Reminiscing our first internet connections (WAS)

Wed Jan 29 00:43:23 UTC 2020

On 1/28/20 4:22 PM, Paul Nash wrote:
> Carrying on with the “first Internet connection” thread:
>
> I forget how I found out about Usenet and UUCP email (lost in the mosts of time).  I ran a store and forward dial-up link from South Africa to DDSW1 in Chicago (Hi Karl!  Thanks!).  I cobbled together a package with a DOS-based mail reader and a DOS port of UUCP that several people used to get their email (including a local medical research establishment and the local veterinary college).  Demand grew, along with a request to relay email to the UNHCR in Northen Mozambique, so I scraped some money together to import a horribly expensive Telebit modem.  I ended up being the regional non-academic email hub for Southern Africa.
>
> Just prior to the 1994 election, I got together with a two friends (Alan Barret and Chris Pinkham) and founded the first ISP in sub-Saharan Africa.  We managed to get a 64k satellite link at a very good price (the satellite folk were busy being retrenched and we were prepared to sign a contract specifically requiring satellite service for 5 years, which gave them some job security).  We borrowed a Cisco router from DiData (Cisco agents), skirted other telco regulations to link regions.
>
> One of our early customers was a group of students who wanted to start a small dial ISP nearby.  We gave them service, bootstrapping what became our biggest competitor, Internet Solutions (now part of DiData, who never did ask for their router back).  Our little ISP grew and grew, and eventually merged with our biggest client, was sold, sold again, and so on.  Last time I looked, it had become Verizon Africa.

Hello Paul

Good to hear from you. nsrc.org archived some of your notes and 
reflections at the time.

Here is an email message from December 1992 that captures some of the 
early ZA net history.

https://nsrc.org/db/lookup/report.php?id=890202331950:497427756&fromISO=ZA

And the first ping to the Internet from South Africa via rain.psg.com in 
Oregon on November 12, 1991.

https://nsrc.org/db/lookup/report.php?id=896820262105:488982630&fromISO=ZA

And where it all began in October 1988. :-)

https://nsrc.org/db/lookup/report.php?id=896820010472:489008357&fromISO=ZA

Steve Huter