SUVL, SUIN and SudRen; the history of the Sudanese Education Network

Sudan used to be the largest country in Africa now separated into two countries, the Republic of the Sudan and the Republic of Southern Sudan. The Sudan (the new one) has a very large backbone of fibre owned by the telecoms, the national Electricity Grid and the petrol pipe lines. SUVL (Sudanese Universities Virtual Library) started in 2004 on a frame relay (120kbps) connecting all thirty public universities, the connectivity was then described as frustratingly slow or dead slow. Interaction with African and international partners through UNet alliance encouraged a small group of stakeholders to fight for fibre and that was achieved by a fund from the national regulatory body. Now 27 public, 3 private universities and the National Research Centre are connected. SUVL first developed into SUIN (Sudanese Universities Information Network) and finally changed to SudREN owned by the Association of Sudanese Universities. A business model has been developed and the universities are gradually taking over the running cost of the new body. Internet connectivity through STM-1 is made available and a minimum of 2 mbps is allocated for each university. The users are still complaining; where are we failing?