[kictanet] Resiliency of our Internet Infrastructure during the COVID -19 Season

Sun Mar 29 20:13:55 EAT 2020

I totally agree with you @Walu and I believe we are on the same page but my
only caution was for us not to focus so much on vendor sythax (which can be
crammed to aid implementation) but rather principles.

Back to the main topic, Internet infrastructure across East Africa more
than just Kenya needs robust upgrades and improving.

Bloody Covid19 is already a game changer and I believe we are all taking
lessons from it especially within our space with the ICT infrastructure
which politicians used to think was some luxury for a few elites proving to
be a necessity in such a time.

*ICT could emerge stronger post COVID-19*

Some foresee an increase in demand for cloud computing platforms with
enterprise applications proving to be inaccessible during lockdowns and
#karantini.

Increasing usage of remote and collaboration tools. This requires bandwidth
like serious bandwidth.

Increase in traffic to video streaming sites and social media platforms
(Isolation is tough hey, humans are not wild beasts or gods, they must
continue socializing)

Increased usage of apps from grocery delivery apps to essential goods apps.

Most importantly the future of education in the face of another future
pendamic [1] with online education becoming defacto especially when schools
in future could possibly be closed beyond just one moon.

#ICT infrastructure is #critical infrastructure.

Cheers,
Noah

[1] Hellooooo....., there was the Spanish Flu, then the Influenza, then the
SARS, then the Swine Flu, the Ebola and you guessed it right COVID-19.

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, 19:52 Walubengo J, <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:

> True, BUT assume I am Safaricom with maybe 70% of my infrastructure on
> Huawei and want to hire a Telco Engineer.
>
> I prolly would get a candidate who has the Telco degree (the principles)
> and the Huawei Certification as the added advantage.
>
> The other way around it would be that I hire then send the candidate back
> to finishing school for some hands on training.
>
> Universities providing both principles and skills will have an advantage.
>
> On a light note, Imagine teaching Blockchain Technologies using only Satoshi's
> Paper (the principles) <https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf> and not having
> access to say IBM Blockchain platforms
> <https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/what-is-blockchain> to provide students
> with some  Lab exposure. The ones with Lab exposure will often stand out.
>
> Having said that, there are those who 'cram' and pass vendor-certificate
> exams without really learning the principles. That is also a major risk to
> employers.
>
> walu.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sunday, March 29, 2020, 07:37:26 PM GMT+3, Noah <noah at neo.co.tz>
> wrote:
>
>
> @Walu
>
> I agree that a cocktail of standard principles and *mutlivendor* sythax
> should be the approach that can go on to see us provide better skills
> transfer.
>
> I only caution us from repeating the old and outdated approach of only
> focusing training on one vendor since this only goes to help promote the
> vendors products in our markets rather provide true knowledge.
>
> Employers should careless about Cisco or Juniper or Huawei but rather seek
> knowledgeable candidates who understand technology rather than people who
> have  crammed how to implement a specific vendor sythax.
>
>
> Noah
>
>
> On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, 19:26 Walubengo J, <jwalu at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> @Noah,
>
> Maybe we can do both.  Teach the principles as well as offer exposure to
> one or several of the vendor technologies (whichever that maybe).  I always
> find such an approach much more enriching and complimentary in my classes.
>
> Teaching 'principles' without offering some practical vendor sessions is
> like teaching Wordprocessing - without using MS-Word/OpenOffice/etc because
> you are trying too hard to be vendor-agnostic ;-)
>
> In short, I do appreciate the need to teach principles but also appreciate
> the need to use vendor specific examples/labs to drive the point home.
>
> walu.
>
> On Sunday, March 29, 2020, 07:03:16 PM GMT+3, Noah via kictanet <
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>
>
> The intermittent ip networks and grid-power aside.
>
> Am curious to know why in this day and time and day, we are still focusing
> on vendor specific trainings.
>
> During earlier 2000's we focused so much on the Cisco's, then somehow the
> Junipers and today we are seeing the Huawei syntax.
>
> Shouldn't we be focusing in todays Africa on teaching standard protocols
> even at a fundamental level and cocktail of vendors sythax rather than
> continually pushing some specific vendors technology which indirectly
> markets their kit as defacto to those we keep imbibing the skills too.
>
> Just my thoughts....
>
> Noah
>
>
> On Sun, 29 Mar 2020, 11:28 Kelvin Kariuki via kictanet, <
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>
> This is very true Barrack,
> I have been teaching a live online class on a Huawei Certification in the
> past week
> using Zoom and some of my students, who are on different parts of the
> country,
> have really had issues keeping up because of poor internet connections and
> regular disconnections. Thank God Zoom has a feature to record the classes
> but for sure this is something that we need to look into.
>
> PS: All my students are using Safaricom as Huawei Kenya offered them with
> credit cards to buy internet bundles in order to be able to learn online.
> The training
> I'm doing is Huawei Certified ICT Associate (Routing & Switching)
>
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 11:14 AM Ali Hussein via kictanet <
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>
> Barrack
>
> You got that right. Both Safaricom and Zuku have been intermittent over
> the past few days. Let's not even start with Kenya Power...
>
> Regards
>
> *Ali Hussein*
>
>
> Tel: +254 713 601113
>
> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>
> Skype: abu-jomo
>
> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
> <http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>
>
>
>
>
> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
> mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
> organizations that I work with.
>
>
> On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 1:07 PM Barrack Otieno via kictanet <
> kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
>
> Listers,
>
> It seems the quality of our Infrastructure is taking a hit as more people
> are working from home. Talking to friends from different corners of the
> countries across different Networks, there seems to be a challenge. I hope
> the Communications Authority is paying attention. The Internet and
> Infrastructure service providers should not just focus on free Internet and
> double speeds, quality of the connection is critical.
>
> Best
>
> --
> Barrack O. Otieno
> +254721325277
> +254733206359
> Skype: barrack.otieno
> PGP ID: 0x2611D86A
>
>
>
>
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> --
> Best Regards,
>
> Kelvin Kariuki
> Assistant Lecturer
> Multimedia University of Kenya
> Faculty of Computing and Information Technology
> Twitter Handle: @teacherkaris
> Alt email: kkariuki at mmu.ac.ke
> Mobile: +2547 29 385 557
>
> The Lord is my Shepherd
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> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.
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