TRINET PROJECT

BACKGROUND

The Informatics Development Institute (IDI) is a not-for-profit company, established in Ireland, with the mission of furthering the global development of both information and communications technologies, and researching their socio-economic impact. Our continuing interest lies in the provision of cost-effective communications for remote regions of developing countries.

In 1999 the IDI secured European Commission backing for a communications network project, entitled TRINET, targeted at developing countries in Africa. Our current partners are located in Ghana, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The contract was awarded under the INCO-DC research and development programme, which promotes scientific and technological co-operation with developing countries.

We are seeking to contact other interested parties in order to prepare proposals for a continuation of TRINET under Framework Programme 7, the next EU Research & Development programme.

The first TRINET project

From our work on the first TRINET project, we are fully aware of the lack of communications facilities for remote regions of developing countries. One of the results of the TRINET project is a functional specification of a communications network, using next generation Portable Ground Stations, communicating with low earth orbit satellites, connected to the Internet through a group of Internet gateway servers.

OBJECTIVE

Our objective in becoming involved in FP6 is to address the “last mile problem”, also described as the lack of rural connectivity to global telecommunications systems. It is clear from our research that there are three main reasons for this lack of connectivity, namely lack of

• adequate telecommunications infrastructures
• affordability of the service
• awareness of the potentialities.

Our work in the TRINET project focused on all of the essential components of a communications network based on low earth orbit satellite (LEOsat) technology. These components comprise: -

1. A low earth orbit satellite
2. A group of Ground Stations at remote locations
3. A group of Internet gateway servers in industrialized countries
4. Packet radio technology
5. Innovative web software development.

FOLLOW-ON PROJECT, TRINET-2

The challenge in bringing communications to remote regions of developing countries is not a simple one of technology transfer. Rather, the problem is that the totality of applied technologies needed to reach the desired objective does not yet exist. We aim to address the inadequacies of existing available components in coping with the requirements encountered in remote regions of developing countries.

From our work on the TRINET project, we have concluded that innovative enhancements to all of the 5 network components listed above will be required in order to create a system that would meet the communications needs of communities in remote regions.

Following the development and testing phase of TRINET-2, we envisage the implementation of the communications network, as described above, for a group of previously selected remote sites. A key component of the network will be server software (listed as component 5 above) that surmounts the constraints of an essentially batch system, enabling user-friendly interrogation of the Web from such sites.

Ultimately, we envisage that following the successful deployment of the TRINET-2 network, there will be a concerted effort to push for the widespread dissemination of this technology in developing countries around the world.

Professor Gordon Foster, Chairman, IDI: - gwenfoster (at) eircom (dot) net

Diarmuid Herlihy, Secretary, IDI: - dmherlihy (at) eircom (dot) net

Patrick O’Beirne, Director, IDI: - IDI (at) sysmod (dot) com

November 2002

Update August 2003

Prospective FP Partners can download our draft proposal here, (294K RTF file) for comment.