Tertiary Education Network

Telecommunications Amendment Bill: Clauses 17(c) and 20(b): networking of public higher education institutions
This letter is a submission to the Portfolio Committee on Communications ("the Committee") concerning the Telecommunications Amendment Bill ("the Bill"). It includes:
- information on the importance of electronic communications, and especially Internet access, for educational institutions;
- comment on Clauses 17(c) and 20(b) of the Bill; and
- a request to be permitted to make a brief presentation to the Committee.

I write the letter in my capacity as Chairperson of Tertiary Education Network, also known by its short name "TENET". TENET came into being in August 2000 as a non-profit, Section 21 company that is owned collectively by South Africa's 36 public higher education institutions. This ownership is exercised through the Committee of Technikon Principals and the SA Universities Vice-Chancellors Association. A 9-person Board of Directors runs TENET. TENET was created for the express purpose of acting as the agent of the institutions individually and severally for the procurement of more affordable access to the Internet as a communications medium and information resource.

Comment on 17(c)
The relative importance of Internet access
As has been the case in many countries, higher education institutions in South Africa have been in vanguard of Internet development and use in South Africa. In the 1980s the erstwhile Foundation for Research Development (now the National Research Foundation) created and operated UNINET, which provided inter-institutional connectivity between the various universities and research institutions of the day, as well as a tenuous connection across the Atlantic through which academics could exchange email with colleagues in the USA. In those early days, all allocations of Internet addresses to South African organisations were made through the UNINET office.
As the Internet era, and especially the World Wide Web, came to dominate data communications, so the relative importance of international communications grew compared to that of inter-institutional communications. Today no researcher or scholar can remain informed about developments in his or her field; no student can study effectively; no academic library can meet the needs of its patrons; and indeed, no higher education institution can attract and retain quality people; without having fast and reliable access to the vast information resources and related services that are available on the Internet world-wide. The importance that is attached to international connectivity by higher education today is dramatically attested to by the fact that 80% of the monthly charges paid by public higher education institutions for access to the Internet are in respect of access to peering points in New York and London, and hence to the Internet world-wide.

We feel that the same considerations and pattern of evolution will apply to the networking of schools and further education and training institutions. While the envisaged educational network may start off by linking public schools and other institutions, the name of the game and its costs will come quite rapidly to be dominated by the requirement for access to the Internet to support educational (as opposed to administrative) activities. At the same time. tne costs will become dominated by the costs of trans-Atlantic bandwidth - not those of operating a regional or national network.

The cell-phone as Internet access device
Access to the Internet requires not only connectivity but also access to an end-user device. usually a personal computer ("PC"). In this regard, we believe that the cell-phone will play an increasingly important role - one that should be accounted for in the planning of networking services that schools and other institutions wish to provide to their staff and learners. To the extent that these "users" can use their cell phones to access the local network, for purposes of reading and sending emails and accessing certain information services, this will promote access and relieve pressure on the institution's PC labs.

The realism of this scenario is illustrated by the fact that in Japan, where the so-called 3~ generation cell phone has been deployed, there are already hundreds of thousands of people in whose minds the Internet is associated with the cell phone rather than the PC.

To construct and operate a network or to buy a service?
Physically, the erstwhile UNINET comprised a large number of pointAo-point Diginet links (rented from Telkom) connecting the member institutions to one of five "nodes" and interconnecting these nodes, together with traffic routing and other networking devices that were owned and operated by UNINET itself. Commercial service providers were used to provide the trans-Atlantic connection between this network and an Internet peering point in the USA. So UNINET truly owned and operated a network (legally, in terms of a Closed User Group ruling that was approved by the erstwhile SA Post Office).

Today we believe that the era of do-it-yourself networking has passed. So many learning, research and administrative activities in the institutions depend critically upon the network and upon access to the Internet, including at night and during weekends, that the provision of access to the Internet has to be seen as a service that is provided by professionals on a large scale and that is subject to agreed service levels. This view was clearly shared by the President of the National Research Foundation, Dr Khotso Mokhele, when, in 1998, he announced his decision that the NRF could not continue operating UNINET indefinitely.

Consequently TENET's approach to the replacement of UNINET was not to take over the ownership and running of the network, but to negotiate a very comprehensive service agreement with Telkom SA Limited for the provision of access to the Internet, nationally and internationally, as well as connectivity between the member institutions. Telkom's deliverable is connectivity of each site at specified information rates and using Internet protocols. TENET neither owns nor operates any networking equipment at all, and matters such as network design, deployment, configuration, commissioning, trouble-shooting and support are entirely at Telkom's discretion, subject to the provisions of the service agreement TENET and Telkom signed the agreement on 13 December 2000, following which 34 of the 36 technikons and universities have appointed TENET as their agent, as have a further 12 public research and support institutions that qualify to do so. Implementation of the agreement is nearing completion.

Once again, we feel that this evolutionary pattern will also apply to the schools and other institutions envisaged in the Bill, and that, in clause 17(c), the Minister may not wish to commit the entity that she will establish to actually having to ~construct and operate an educational network". Implementation planning might well show that it would be better for the entity to "ensure the provision of networking services to the schools and FET institutions".

Why is 17(c) silent on higher education?
We find it curious that both clauses 17(c) and 20(b) very explicitly cover public schools and the FET institutions, but make no mention at all of the public higher education institutions. To the extent that the State is attempting to create an enabling environment for a networked education sector, we feel that the public higher education sector should be recognised and its position explained vis-a-vis the provisions in the Bill.

At the same time, we do not wish to see the structures and service provision agreements that have been built, through tremendous efforts and substantial cost, disabled or paralysed through the inclusion of the public higher education sector within the ambit of the entity proposed in 17(c).
Furthermore, because the prices that TELKOM may charge in terms of our Agreement with Telkom are explicitly linked to the magnitude of the total bandwidth provided to all participating institutions, it would not be in the interest of the public higher education Institutions collectively to permit individual public higher education institutions to opt out their obligations under our Agreement with Telkom as a consequence of the ministerial determinations provided for in 17(c) (lines 38-39 on Page 14).

Proposed addition to Section 17(c)
These concerns would be addressed if the amendment proposed in 17(c) were to include a further paragraph after 10(a) and 10(b), as follows:
(C) Whereas the public higher education Institutions, as defined In the Higher Education Act, 199"' (Act No.101 of 1997), acting collectively, have created Tertiary Education Network TENET), an association not for profit incorporated under Section 21 of the Companies Act, to be their agent for the procurement of Internet access services, and whereas TENET has concluded a comprehensive agreement with a major national service provider, implementation of which is well advanced, the Minister, In concurrence with the Minister of Education, supports these endeavours and expressly excludes the public higher education institutions from the provisions of paragraphs (a) and (b).

Please note, however, that we do not mean, through this paragraph, to exclude the public higher education sector from any other benefits of an enabling environment, such as those envisaged in Section 20(b) that I discuss below, that may be established by Parliament.

Comment on Section 20(b)
Let's include the public higher education sector
We do not understand why the public higher education sector should not be eligible for the discounts proposed in this amendment.

Let's include point-to-point data communications costs
We also do not understand why, in the new paragraph (a), the discount should apply only to telecommunication call charges and not also to the installation charges and monthly rental charges for point-to-point data communications circuits.

Motivation: institutions have multiple premises
Nearly all higher education institutions occupy several premises or campuses. It is very common for medical faculties to be located at or near hospitals that are some distance away from the Institution's main campus. The same often applies to graduate business schools. In many cases, even the Institution's "main campus" is spread out over several city blocks or is sliced into several separate premises by one or more public highways. In addition, many institutions operate satellite campuses in other cities and towns - indeed the numbers of such remote satellite campuses is increasing as technikons take over responsibility for the former technical colleges.

In consequence of this, the institutions have to bear the costs of a considerable number of point-to-point links, some fairly short and some that run over very long distances, that interconnect their various distinct premises. In most cases, these links are the sole means of connection, for departments, staff and students on the satellite campuses, to the main campus and thence to the Internet. These point-to-point data communication links fall outside of the ambit of the collective agreement with Telkom, and their costs, which are charged at Telkom's standard tariffs, constitute a major item on the institutions' information technology budgets.

Consortia should qualify too
The Government is actively encouraging universities and technikons to collaborate with each other in ways that will reduce costs. Over the past years a number of regional library consortia have been formed to rationalise the provision of library services. In some case the consortium, as opposed to individual institutions, takes on the responsibility for ordering and paying for the point-to-point links that provide electronic access to the shared library services.
For all these reasons, we feel that public higher education institutions, as well as consortia of public higher education institutions, should be entitled to the 50% discount (calculated on the published tariff) on point-to-point data communications services. This is the purpose of the modified amendment drafted below.

The discount should apply to standard services for which a normal tariff or price is published by the service provider
We feel that specifying a discount rate of 50% without any attempt to circumscribe the normal price" on which the 50% is to be calculated, will be to create a regulation that is wide open to all sorts of game playing and innovative interpretation. We feel that it should apply only to a provider's standard services for which a standard price structure is published, and that where a service provider enters into a customer-specific deal which goes beyond the provision of standard services, and the customer (the school, FET institution or consortium of such) has agreed to the deal, then the deal would not be subject to the provisions of this amendment.

Proposed changes to Section 20(b)
·
include the public higher education institutions, as defined in the Higher Education Act, 1997 (Act No.101 of 1997), in line 11 on page 17
· Insert as an additional paragraph after (a) (and re-label (b) as (c))
(b) all charges for standard point-to-point data communications circuits that inter-connect the premises of a single school or Institution or of the member schools and/or Institutions of a higher education consortium.

Request for invitation to present to the Committee
I should very much like to bring a small team with me to present these views and recommendations to the Portfolio Committee and to answer any questions that members of the Committee may have.

Stuart J Saunders
Chairman