It may not be making headlines in the newspapers neither is it blazing our television screens but one thing is indisputable: Kenya Education Network has made tremendous achievement. Considers this:

Kenya Education Network(KENET) has partnered with German Research and Education network to set up the first EDUROAM service in Africa.

KENET SETS UP THE FIRST EDUROAM SERVICE IN AFRICA

EDUROAM is a federated roaming service that allows users within the KENET network to roam with their laptops without the trouble of guest account at different campuses. Users will be authenticated by a central sever at KENET. This means a faculty member,for example, visiting or teaching at another university on EDUROAM can use the network of the other university as if he or she is on the home campus without the need for guest account or mobile Internet dongle. All e-journals and e-book access rights will be available to the faculty member. KENET will provide the additional Internet broadwidth required to support the roaming service. The same applies to the students.

However it should be noted that this is an authentication service and requires each university to have an operational directory service that controls the use of campus resources an example being LDAP(Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) and will work with whatever the wireless infrastructure an institution has set up as long as it uses modern standards.

EDURAOM is also a global service-that is if a member visits any university in Europe,Canada and Australia that have all implemented EDUROAM they will have access to the network and other research and learning resources without having to get a guest account. Some universities in US are also on EDUROAM.KENET is in the process of rolling out VC services to its members as part of the NOC services.

KENET MIGRATES ITS INSTITUTIONS

Following the expiry of the two years Kenya Data Network,KDN, satellite bandwidth capacity contract KENET has already migrated its institutions to their own capacity 155Mb/s of IRU SEACOM capacity donated by the government of Kenya.

The bandwidth was activated on 20 January 2011.The aggregate consumption of all Institutions is about 650Mb/s with unlimited bandwidth allocations. According to Prof. Meoli Kashorda the price has dropped to $300 per Mb/s. The fact that capacity will be on two separate cables will be some form of backup for the institutions.

This also marks the end of satellite bandwidth subsidiary by government using KTCIP funds. This is therefore a milestone for KENET. KDN supplied KENET with 101 Mb/s of satellite capacity and 350 Mb/s of undersea capacity.

TELLING STORY

Kenya Education Network has embarked on an ambitious program that will see KENET tell story of its member institutions. To this end KENET will be offering a monthly newsletter and will see to it that the website is updated on a regular basis.

Currently KENET Offers Internet to over 80 connected sites. A story will be done on each of the institutions. Follow ups will also be done on the Marsabit project that is currently being undertaken by KENET in collaboration with Kenyatta University and the Higher Education Loans Board.

ACKNOWLEDGED

Kenya Education Network ,KENET,has been appreciated for the great contribution it has played in advancement of both mobile and ICT in Kenya by Inoorero University. In line with this the university invited KENET to parter with them as a sponsor for their first mobile boot camp to be held at Inoorero centre forest road parklands.

TRAINING

KENET'S technical team has been to different parts of the world to be trained on emerging new technologies. Currently engineer Godwin Barechi,Kennedy Aseda and Maureen Wanja are in Trieste in Italy for a training on wireless internet connectivity. The training is organized and sponsored by International Centre for Theoretical Physics(ICTP).ICTP will also offer accommodation for the trio.

Peter Muia KENET's assistant applications developer has been to Uganda for a training on IXP advance routing workshop at Makerere University. The training was sponsored by Ubuntunet alliance. Mr. Muia has also been to Zambia for an E-learning workshop.Mr.Josphat Karanja,head of infrastructure at KENET has also been to Belgium for an ICT Africa conference,then to Tanzania for a communication fibre workshop and finally to Germany on technical exchange programme.

Erick Sifuna KENET's Network Engineer, has been to Germany in February 2011 for a staff exchange programme in DFN (Research and Education Network in Germany).This is usually a staff exchange programme between KENET and its equivalent counterpart in Berlin whose Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2009. He was there specifically to exchange ideas with technical staff over Germany and learn more about architectural network planning/design and operations. He spent ten days in Berlin (the HQ of DFN to share and learn more on architectural network design) then to Stuttgart for 3 days for Network Operation Centre (NOC) operations.

Mr. Erick has also been to Kigali, Rwanda on workshop sponsored by UbuntuNet alliance. The workshop was organized by AFNOG(African Network Operators Group)The workshop took place between 23 May to 6 June,2010).

MEMBER INSTITUTIONS

The number of member institutions have grown tremendously over the years and the list is still growing. KENET is optimistic that it will transform the higher education by use if Information Communication Technology and ultimately replace the traditional teaching method and embrace the modern teaching method.