Resiliency of our Internet Infrastructure during the COVID -19 Season

Note the limitations of the free version of zoom… 40 minutes maximum for group calls; so using it would require paying a monthly fee

From: kictanet [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Barrack Otieno via kictanet
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2020 12:00 PM
To: Adam Lane <[email protected]>
Cc: Barrack Otieno <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Resiliency of our Internet Infrastructure during the COVID -19 Season

Hi Erick,

Honourable Abshiro was asking for an online solution that the Legislators can use during this Covid -19 season. That said Zoom proved itself during the recent ICANN 67 Virtual meeting without any security glitches. It appears the security glitches are coming from configurations as many people are trying to deploy the solution very fast without fully understanding it. The issues are:

1. Can the solution support low bandwidth connectivity?. Can our Senators connect from the Counties where connectivity is not as stable as in the Cities?
2. Can it support masses?, remember parliamentary sessions are broadcast and Wananchi can pop in to observe.

That said i pray that if this scenario will ever recur , we will have a home grown solution for engagement.

Best Regards

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 11:49 AM Erick Mwangi via kictanet <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Thanks GG. Zoom is a mine field.

I would advise folks to stay off zoom for any \’serious\’ discourse ( its ideally for social interactions).

There are a ton of options depending on industry (Skype for Business will be obsolete very soon) TEAMS is one suggestion in terms of ease and setting up.

Eric
E Njoroge Mwangi
Technology| FINTECH | Big Data

Cell +44 7539372742
Skype: Erick.mwangi

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 7:17 AM Kathy Mwai via kictanet <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Hon Abshiro,

Even the G20 has gone virtual. Here they were discussing their countries contributions to the fund researching on a vaccine. Just 2 days before the UK Prime Minister was taken ill.

Kathy

On Mon, Mar 30, 2020, 00:48 Abshiro Halake via kictanet <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Thank you Kaka, Noah, Barrack,

I will look out for the Gire bill and see what in our context is the equivalent. I may need your help with providing the appropriate content. We don\’t have much time so time is of the essence.

Barrack thanks for the recommendation/suggestion of use of Zoom. I am a fun but Grace\’ insights yesterday opened my eyes to the fact that it may not be very secure. That said, what is, these days. Will add it to the list of apps to consider for sure.

Thanks you all once again.

Cheers,

Abshiro.

On Sun, Mar 29, 2020, 21:31 Barrack Otieno via kictanet <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Kaka,

You raise very interesting points. I actually think the East African Community should also take up the matter. For Citizens to properly embrace the Internet in the Region, Trust is key. Quality of service, reliability and security of the Networks is a key consideration. We need more investment in connectivity within the EAC Countries and within the region. We also need affordable smart devices. What is the use of connectivity if citizens cannot afford devices that will enable them to make good use of the links. If it means zero rating so be it.

Mheshimiwa Abshiro we need the equivalent of the High Perfomance Computing Act aka the Gore bill to move our country forwad in ICT issues.

Regards

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, 8:14 pm Noah via kictanet, <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
I totally agree with you @Walu and I believe we are on the same page but my only caution was for us not to focus so much on vendor sythax (which can be crammed to aid implementation) but rather principles.

Back to the main topic, Internet infrastructure across East Africa more than just Kenya needs robust upgrades and improving.

Bloody Covid19 is already a game changer and I believe we are all taking lessons from it especially within our space with the ICT infrastructure which politicians used to think was some luxury for a few elites proving to be a necessity in such a time.

*ICT could emerge stronger post COVID-19*

Some foresee an increase in demand for cloud computing platforms with enterprise applications proving to be inaccessible during lockdowns and #karantini.

Increasing usage of remote and collaboration tools. This requires bandwidth like serious bandwidth.

Increase in traffic to video streaming sites and social media platforms (Isolation is tough hey, humans are not wild beasts or gods, they must continue socializing)

Increased usage of apps from grocery delivery apps to essential goods apps.

Most importantly the future of education in the face of another future pendamic [1] with online education becoming defacto especially when schools in future could possibly be closed beyond just one moon.

#ICT infrastructure is #critical infrastructure.

Cheers,
Noah

[1] Hellooooo….., there was the Spanish Flu, then the Influenza, then the SARS, then the Swine Flu, the Ebola and you guessed it right COVID-19.

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, 19:52 Walubengo J, <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
True, BUT assume I am Safaricom with maybe 70% of my infrastructure on Huawei and want to hire a Telco Engineer.

I prolly would get a candidate who has the Telco degree (the principles) and the Huawei Certification as the added advantage.

The other way around it would be that I hire then send the candidate back to finishing school for some hands on training.

Universities providing both principles and skills will have an advantage.

On a light note, Imagine teaching Blockchain Technologies using only Satoshi\’s Paper (the principles)<bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf> and not having access to say IBM Blockchain platforms<www.ibm.com/blockchain/what-is-blockchain> to provide students with some Lab exposure. The ones with Lab exposure will often stand out.

Having said that, there are those who \’cram\’ and pass vendor-certificate exams without really learning the principles. That is also a major risk to employers.

walu.

On Sunday, March 29, 2020, 07:37:26 PM GMT+3, Noah <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

@Walu

I agree that a cocktail of standard principles and *mutlivendor* sythax should be the approach that can go on to see us provide better skills transfer.

I only caution us from repeating the old and outdated approach of only focusing training on one vendor since this only goes to help promote the vendors products in our markets rather provide true knowledge.

Employers should careless about Cisco or Juniper or Huawei but rather seek knowledgeable candidates who understand technology rather than people who have crammed how to implement a specific vendor sythax.

Noah

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, 19:26 Walubengo J, <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
@Noah,

Maybe we can do both. Teach the principles as well as offer exposure to one or several of the vendor technologies (whichever that maybe). I always find such an approach much more enriching and complimentary in my classes.

Teaching \’principles\’ without offering some practical vendor sessions is like teaching Wordprocessing – without using MS-Word/OpenOffice/etc because you are trying too hard to be vendor-agnostic 😉

In short, I do appreciate the need to teach principles but also appreciate the need to use vendor specific examples/labs to drive the point home.

walu.

On Sunday, March 29, 2020, 07:03:16 PM GMT+3, Noah via kictanet <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:

The intermittent ip networks and grid-power aside.

Am curious to know why in this day and time and day, we are still focusing on vendor specific trainings.

During earlier 2000\’s we focused so much on the Cisco\’s, then somehow the Junipers and today we are seeing the Huawei syntax.

Shouldn\’t we be focusing in todays Africa on teaching standard protocols even at a fundamental level and cocktail of vendors sythax rather than continually pushing some specific vendors technology which indirectly markets their kit as defacto to those we keep imbibing the skills too.

Just my thoughts….

Noah

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, 11:28 Kelvin Kariuki via kictanet, <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
This is very true Barrack,
I have been teaching a live online class on a Huawei Certification in the past week
using Zoom and some of my students, who are on different parts of the country,
have really had issues keeping up because of poor internet connections and
regular disconnections. Thank God Zoom has a feature to record the classes
but for sure this is something that we need to look into.

PS: All my students are using Safaricom as Huawei Kenya offered them with
credit cards to buy internet bundles in order to be able to learn online. The training
I\’m doing is Huawei Certified ICT Associate (Routing & Switching)

On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 11:14 AM Ali Hussein via kictanet <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Barrack

You got that right. Both Safaricom and Zuku have been intermittent over the past few days. Let\’s not even start with Kenya Power…

Regards

Ali Hussein

Tel: +254 713 601113

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim

Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with.

On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 1:07 PM Barrack Otieno via kictanet <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Listers,

It seems the quality of our Infrastructure is taking a hit as more people are working from home. Talking to friends from different corners of the countries across different Networks, there seems to be a challenge. I hope the Communications Authority is paying attention. The Internet and Infrastructure service providers should not just focus on free Internet and double speeds, quality of the connection is critical.

Best