Unrestricted Internet Access?

In the July 2008 issue 086 of Baseline magazine, David Strom, Technical Editor for the magazine, writing in his column STROMINATOR, addressed the myth of unrestricted access to the internet. The article pushed my button because earlier this year I experienced the frustration of being isolated from a daily routine heavily invested in internet dependence.

For 20+ years I’ve been associated with a faith based refugee relief organization, Project Mercy (www.projectmercy.org). While Project Mercy is based in Fort Wayne, IN, its focus is refugee relief in Africa. In the last 15 years, its energies turned to community development in Ethiopia. Project Mercy was founded by an Ethiopian couple, Marta Gabre-Tsadick and Demeke Teckle-Wold. In the mid-1970’s, Marta and Demke fled Ethiopia in the wake of a communist takeover. Marta was a cabinet minister in the government and Demke an industrialist. Since Ethiopia returned to a democratic state in the early 1990’s Project Mercy has been active within the country.

Because I served on the board for several years, in June 2007, I was invited to a meeting to discuss future plans for continued community development and organization structure. Over the last 15 years in Yetebon, Ethiopia (about 60 miles south west of the capital Addis Ababa) Project Mercy has grown (from scratch) a K-12 school program with an enrollment of 2,400, a vocational skills development center, an agricultural diversity program serving hundreds of farmers within the community, a 50 bed state of the art hospital, a cattle breeding program, and a worship center seating over 500. From my standpoint, the upshot of the meeting was that these programs had reached a state of development that was now being stifled due to lack of telecommunications infrastructure. So, in January 2008, I found my self in Ethiopia to do requirements planning for satellite based high-speed internet to enable interactive distance learning and telemedicine.

I came armed with my laptop loaded with Skype and prepared my wife’s laptop so we could keep in touch. Well, back to David Strom’s article, here’s what I found. First, Skype is illegal in Ethiopia. It can’t be used there because Skype bypasses one of the government’s primary sources of revenue, the telephone network. The government owned Ethiopian Telecommunication Commission has outlawed Skype. So I’m out of luck trying to communicate with several people I’d lined up to help me on the project. Second, there was no wireless access that I could find. So, I lined up a ride to the Sheraton Hotel to look for internet access through a business office. This place was one palatial oasis in the middle of the capital city. I entered a nicely laid out office area with 8 workstations side by side. None of the workstations was in use, so I thought this was going to be smooth surfing. I got my log on ID from the administrator, sat down and got ready to cruise. Alright! I’m back in the hunt. Surf’s up! The adrenaline was flowing. I logged on and got the familiar and unwelcome sound of a dial-up modem. There is no high-speed internet in Ethiopia! Not only that, but I tried and retried for over 20 minutes, to access my email account and was never able to get through. Since I was being charged by the minute, I went to the administrative assistant with some degree of objection at being charged while in fact not being connected. She was non-plused by the situation and offered that this time of day wasn’t the best to use the telephone system; maybe come back later. Ouch; stiffarmed to the world outside. The suggestion was made to try the Hilton Hotel. Off to the Hilton. Same set-up, but because of the time of day-I guess, I was able to get through and cleanup my email box. Well, the upshot of the visit was that I was able to get dial-up connections via an internet café within 6 miles of where I spent the next three weeks (by the way, don’t bother trying to download technical documentation over dial-up connections in Ethiopia). Our objective was to document applications and come away from the country with the government’s permission to utilize satellite communications. I thought it was a miracle when two weeks later I received a call from Washington DC, announcing the Ethiopian Minister of Highways and Telecommunications Infrastructure had granted us permission to be the first application of high speed internet in the country. Here’s the rest of the story. In June, after we arranged for a subscription to the Hughes Network Systems satellite (readily available and affordable) and locating a contractor in Kenya (ready and able) to install the dish and receiver in Ethiopia, we were told we needed visas for the installers and government approval of the hardware prior to installation! Now, here it is October 2008! But, I thought we had approval?