Prepared by: Peter Warure
Zimbabwe Posts and Telecommunication Corporation
pwarure@zptc.co.zw

PTC Zimbabwe has the Internet Backbone and offers leased line and dial-up services to ISPs and Corporate Clients. PTC is also responsible for registering domains such as .org.zw and .gov.zw.The network Backbone is built around a Cisco 7507 router.
Leased line options range from 64K and multiples thereof up to a maximum of 512K.

Currently there are 7 major ISPs connected via leased line and about 18 ISPs who connect via dial-up. Leased line media options range from Baseband modems and copper lines, Newbridge Managed data network (Frame Relay), VSAT to wireless modems. Dial-up ISPs are allocated lines in batches of 20. There are 6 Corporate Clients, one of which is the University of Zimbabwe, two are Government Agencies and the rest are Commercial institutions.

Altogether the ISPs are allocated a total bandwidth of 1760K and Corporate Clients have a total of 512K. The total bandwidth outside the country is 2432K which comprises 3 links (BT(UK) - 384k, Sprint(USA) - 1024k , and Teleglobe(Canada) - 1024k).

The current dial-up service, which utilises the access code "041" is available countrywide with 176 modems. The modems are limited to maximum connection speed of 28.8kbps. Analogue Microcomm modems are used throughout the network. The dial-in PoP set-ups are as in the table below:

The authentication server is situated in Harare. The PTC LAN consists of the following elements:

The PoPs in the four regions with the exception of Harare are networked back to Harare on serial ports at 64Kb/s using a Cisco 2511 router. A bank of Microcomm modems enables "041" customers gain access to the network. In the case of Harare, the terminal servers are interconnected directly onto the Ethernet.

Since PTC is currently not an ISP it is difficult to quantify the user base, but a conservative rough estimate would be between 20000 and 25000 users. The bulk of the users are in Harare.

Plans are underway to expand the current Internet Backbone. A Project will soon be underway to expand and modernise the dial-up service (increase speed to 56kbps and use up to 720 digital high density modems), upgrade the servers to the Sun Ultra 450 platform, upgrade to the Cisco 7513 (in hot standby configuration) and increase the bandwidth outside the country to 8Mbps. The project will also involve the setting up of Internet Cafes.