Limited access to high speed internet is a major barrier to research excellence in Africa. Initiatives have been made by various funders to provide easy access to online literature, African journals and Wellcome Trust image library and so on by putting the necessary equipment/resources in place at the various partner institutions. With the introduction of the fiber cable connecting Africa to Europe to provide high speed internet, the feature for Africa is looking brighter. State of the art technology is going to be adopted to allow easy access and downloading of useful material online

With THRiVE’s initiative to improve ICT infrastructure in African institutions to support online collaboration and promote research activitiesl

Bandwidth upgrade
Over the past four years, institutions have manage to upgrade their bandwidth capacity as shown below;

Gulu University
With the financial and technical support of THRiVE, Gulu University Faculty of Medicine set up a multimedia computer (40 Desktop computers) lab to enhance student access to internet and online resources.
The Multimedia lab provided a platform to locally make available electronic resources to staff and students. Resources like electronic books (6000) have been uploaded and available to students.
Wireless outdoor internet access points have been installed at the Faculty of Medicine
CCTV camera system has been installed at the faculty of medicine to improve on the physical security of the equipment at the premise.

Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI)
LAN Expansion
UVRI Local Area Network has been expanded to the newly established core labs increasing on internet accessibility

Enhancing internal communication – Intercom Connection
The intercom system that has been setup to ease internal communication at UVRI campus has leveraged on the established network infrastructure. This is later going to be upgraded to support communication outside UVRI network.

National Institute for Medical Research, Mwanza (NIMR)
NIMR setup a fiber connection between the ISP (TTCL) and the main campus replacing the then existing copper cable on the institution network backbone.
NIMR installed a lightening arrestor conductors to protect the computer networks and peripherals from lightning strikes.
Through THRiVE support at NIMR, a shared resource Centre has been setup. This facility will be running services such as shared printing among others

Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College (KCMU Co)
At KCMC, common gateway was created of which 16mbps is received from the ISP and 9mbps is allocated to the college

KCMC has established an e-learning platform as result of the enhanced IT infrastructure and the availability of a well-equipped computer lab with 56 fully functioning computers and a 40KV UPS.

Internet accessibility has also been improved through providing wireless access points covering the entire university.

University of Rwanda
A fiber connection from the service provider BSC ltd (Broadband systems corporations) to NURSPH was set up and upgraded with a 10mbps shared link. This replace the original copper cable that had limited speeds and insufficient to operate on the network backbone.
40 computers were purchased to enhance researchers’ internet accessibility at NURSPH. 5 laptops, 2 printers and scanners were also purchased for NURSPH staff.
A wireless network was setup at school of Public Health to improve the internet accessibility for staff and students.

Makerere University
A fiber cable was laid to connect the College of Health Sciences to the main campus NOC. The 12 core single mode fiber cable increased the bandwidth capacity for the college from 2mbps to 10mbps with a burst of up to 58mbps.

As a result of laying a direct fiber, the initial 2mbsp that had been subscribed for, to the college of Health sciences through a leased line where added to the 66mbps  increasing the entire University internet bandwidth to 68mbps.

THRiVE has supported the upgrade of the college Local Area Network (LAN) through the upgrade of the server room with high end networking equipment with the aim of operating as a data centre