The humble birth of the South African Internet
Today, many South Africans take their access to the Internet for granted and think of it as a massive infrastructure that keeps them linked to the world. However, it all started with a single fragile, strand woven from the Rhodes University campus in Grahamstown.
If you think that this project was a formal and well-funded research initiative, think again. We did not present a project proposal nor did we get any formal support for the initiative. Indeed, if we had described our plans and the processes we followed to design the country's first Internet gateway, we would probably have been dismissed with a laugh.
That's how ridiculous and outrageous the project would have seemed at the time. Indeed, our networking exercise did not even start out with the Internet as its target when it began in 1988. The initial aim was to get international email for the academics and researchers at Rhodes University - local email to other universities was something that happened later.
Under the radar
There is no mention of our work in any Rhodes University annual project. We flew under the radar because we faced opposition from some people who should have known better, including the Fidonet community and the academic community.
And we built our gateway using equipment that was scrounged or donated to us by some helpful people like George Campbell and Dave Barnard. Most of the software we used was stuff that was in the public domain, such as PC Route and KA9Q. By November 1991, the first Internet protocol traffic was flowing from South Africa.
Francois Jacot-Guillarmod, Dave Wilson, and I did other day jobs at Rhodes while we were busy with this project. We faced an attitude from the South African Post Office (before Telkom was carved out of it as a separate company) that was at best unhelpful, and at worst directly obstructionist, as we set out to create our gateway.
However, we also had some lucky breaks along the way and rode our luck until we started to gain formal recognition for our work. By the time the Internet connection was established, we were seen as the country's Internet gurus.
Little did the rest of the world know that we were hanging in by our bare fingernails...
iWeek
This article is a summary of the upcoming talk that Mike Lawrie will present at iWeek, a premier Internet industry event, which will be held from 21-23 September 2011 at Royal Elephant, Eldoraigne, Centurion, South Africa. Attendance at iWeek is free but registration is compulsory at www.iweek.org.za/registration/. Space is limited and individuals wishing to attend the 10th iWeek are encouraged to register early to avoid disappointment.
About Mike Lawrie
Mike Lawrie was instrumental in setting up South Africa's first Internet gateway at Rhodes University. In this article, a summary of the upcoming talk that he will present at iWeek, reflects on 20 years of Internet connectivity in South Africa.
