on my way home, I was able to speak in NJ to people
> involved in helping in the Darfur/Sudan.
>
> I think connecting me with Mr. Takeshi would be good. I can connect
> Rwandan authorities to Takeshi and this is something that can greatly
> benefit my country.
>
> I am also interested in exploring some of the things they do that are
> related to my work in conflict resolution/conflict transformation. I
> see that the GCEPG is "to train would-be decision makers in crisis
> management, conflict resolution, and negotiation techniques with a
> globally distributed computer simulation system through a grid
> computer network." This is interesting to me personally and to people
> in Rwanda who work on conflict resolution.
>
> Again, thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> Joseph

List of Distribution

Prof. Stuart A. Umpleby
Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning
School of Business
The George Washington University
2033 K Street NW, Suite 230
Washington, DC 20052, USA
Tel: (202) 994-1642
Fax: (202) 994-5284
umpleby@gwu.edu
http://www.gwu.edu/~umpleby
http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/2005/index.htm

Greg Cole, Ph.D.
Research Director
UT-ORNL Joint Institute for Computational Science
US Principal Investigator
Global Ring Network for Advanced Applications Development (GLORIAD)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Building 5100, Mail Stop 6173, Room 212
Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6173
Phone: 865-241-3702
FAX: 865-576-4368
gcole@gloriad.org
gcole@friends-partners.org
http://www.gloriad.org/
http://www.gloriad.org/gloriad/team/usa/gcole.html
http://www.friends-partners.org/

Dr. Anatoliy Fedotov, professor,
Deputy Director
Institute of Computational Technologies
Siberian Branch of the of Russian Academy of Science
Vice-rector,
Novosibirsk State University
Tel. +7383341342, 330-73-51
fedotov@ict.nsc.ru
fedotov@sbras.ru
http://www.ict.nsc.ru/~fedotov

Eng. James Rege
Permanent Secretary
Ministry of Information & Communication
Teleposta Towers
P.O. Box 30025
Nairobi, Kenya
+254-722-200-717
Tel: 250926 / 315127
Fax: 315147
jamesrege@africaonline.co.ke

Rita Hindin, Ph.D., MPH
Consultant in Epidemiology and Public Health
6 Franklin Street
Shelburne Falls, MA 01370
(h) 413-625-9528
(c) 413 329-1518
rhindin@gmail.com
http://www.aangserian.org.uk

Joseph Sebarenzi <sebarenzi@hotmail.com>

*******************************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA                           *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.)          *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education           *
* Founder and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of                         *
*   Global University System (GUS)                                            *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-5913, U.S.A.                        *
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Email: utsumi@columbia.edu                               *
* http://www.itu.int/wsis/goldenbook/search/display.asp?Quest=8032562&lang=en *
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/                                     *
* Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676                                                   *
*******************************************************************************