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Data Control & Systems was a company formed by Rob Nursten in Zimbabwe (1994) and became commercially operational in 1995. The company was originally a subsidiary of UUNet Internet Africa, which he started in South Africa with the demand for internet services.
Data Control won an award from "Best Of The Planet Awards 1996 IN THE CATEGORY OF WWW INTERNET PROVIDERS" on 2ask.com. [1] Data Control & Systems was the first internet service provider in Zimbabwe. [2] They provided a technological first in Southern Africa. They were started in South Africa as a subsidary of UUnet Internet Africa. The main directors of the company were Clint Nursten and his father, Rob Nursten. The Network Administration was handled by Clint Sim [3] [4] [5] [6] and Scott Nursten, who was also responsible for the security systems at both the host and network levels. Scott also provided web design and various programming applications for the commercial side of the company. He then went on to start s2s Ltd, a major provider of security and networking consultancy in the United Kingdom with his brother Dale Nursten. [2]
The company set out to provide Internet access to the whole of southern Africa from 1994 onwards. Its domain name was harare.iafrica.com which used leased line access from South Africa through the Zimbabwean Posts & Telecommunications Company aka P.T.C. Eventually Data Control & Systems changed name to Internet Unlimited [7] and was then bought out by Econet Wireless [8] and named Ecoweb Internet. During the period of the company being named Internet Unlimited, the domain name was internet.co.zw and has remained as that domain up until 2002. [9] As of 2005, the company provided internet access to over 50,000 Zimbabweans and many international tourists through lower level internet cafes and client computers.
The ISP was based upon the Red Hat Linux 5 operating system which was the fastest at that time and Microsoft Windows NT 3.51. Later, it was upgraded to Windows NT 4 and Red Hat Linux 6 and, a radius server was implemented by Clint Sim, their administrator at that time. Clint and his wife were fatally injured in a car accident in 2004 [10] , survived by their two sons. The computer servers' hardware was based upon Dual Intel Pentium processor boards with 64 MB of RAM linked to RAID ARRAYS of SCSI disks. This type of hard drive was chosen for its independent processor usage which presented performance enhancements over the use of IDE disks which used the computer's CPU to function.[ citation needed ]
Primary head of service originated from UUNet in the United States, which was recognized as being the "first commercial Internet service provider and a leading supplier of a comprehensive range of Internet access options, applications, and consulting services to businesses, professionals and on-line service providers" in the United States. Founded in 1987 and was the fourth largest in the world in 1997 prior to merging with WorldCom, Inc. [11] UUNet provided a 622 Mbs trunk line on Atlantic sea bed via Europe before connecting to the African routes via VSAT. The satellite signal was connected to a South African station of UUNet Internet Africa and distributed to the region by land links. In 1999, there was a project that started to implement a fibre optic route around the west coast of Africa all the way from Europe to South Africa as an under-sea project and was completed in 2012, SAT-3/WASC. The Network was broadcast overseas from London links to South Africa prior to Sat-2 being fully implemented but the cost was prohibitive to most companies. Since the arrival of SAT-3/WASC the cost of access is a lot lower, but savings not always passed on by governments to users which is why African Internet service is very expensive, especially South African internet and subsequently, Zimbabwean services.
Most of Data Control's Dial-up lines came in via Livingstone Portmasters full of US Robotics and Microcom external modems and the commercial links were accessed through License-free 2.4 GHz wireless WaveLAN or leased line alternative. The bulk of the modems used were the US Robotics type modems which in 1996 were operation at around 14.4 Kbit/s whilst the Microcom modems originally operated at Microcom 14.4 kbit/s Microcom 28.8 kbit/s. Within a couple of years, the technology would be outdated and replaced with the 56.6 kbit/s type modems for dial-up customers. With the lack of reliable POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) networks in the most rural areas of Zimbabwe, some farmers used cellular networks almost exclusively, albeit with an incredibly high cost. Some of those areas were so remote that not even a telephone line was installed within 10 miles of their offices. This peculiarity of African circumstance lead to the development of extended range Wi-Fi networks not seen in use in Europe or the United States to any great extent, but In Africa it is widespread.
The back office service and support was headed up by Clint Sim and supported by Scott Nursten. Scott's primary duties were web design and security while Clint provided the technical expertise on Linux and Windows, the latter being an operating system he despised. The front of office Technical Support desk was manned by up to 4 technicians who answered and assisted the dial-in users with many of their problems and training issues. Since Zimbabwe had never before seen internet access locally, many people did not know what computers were useful for or how they could be implemented for their businesses. The technical support team; Sheldon, Heath, Adam and Zimbabwe's All Africa Games gold medalist Tae Kwondo fighter, Fanuel Kwande, had to deal with this infusion of knowledge to the general populace. According to Linked-In profiles, Fanuel may now be a Director of a company Fanuel Kwande and was certainly the lead support with Sheldon at the handover of Data Control to Econet. Heath went on to start up his own company Total PC after leaving Data Control, and emigrated to England after 2006. Adam left Data Control and started his own company, Visionary TechServ, which failed with the Zimbabwe economic collapse. Adam eventually emigrated to England in 2004 and started a specialist photography company in 2015. [12] [13] Scott emigrated to England and started his own company there. [14] [15]
The original name was UUNet Internet Africa before becoming Data Control & Systems in 1996. Data Control & Systems changed name to Internet Unlimited when Clint Nursten took over the position of managing director from Rob Nursten in 1998. After a few months, a deal with Econet Wireless (owned by Strive Masyiwa) was struck and Internet Unlimited was sold to Econet Wireless. Econet decided to re-brand the company as Ecoweb.
With the successes of Data Control, many other people realised that Internet access was a huge opportunity to make money and create a new business type in the country before the impending Dot Com boom and bust. As part of that boom there was a very particular company that made a fantastically meteoric rise to fame and then crashed into ignominy all within the first five years of Zimbabwe's internet debut: Samara Services. All Zimbabwe's major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) were based on a single block of buildings in central Harare. The buildings were namely Eastgate Centre, Harare and Southampton Life Centre. The entire block of buildings was built by the same consulting engineers company, Ove Arup & Partners of Harare.
By close of 1999, Samara Services had all but evaporated and the directors disappeared. Their customers were left without services and their entire network fell into disarray in a very short period of time. Their creditors quickly seized assets and equipment as part-settlement of outstanding bills as was recorded in The Herald newspaper on Zimbabwe. The one really notable contribution to Zimbabwean internet history by Samara was that they had managed to gain the most popularity and largest user base in the little nation in a very short period of time. It was that massive growth that may have led to their downfall and the company failures on the back of many hidden issues that the public were never made aware of. Another issue leading to their demise was the backbone of the entire network was on a single operator's backbone: the PTC.
Another competitor was Africa Online. It was a rather late arrival compared to the other ISPs as they had older (technologically speaking) equipment but a very much better management structure which allowed them to survive longer than was expected of other ISPs. Their advent into the world of Internet service provision at the end of 1997 was a breath of fresh air after the collapse of Samara Services. [16] Many of the technical and administrative staff from Samara services were absorbed into Africa online as a result and it was believed that much of their equipment was from Samara Services too. Their parent service provision was from Prodigy Internet through the same leased line structure of PTC.
Zimbabwe Online deserves a special mention as it was run and managed from inside the offices of Data Control and their technical staff. It was founded by Peter Lobel using a proprietary dial-up system like similar to the style of America Online very successfully. Mr Lobel then updated the method of dial-up from a managed proprietary script service to an automated user-managed service. One of the secrets of the company at that time was that they were one of the first to dabble in VSAT broadcast with their own dish on the roof of the Eastgate Centre, secretly installed with only a very select few staff and friends who knew about it. VSAT was considered an illegal installation by the government who wanted to control all and every bit of international news to do with Zimbabwe. [ citation needed ]
Zimsurf surfaced on 29 May 1998 and was eventually the governmental run Internet Service Provider, administered competently by Marco Kalis. Zimsurf was to become ultimately the internet arm of Telecel Zimbabwe. Before Zimsurf dissolved, there was a huge VSAT dish installed in the garden of one of the company's directors in Avondale. The dish was linked by leased line to their offices in the Harare CBD. In size, it was about three meters in diameter smack in the middle of his front lawn. The property was surrounded by a four-foot chicken-wire fence and the dish was plainly visible to all passers-by. Eventually, the company was ordered to disable VSAT broadcast according to local law that prohibited competition to the PTC who were the only licensed users of VSAT and the only issuers of licences for VSAT. Thus began a monopolistic war on communication in Zimbabwe. [ citation needed ]
An indepth study of the Internet availability in Africa in the 1990s is available in PDF format. [17]
A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), was a computer server running software that allowed users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging messages with other users through public message boards and sometimes via direct chatting. In the early 1980s, message networks such as FidoNet were developed to provide services such as NetMail, which is similar to internet-based email.
A wide area network (WAN) is a telecommunications network that extends over a large geographic area. Wide area networks are often established with leased telecommunication circuits.
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Communications in Zimbabwe refers to the communication services available in Zimbabwe.
Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telephone line. Dial-up connections use modems to decode audio signals into data to send to a router or computer, and to encode signals from the latter two devices to send to another modem at the ISP.
A very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) is a two-way satellite ground station with a dish antenna that is smaller than 3.8 meters. The majority of VSAT antennas range from 75 cm to 1.2 m. Bit rates, in most cases, range from 4 kbit/s up to 16 Mbit/s. VSATs access satellites in geosynchronous orbit or geostationary orbit to relay data from small remote Earth stations (terminals) to other terminals or master Earth station "hubs".
Internet access is a facility or service that provides connectivity for a computer, a computer network, or other network device to the Internet, and for individuals or organizations to access or use applications such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is offered for sale by an international hierarchy of Internet service providers (ISPs) using various networking technologies. At the retail level, many organizations, including municipal entities, also provide cost-free access to the general public.
An online service provider (OSP) can, for example, be an Internet service provider, an email provider, a news provider (press), an entertainment provider, a search engine, an e-commerce site, an online banking site, a health site, an official government site, social media, a wiki, or a Usenet newsgroup.
Satellite Internet access is Internet access provided through communication satellites; if it can sustain high speeds, it is termed satellite broadband. Modern consumer grade satellite Internet service is typically provided to individual users through geostationary satellites that can offer relatively high data speeds, with newer satellites using the Ku band to achieve downstream data speeds up to 506 Mbit/s. In addition, new satellite internet constellations are being developed in low-earth orbit to enable low-latency internet access from space.
Africa Online Holding Ltd., sometimes abbreviated to AFOL, is the largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Africa. Based in Nairobi, Kenya, it offers Internet access and operates in ten African countries, including Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Namibia, Eswatini, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Services provided by Africa Online include dial-up Internet access, leased line services, e-mail accounts, VSAT connectivity, DSL, WAN and VPN for private and business customers. In 2007 it has become a subsidiary of Telkom South Africa.
StarBand was a two-way satellite broadband Internet service available in the U.S. from 2000–2015.
Econet, officially known as Econet Group, is a diversified telecommunications group with operations and investments in Africa, Europe, South America and the East Asia Pacific Rim, offering products and services in the core areas of mobile and fixed telephony services, broadband, satellite, optical fiber networks and mobile payment.
Microcom, Inc., was a major modem vendor during the 1980s, although never as popular as the "big three", Hayes, U.S. Robotics (USR) and Telebit. Nevertheless, Microcom holds an important place in modem history for introducing the MNP error-correction and compression protocols, which were widely used under license by most modem manufacturers in the 1990s. The company went public in 1987. Compaq purchased publicly outstanding shares of the company in 1997.
Internet in Australia first became available on a permanent basis to universities in Australia in May 1989, via AARNet. Pegasus Networks was Australia's first public Internet provider in June 1989. The first commercial dial-up Internet Service Provider (ISP) appeared in capital cities soon after, and by the mid-1990s almost the entire country had a range of choices of dial-up ISPs. Today, Internet access is available through a range of technologies, i.e. hybrid fibre coaxial cable, digital subscriber line (DSL), Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) and satellite Internet. In July 2009, the federal government, in partnership with the industrial sector, began rolling out a nationwide fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) and improved fixed wireless and satellite access through the National Broadband Network. Subsequently, the roll out was downgraded to a Multi-Technology Mix on the promise of it being less expensive and with earlier completion. In October 2020, the federal government announced an upgrade by 2023 of NBN fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) services to FTTP for 2 million households, at a cost of A$3.5 billion.
The prevalent means of connecting to the Internet in Germany is DSL, introduced by Deutsche Telekom in 1999. Other technologies such as Cable, FTTH and FTTB (fiber), Satellite, UMTS/HSDPA (mobile) and LTE are available as alternatives.
The Internet in Zimbabwe has seen rapid expansion in recent years. The Internet country code top-level domain is .zw. In 2009, the Mugabe-Tsvangirai Government of National Unity established a Ministry of Information and Communications Technology to focus on ICT growth and development.
A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by modulating one or more carrier wave signals to encode digital information, while the receiver demodulates the signal to recreate the original digital information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded reliably. Modems can be used with almost any means of transmitting analog signals, from light-emitting diodes to radio.
A mobile broadband modem, also known as wireless modem or cellular modem, is a type of modem that allows a personal computer or a router to receive wireless Internet access via a mobile broadband connection instead of using telephone or cable television lines. A mobile Internet user can connect using a wireless modem to a wireless Internet Service Provider (ISP) to get Internet access.
TelOne Zimbabwe is a parastatal telecommunications company owned by the Zimbabwe government headquartered in Harare's Central Business District. It is the largest telecom entity in Zimbabwe and has the second largest fixed-line network in Southern Africa after Telkom South Africa. The parastatal is Zimbabwe's sole fixed landline services provider.
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