Using NREN capacities to extend and enhance UbuntuNet
Abstract
As the regional REN for Eastern and Southern Africa, the primary purpose of the UbuntuNet
Alliance is to provide its member NRENs with regional and global interconnectivity with other
NRENs and with the Internet generally. However, fulfilment of the task can be greatly facilitated
and its cost significantly reduced if the member NRENs, each within its own country, provide
network capacities and services to the Alliance.
Although this insight is present in the “patchwork backbone”concept that can be found in early
strategy documents of the Alliance, its first practical realisation is the connection of the Zambian
NREN, ZAMREN, to the UbuntuNet network not in London, but in South Africa.
The paper tells how ZAMREN connects to UbuntuNet and uses this as an example to explore and
illustrate three of four ways in which NRENs can extend the reach and enhance the effectiveness of
the UbuntuNet Network. These three have NRENs providing capacities of different sorts within
their local infrastructures for use as part of the UbuntuNet network. The fourth has NRENs
arranging UbuntuNet’s peering interconnections with local commodity networks in their countries.
The UbuntuNet Alliance is willing to contract formally with NRENs for the provision of such
services at specified service levels and to pay for such services at negotiated rates that compensate
the NREN for any additional costs incurred or that are based on the cost-recovering service charges
that the NREN’s own member institutions pay.