Research Article
Re-thinking the Connectivity for Schools Within the Public Education System in South Africa
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-031-81570-6_4, author={Tinashe Magwenzi and Alfredo Terzoli and Zelalem Shibeshi}, title={Re-thinking the Connectivity for Schools Within the Public Education System in South Africa}, proceedings={Towards new e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries. 15th International Conference, AFRICOMM 2023, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, November 23--25, 2023, Proceedings, Part I}, proceedings_a={AFRICOMM}, year={2025}, month={2}, keywords={School connectivity Community networks ICT infrastructures for marginalized areas Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) Broadband Island Private cloud for education OpenStack microstack Software Defined Networks (SDN)}, doi={10.1007/978-3-031-81570-6_4} }- Tinashe Magwenzi
Alfredo Terzoli
Zelalem Shibeshi
Year: 2025
Re-thinking the Connectivity for Schools Within the Public Education System in South Africa
AFRICOMM
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-81570-6_4
Abstract
Despite government and industry efforts, internet connectivity in South African public schools located in rural and township areas remains unsatisfactory. What seems to be lacking is a ‘virtuous’ model for an efficient and practical solution that takes into account all important aspects relating to public schools and maps them into an appropriate network infrastructure. This paper presents a model, re-conceptualising a previous model for school and community connectivity called ’Broadband Island’, developed and tested within the ICT4D long-term project known as Siyakhula Living Lab. In this model, schools belonging to an educational Circuit are connected via an overlay built on top of the network provided by a local Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP). In this model, schools benefit from having access to the Internet efficiently (via statistical multiplexing of the Internet link), through interacting with each other at high speed without crossing the public Internet, as well as sharing common educational resources hosted by the WISP. The WISP, in turn, will benefit from having a solid and well-sized customer in the form of the provincial Department of Education. The community will also benefit because the revenue generated by the local WISP will remain in the community, helping further local economic development. Finally, the reliance on local operators, as opposed to a single, nationwide implementer, mitigates the risk of a single point of failure.
