To Asian-Pacific Telecommunity (APT)
Interim Report on ‘Rural Broadband for Young in Samoa’ Project
April, 2009
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Independent State of Samoa and Japanese Mission
1 Preface
Under the “ICT Development Program for Supporting ICT Pilot Projects in Rural Areas” of APT, Ministry of Communications. Information and Technology of Samoa is carrying out a rural tele-center project with a Japanese partner. The objective of the project is to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural through sustainable development of each tele-center.
The scope of the stage of planning and investigation includes various issues such as location of tele-centers, training programs, broadband systems etc. Prior to this stage, APT expert mission was dispatched to Samoa and studied existing rural facilities in March 2008. This time the Japanese mission of planning and investigation stayed in Samoa between April 5 and April 17, 2009. The Japanese and Samoan members met various stakeholders and had a series of discussions with them.
The implementation of the project will take place in about three month time after all the issues are met. Then this report represents result of the planning and investigation stage and will be included as part of the final report.
In closing, we would like to extend our deep appreciation to the related organs of the Samoan government as well as USP Alafua Campus and other stakeholders.
April, 2009
Hidetoshi Takama Chief Expert, Japanese Team
2 Location Map
PuaPua Primary School
Salelologa Public Library with UPS Centre
Manono Primary School
3 CONTENTS
Preface Location Map
1. Introduction of the Project and Project Update ...... 5 1-1 Introduction and Background 1-2 Project Update
2. Planning and Investigation ...... 5 2-1 Scope of Planning and Investigation 2-2 Mission Dispatched
3. Project Progress ...... 7 3-1 Project Locations 3-2 Training Programs 3-3 Technical Details 3-4 Procurement Plan 3-5 Operation and Maintenance Plan 3-6 Schedule
4. Remaining issues and Further Activities ...... 12 4-1 Infrastructure development 4-2 Capacity Building 4-3 Formation of training program and implementation of training course 4-4 Preparation of teaching and learning materials
ANNEX ...... 13 Annex 1 Annex 2
4 1. Introduction of the Project and Project Update 1-1 Introduction and Background In 2005, the Government of Samoa established “National ICT Strategy” and then the Government identified “National ICT Priorities”, based on the National ICT Strategy. In Samoa, various activities of ICT have been carried out. Regarding ICT projects focusing on rural people, tele-centers and ADB-funded IT pilot schools funded by external resources have been established since 2005. However, according to the study carried out by the APT Expert Mission headed by Prof. Saga in March 2008, it is found that not all facilities had remarkable progress with almost two year experiences due to various reasons. Therefore, this mission raised the following four important issues to be challenged for a new pilot project. They are a) Human Capacity Building, b) Broadband access to the Internet, c) better teaching/learning contents, and d) maintenance issue. In order to challenge these issues, we focused on low cost technology developed by Kagoshima University. Then we proposed Rural Broadband for Young in Samoa (in shorten ‘RUBY’ Project) to APT. RUBY aims to develop ICT capacity for rural young people in Samoa. Therefore RUBY consists of the three following components. 1) To experiment long distance WiFi transmitting over the sea and land in order to establish broad band infrastructure. 2) To create best practice tele-center as a rural development model , and 3) To establish tele-center staff training center
Under the “ICT Development Program for Supporting ICT Pilot Projects in Rural Areas” of APT, the RUBY project was granted as proposed. Then Ministry of Communications. Information and Technology of Samoa started RUBY with a Japanese partner
1-2 Project Update Since the project was announced to start by APT, the members of the Japanese side have been changed with the permission of APT as follows. Accordingly the schedule of the following activities are delayed but the project will be completed by October 2009 as APT had set the deadline. The revised schedule is shown in Annex 2.
5 1) Planning and Investigation SAGA Kenji （NICT） TAKAMA Hidetoshi （Kagoshima University） SAKUMA Atsuo （Bear Systems）
2) Planning o Training Program (planning) INOUE Takashi （Wisdom Co. Ltd.） SAKUMA Atsuo （Bear Systems）
3) Implementation(planning) SAGA Kenji （NICT） TAKAMA Hidetoshi （Kagoshima University） SAKUMA Atsuo （Bear Systems） INOUE Takashi （Wisdom Co. Ltd.）
2. Planning and Investigation 2-1 Scope of Planning and Investigation In the planning and investigation stage, we confirmed the following points; 1) to determine the locations and recipient bodies of 2 tele-centers, 2) to discuss the training programs which will be carried out at the Public Library, Salelologa, and to determine the schedule of the training expert, 3) to determine of the routes and ways of WiFi transmitting, 4) to determine the specifications of all the equipment, 5) then to accelerate the procurement of the equipment in due course, and 6) to make the consensus among various stakeholders.
2-2 Mission Dispatched The planning and investigation was carried out between April 6 and April 18 2009. The members are as follows. Samoan side Gisa Fuatai PURCELL Japanese side SAGA Kenji TAKAMA Hidetoshi SAKUMA Atsuo
6 3. Project Progress 3-1 Project Locations Training Center: The Public Library, Salelologa Pilot Tele-center1: Manono Primary school, the Manono Island Pilot Tele-center2: Puapua Primary School, Savaii These locations are shown in Location Map. page2.
3-2 Training Programs In March 2008, APT Expert Mission reported on necessity of establishing tele-center staff training center and recommended to establish tele-center staff training center as follows 1) Fact findings of APT Expert Mission on existing tele-centers Tele-centers with sustainable operation have excellent administrators and good management and have experiences of outside support to their daily operations. All centers require training programs in organized manners. Many tele-center staff expressed their strong desire for upgrading their knowledge. Some of them have lack of knowledge and skills in PCs, applications, Internet use, and use of AV equipments at tele-centers. Training for tele-center management is also needed. Maintenance is always a problem. It takes so much time to finish repair and to adjust equipments for normal use. Early report of any trouble and quick response for trouble shooting is essential for sustainable tele-center operations. Supply of toner and spare parts are taking too much time at remote villages.
2) Recommendations of APT Expert Mission Based on the above mentioned fact finding study, APT Expert Mission recommended the establishment of training center for tele-center staff. Followings are examples of training program recommended by Expert Mission. Examples of instructor training program Basic training of computer operation
7 Basic training of office tools Basic and intermediate use of the Internet including how to avoid dangerous use and protection of school kids from inappropriate contents Basic web page design/upload or use of a CMS (Content Management System) Examples of administrator training program Upgrade technical skills of administrator Basic knowledge of hardware/software handlings How to start tele-center operation training session to community people Provide more ideas on effective use of equipments they already have. As number of staff at tele-centers is very limited, tele-center staff should have both knowledge of administrator and instructor. Therefore comprehensive training program is needed. Improvement of teaching and learning materials Location of training center After site survey, Expert Mission recommended to establish training center at National Library in Salelologa in the Savaii Island where sub-center of USP and Teachers’ Resource Center are located.
Since March 2008, the following development concerning the training programs has taken place. 1) Preparatory activities to establish tele-center staff training center at this stage National ICT Committee and USP had coordinated and agreed to establish training center for tele-center staff at Salelologa sub-campus of USP in the library. National ICT Committee leader (Gisa Fuatai Purcell) and Coordinator (Ruby Vaa) and staff of CCE at USP have been jointly developing a training program and will soon propose a draft of training program. They are creating a formal course of comprehensive training program for tele-center staff at CCE of USP. They will provide a certificate for tele-center administrator after finishing 15 weeks training course. This is a development of new stage for university education.
2) Activities in progress During the discussions between Japanese project partners and Samoa
8 project leaders in April 2009, Samoa project leaders requested the Japanese mission to dispatch an ICT training expert from Japan. Samoa leaders expect professional advice on technical aspects of training program. Both agreed to send Mr.Takashi Inoue, a new project partner to this project to Samoa in May. Japanese mission members expressed full support of preparing a comprehensive training course. And Japanese mission also proposed to draft a shorter term training plan to meet an early needs of tele-center staff for APT pilot project sites. Soon after Samoa project planners finish to draft on training program, they will send it to Japanese members and both sides will be able to exchange opinions on the draft. Then Mr. Inoue will visit Samoa and assist to finalize training program. National ICT Committee will seek financial resources for this training program from outside the scope of APT pilot project.
* Summary of “Continuing and Community Education (CCE)” Program at USP derived from the USP brochure is shown in Annex 1.
3-3 Technical Details 3-3-1. Workstations at Tele-centers and Training Center at Public Library Two Tele-centers at primary schools equip following items, - 3x workstations (Windows XP operating system and open source application software) - 1x Multifunction printer/copier/scanner/fax - 1x Digital Camera - 1x BroadBand Router - 1x Wireless Bridge - 1x PC Server (at Upolu Tele-center) All items except Digital Camera that connected by 100Base-TX Ethernet network and Wireless Broadband Internet. This configuration is a simple LAN setup with BroadBand access to the Internet. Manono Tele-center will equip a PC Server as document storage where as Savaii center does not have but share storage at Salelologa public library.
The Training Center at the Salelologa Public Library with USP Center equips
9 following items, - 3x workstations (Windows XP operating system and open source application software) - 1x Multifunction printer/copier/scanner/fax - 1x Digital Camera - 1x BroadBand Router - 1x Wireless Bridge - 2x PC Server (Primary and Secondary server) Our equipment/system will setup in the USP Center in the same building of Salelologa Public Library. There are 3 USP Computers in the Centre and additional 3 from our project add into it. Also 4 second hand laptop is considering adding and making it 10 workstations in the Centre. This number is sufficient to hold technical and administration training in Savaii. 2 PC Servers are working as document storage.
3-3-2. Wireless BroadBand Wireless Data Link is currently under testing by a local ISP. The longest hop that between ISP tower and Puapua Primary School is about 56km, 16km on the land, 40km on the sea. And the distance between ISP tower and Salelologa Library is 50km, 20km on the land and 30km on the sea. The Salelologa Public Library is situated about 300m inland from the coast line and there are few tall trees and houses between them which may affect to clear sighn of view as well as Fresnel zone that a needed field space in order of good radio signal reception. Therefore, the long distance system will be installed very near to the coast line that no object is making possible problem for our communication then repeat signal to the Library. Apia transmitter goes up 51dBm EIRP with 15dBm receiving amplifier at around 700m sea level, Salelologa Long Distance system has 36dBm EIRP at around 10m of sea level.
10 3-4. Procurement Plan
Items needed as follows, 3x PC Server Modern CPU, RAID 1 or RAID10 usable disk space 200GB+, minimum 1GB memory, LCD Monitor, Keyboard, Optical Mouse together with a UPS. 9x PC workstation Model CPU, 80GB+ HDD, minimum 512MB memory, LCD Monitor, Keyboard, Optical Mouse, Ethernet, Sound in/out with desktop speaker 3x Multifunction Network connected printer/scanner/photo copier/FAX Colour Laser preferable and Monochrome acceptable. 3x Digital Camera 5M pixel+ compact digital camera. Rechargeable battery, USB Interface/Cable is essential. Minimum 512MB flash memory included. 3x Wireless AP Work as wireless bridge (client), WPA and WPA2, make sure EIRP less 36dBm and high receiving sensitivity with external antenna. Outdoor, PoE model preferable.
3x BroadBand Router ADSL/Cable BroadBand Router that capable ‘turns NAT off’ and working as a router.
As the Samoa Government Policy these items will open for a tender.
There are also needed sundries such as LAN cable, multiplugs, nails, pipes, fittings etc for installation that budget as ‘BroadBand works’ BroadBand Access Fee or purchase Pre-Paid Card from a local ISP that supplies BroadBand Back Bone connection to the Internet. The team was considering that providing 10 sets of second hand (Laptop) PCs by a donation and purchase English Version Operating System separately. The situation with a donor has been changed and not yet confirmed a second source of second hand PCs.
11 3-5 Operation and Maintenance Plan Finalizing network and computer devices are in progress. Therefore Operation and Maintenance plan is not available at this time of writing Interim Report at the end of April. This section will be completed on the next report.
3-6 Schedule The Team scrutinized the schedule of the activities with considerations of the following factors. 1) Coordination with related projects activities, 2) Setting of training programs with USP. This will be finalized in early June after the training expert, Mr. Inoue works out with USP. 3) MCIT initiates the government procurement procedure and the winning company orders overseas. Then all the equipment will orderly be shipped to the Apia port and installed to the three centers. 4) The Implementation mission will arrive in September. 5) The training program will start in September. Then the rescheduled chart is shown in Annex 2.
4. Remaining Issues and Further Activities 4-1 Infrastructure development Procurement of necessary equipment Network construction Acquisition of wireless license Establishment of training center and pilot tele-center sites
4-2 Capacity Building Training Center: The Public Library, Salelologa 2 Pilot Tele-centers
4-3 Formation of training program and implementation of training course
4-4 Preparation of teaching and learning materials
12 ANNEX Annex 1 Summary of “Continuing and Community Education (CCE)” Program at USP (From USP brochure) CCE is the holistic teaching and learning programs of USP in response to the needs of Pacific communities. It provides an inclusive service by offering learning opportunities to those who have not access to higher education. Uniqueness of CCE is as follows: Providing or extending opportunities beyond the formal credit programs of USP, CCE responds directly to the needs of the people and is adult learning, and a second chance for personal enhancement and/or developing new skills CCE includes activities that are mostly short term from two weeks to 3 semesters. Activities of CCE are delivered through either face to face (FtF) or distance and flexible learning (DFL), or a mixture of FtF and DFL. At this stage, three courses are offered at Samoa (Alafua) Campus of USP. These are: Certificate in Early Childhood Education (CECE) Certificate in Disability Studies (CDS) Community Workers Certificate (CWC) Planned tele-center staff training course will become fourth course.
After successful implementation, this training center for tele-center staff is expected to play an important role not only for Samoa but also for other Pacific Islands countries.
13 Annex 2
Revised Schedule of Activities
2009 Activities 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Preliminary Study Team
Interim Report
Implementation Team
Training
Completion Report
14