By Prince Osuagwu
Vice President, Arc. Namadi Sambo, was in Nsukka last week to put a seal of authority to plans by MTN and a group of other corporations, including Main One, Google, HP and Cisco among others to put the Lion as University of Nigeria Nsukka is known, permanently on the net.

L-R, VP Namadi Sambo punches the Enter Key to light the fibre-optic cable while UNN VC, Prof Bartho Okolo (holding mic), Executive, MTN, Derek Appiah (4th from right), GM, MTN, Funmi Omogbenigun (3rd from right) and others applaud

The organisations, provided  a first-of-its-kind-in-Nigeria, pervasive wired and wireless Information and Communications Technology Infrastructure encompassing the entire university community, purely as a Corporate Social Investment initiative.

The project, is an ambitious ICT strategy being implemented by the administration of the institution as part of efforts to put the institution in the league of the top 500 universities in the world in an always-on, wired and wireless network that covers the entire geography of the four campuses of the university.

It consists of a fibre optics network provided by MTN, extending from Lagos to Nsukka and linking three campuses of the institution in Nsukka, Enugu and Ituku- Ozalla Campus. The fourth campus in Aba is looped in via microwave transmission, also provided by MTN. The fibre-optic cable carries 50 MB internet bandwidth traffic provided by Main One Cable.

The network offers Internet connectivity of 1-4mbps per 1000 students and staff, and has a central storage area network of at least 10-400 Terabytes on which students and faculty can store data.

For the first time, real-time e-learning is possible in a university environment in Nigeria, with participants coming from any part of the world. Collaborative work among scholars in UNN and those in other institutions scattered across the globe is also now possible.

World leading experts in a particular field in Europe, for instance can be invited by a lecturer in UNN to electronically deliver live lectures to students gathered in a UNN classroom.

The fibre network was switched on by Vice President Sambo amidst a sea of dignitaries by symbolically punching the Enter Key on a laptop.

The room was instantaneously lit, while two huge monitors where the status of the network can be tracked both came on to wide applause. In actual fact, MTN engineers who had been working at frenetic pace to get the network up and running ahead of the commissioning had completed the system integration the previous night.

The entire student community had erupted in rapturous joy as the fibre-optic network was fired for the first time. The monitors in the control room by the morning of the commissioning had shown significant downloading activities in the university community.

According to the Vice Chancellor of the University, Professor Okolo,“With the commissioning of this comprehensive ICT infrastructure, our students can stand up to any of their peers anywhere in the world. Not only this, with the platform that this network has availed us to provide real time e-learning services, we can virtually double the capacity of our classrooms and give more access to more Nigerians to acquire tertiary education through e-learning,”

It is the first time in the history of tertiary education in Nigeria that corporate bodies will come together to jointly implement a Corporate Social Investment (CSI) initiative of this magnitude. Meanwhile MTN, has another major CSI initiative tagged MTNF UniversitiesConnect within the university.

The MTN Foundation’s digital library which is a few meters away from the fibre-optic network monitoring station at the main Campus of the institution will also now dispense with the use of VSAT for internet connection. It will now henceforth get its internet provision via thebrand new fibre optic network, which offers more reliability and more capacity.

Even though Prof. Okolo said it was difficult to estimate the monetary value of the UNN ICT infrastructure project because the companies did not bill the university, sources within the university community put the total value of the infrastructure at well over N3 billion.

Google Inc on its part is providing 25 megabyte per second (mbps) of international bandwidth to the university over an initial three-year period.

Google also provided US$40 000 for the last mile/local loop costs, US$15 000 for consultancy and training for critical operations staff to ensure optimal utilisation of the IT services, in addition to provision of email and collaboration tools and guidance.

Cisco Systems Inc is assisting the University of Nigeria with training in Cisco certification as well as developing the capacity of students and staff for entrepreneurship through the establishment of a model incubator company.

Hewlett Packard Inc provided switches, servers and storage equipment at discounted education rates while also providing manpower support for training.

Speaking further on the capability of the infrastructure, the coordinator of the project Dr. Christian Bolu, who is also the Director of the Innovation Centre, UNN said the entire ICT strategy also includes a packet based voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service, use of open source software for teaching and learning in several key subjects, provision of laptop charging bays as well as hardware repair centre.