Makerere University

Makerere University has a dial-up connection to StarCom, a private Ugandan Internet service provider. The Internet access center is in the main university library, which has nine terminals on a LAN, all fed by a 33.6 baud modem link. The fee schedule for Internet access is 1,000 Ugandan shillings (about 70 US cents) per ten minutes of access time--about US$4.25 per hour. In addition, there is a fee of 1,000 shillings to send an email message, 100 shillings (about 7 cents) to receive an email message, and 100 shillings per page to print. The phone bills for the Internet connection are usually on the order of US$500 per month, but can be as much as US$2,000.

At Makerere we were able to take advantage of the existence of a university class on Internet communications, which was scheduled during our visit. Thus much of the downloading was conducted by the students in the class during their regular two-hour morning session. This method allowed us to observe the results of nine computers sharing one dial-up line all downloading journal articles at the same time. The results were extremely impressive.

PDF files: Accessing PDF files was no problem at Makerere, as all downloading attempts were successful at reasonable speeds. File sizes accessed ranged from just over 20 kb (for abstracts) to nearly 670 kb, with data transfer rates varying from 350 bps on the low end to upwards of 2.8 kbps, and averaging just over 1 kbps in total. Table 5 shows a sample of typical results.

Table 5. Downloading PDF files at Makerere University
File	File size in kilobytes	Transfer rate in bytes/second	Download time
1	23.9	1,124.7	21.3 seconds
2	96.1	386.9	4 min. 8 seconds
3	128.0	1,499.7	1 min. 25 seconds
4	166.6	734.9	3 min. 47 seconds
5	203.0	1061.7	3 min. 11 seconds
6	301.5	921.3	5 min. 27 seconds
7	509.1	736.2	11 min. 30 seconds
8	654.2	755.6	14 min. 26 seconds
9	669.7	2,813.1	3 min. 58 seconds
Total average transfer rate: 1,000.7 bytes/second Note: The total transfer rate figure reflects all PDF files downloaded at Makerere, not just those shown in table

HTML files: We were able to download HTML articles at the same transfer rate achieved with the PDF files: about one kilobyte per second on average. Again, the HTML files became useful quickly, as the text appears in a matter of seconds rather than minutes, with graphical elements filling in more gradually over time. Since the overall file size of the HTML articles tends to be much smaller than the average PDF file size, at the same transfer rate the HTML articles are completely downloaded in less time. Table 6 shows a sample of the server-logged results for downloading component files of HTML articles. Note, however, that during the classroom session the students' notes in most cases show download times of one minute or less for HTML articles. These manual figures indicate the "useful" download time of when the text first appears rather than the "complete" download time of when all component files have arrived.

Table 6. Downloading HTML articles at Makerere University
File	File size in kilobytes	Transfer rate in bytes/second	Download time
1	21.9	1,085.8	20.1 seconds
2	27.8	651.4	42.7 seconds
3	33.3	1,041.1	31.9 seconds
4	33.3	446.6	1 min. 15 seconds
5	36.6	1,450.2	25.2 seconds
6	41.3	2,468.3	16.7 seconds
7	48.5	815.1	59.5 seconds
8	52.9	1,323.6	39.9 seconds
9	81.2	1,150.3	1 min. 10 seconds
Total average transfer rate: 1063.5 bps Note: The total transfer rate is the overall average for all HTML articles downloaded

Technical modifications: We installed FreeBSD and Squid as a proxy server to perform caching at the university level. Files retrieved from the local cache appear virtually instantaneously.

Assessment: Makerere University is technically able to access online journals at the present time with its current setup. The US$4.25 per hour Internet access charge may represent a barrier for some users, however. Makerere staff estimate that upgrading to a 64 kbps radio link would require an initial investment of US$18,000, but would reduce the monthly charges to a flat rate of US$250. If funding could be found to finance the upgrade, the university network would be able to support a greater number of users at lower cost (and ostensibly for a lower fee).

It is also worth noting that Makerere University has already undertaken an internal assessment of its most pressing journals needs, assigning priorities to various journals in each discipline. This information will be extremely helpful for any future journals distribution project, online or otherwise.

AAAS > International > Africa