ResNet has been established to provide students with access to the Rhodes network. To give an idea as to its scale, it contains as many network connection points as the rest of the University, including the public PC laboratories and all academic departments and administrative divisions. More than 50 separate buildings are linked by fibre-optic cable to the campus network.
ResNet began in 1996 as a "good idea". University money was found to set up a small pilot project in two residences in close physical proximity to the IT Division in the Struben building, namely Graham House and Allan Gray. These were wired up at the end of 1997, and the start of 1998. Preliminary costings were then carried out for installing ResNet in all the other residences on campus. When it appeared that it would cost about R4.5 million, it was still considered a good idea, but it became something of a mission impossible given budgetary constraints.
Planning for ResNet went into hibernation, but there was continuous scheming and angling in order to try and make it happen.
The next event was a decision by the University to spend some of the income it had obtained from the hosting of two annual Eastern Cape matriculation examination marking sessions. This money was used to implement "Project Orange" (named after the colour of the koki pen used to draw lines on a campus map), which was completed in August 2000. Project Orange linked the Dining Halls to the campus backbone with fibre-optic cable, and was a massive exercise in trenching. The IT Division jumped on the bandwagon, as this was the single most expensive part of its original campus wide ResNet plan. An extension of Project Orange, called for derivative reasons "Project Yellow", and paid for out of the same funds, network connections were provided in residences accomodating Hall Wardens. This infrastructure, which cost just over R1 million, made it possible - at last - to look at alternative methods of completing ResNet.
However, the standard practice of saturation wiring buildings, the "big bang" approach as used for Graham and Allan Gray, was still very expensive - in excess of R100 000 per residence, and this remained a stumbling block. Such sums of money were nowhere to be found.
But the income that had been accumulating from usage fees since 1998 suddenly started looking useable if the ideology of saturation wiring was abandoned, and an "on demand" model of wiring up only the rooms that actually had a student willing to pay for a connection was used instead. Statistics about take-up in the two residences showed that on average 30% of the students in a residence would sign up for ResNet.
The "on demand" model requires the installation of trunking throughout the building, even though no cables are installed. The cost of this varies between R0 for a "new" or refurbished residence where the cost has been written off as part of the construction, or between R20k and R30k where trunking is retrofitted into a residence from scratch. Fiber costs about R10k per residence. Given this basic infrastructure, it costs about R400 to install each cable. It should be noticed that all these costs include materials and labour.
At the start of 2002, it was found that there was enough money accumulated to wire up on a limited basis not only Winchester and Jan Smuts but Guy Butler, Victoria Mxenge, and Helen Joseph - new buildings that had trunking installed during construction which would make cabling them relatively cheap and relatively easy. As long as the amount a student was charged for usage exceeded the cost of installing a cable, the "on demand" business model could be sustained. Any surplus would be used to retrofit trunking into residences that looked as though they would have a take up of more than the expected 30%.
This was the start of the break through in providing a comprehensive ResNet service. The connection fees collected from these residences provided enough to continue with this method. However, there was not enough cash inflow to move rapidly - if the income continued at this almost break-even rate, it would take nearly ten years to complete ResNet.
With the exception of the two residences set up during 1998 as pilot schemes, (Allan Gray and Graham), all other residences have been wired up on a limited demand, cost recovery basis. While the University has provided no direct funding for ResNet, once it was proved that this model of wiring up residences was viable, it facilitated the provision of bridging loans to the IT Division in order to carry out the remaining work.
In the mean time, the IT Division had tendered for, and won (against the likes of Comparex, Dimension Data and IBM) a contract to host the "SEALS" shared library service for ECHEA, the Eastern Cape Higher Education Association. The surplus money from this hosting project has been intermittently diverted into the ResNet accounts in the form of bridging loans, and has allowed ResNet to get a head start. This means the University has effectively spent R100k of central funds on ResNet.
More recently, the University has been persuaded to allow the cost of networking new residences to be built into the cost of the construction of the residence. This policy has had a positive effect on the Gavin Reilly Post-graduate Village, Ruth First House and Centenary House - which, like the original two pilot project residences, have connection points in all the rooms, including those occupied by wardens. All residences constructed in future will automatically be saturation wired and connected to ResNet.
Otherwise, the sole source of funding for the retro-active installation of ResNet has been derived from income generated by the resale of the ResNet service to students. It has been a shoe-string operation, where the rands and cents have literally been counted in order to move on to the next phase. The service was still far from being profitable: as of mid 2004 the IT Division needed to pay back nearly R1 million in bridging finance, mainly to the SEALS hosting project.
Starting in 2004, some of the ResNet surplus funds were used to provide bursaries to students involved in managing and solving problems within ResNet. In the future, any surplus funds will be used to continually improve networking infrastructure within ResNet and on the academic network. They will also pay for new services that will benefit students, and be used for researching methods of providing cost effective broad band network access to students living outside of the residence system.
By 2006, ResNet became self funding, and no more bridging loans were required. However, it was still not complete... the logistics of time, access and limited human resources to complete the job meant there are still about 300 rooms to be connected.
# * Graham House 1997/10/24 - 54 rooms/points # Allan Webb Hall Public LAN - 8 pcs - 1998/04/30 (defunct in 1999) # * Allan Gray 1998/04/30 - 84 rooms/points # Winchester House 2002/02/08 (redone 2003/02/26) + complete 2005/02 - 53 rooms # Jan Smuts House 2002/02/26 + complete 2005/02 - 140 rooms # Skidd 9 2002/03/18 - 50 rooms = Guy Butler House # Skidd 8 2002/03/18 - 62 rooms = Victoria Mxenge House # Skidd 5 2002/04/26 + complete 2005/02 - 32 rooms = Helen Joseph House A # Skidd 6 2002/04/26 + complete 2005/02 - 62 rooms = Helen Joseph House B # * Gavin Reilly Postgrad Village (Motel complex) 2002/08/12 # * Skidd 7 2003/01/18 - 70 rooms = Ruth First House # Salisbury 2003/02/12 - 30 rooms (wireless) # Livingstone 2003/02/26 - 32 rooms # Goldfields 2003/03/03 + complete 2005/02 - 75 rooms # Jameson 2003/03/14 - 57 rooms # De Beers 2003/03/19 + complete 2005/02 - 67 rooms # Atherstone 2003/03/25 - 105 rooms # Botha 2003/03/28 - 59 rooms # Oriel 2003/04/07 - 44 rooms # John Kotze 2003/04/07 - 73 rooms # Adamson 2003/07/24 - 55 rooms # Piet Retief 2003/07/24 - 70 rooms # Matthews 2003/07/31 - 35 rooms # Cory 2003/08/01 - 34 rooms # College 2003/08/18 - 51 rooms # Cullen Bowles 2003/08/20 - 73 rooms # Jan Smuts Annex 2003/10/14 (wireless) - 10? rooms # Oakdene 2003/10/22 (wireless) - 29 rooms # * Centenary House (Skidd 10) - 2004/02/17 - 70 rooms # Phelps - 2004/02/18 - 50 rooms # Canterbury - 2004/02/26 - 58 rooms - complete 2006/04 # Thomas Pringle - 2004/02/27 - 71 rooms - complete 2006/06 # Walker - 2004/03/02 - 72 rooms - complete 2006/06 # Hobson - 2004/03/16 - 73 rooms - complete 2006/01/29 # New House - 2004/04/01 - 119 rooms - complete 2006/06 # Milner - 2004/04/05 - 58 rooms # Beit - 2004/04/23 - 79 rooms # Olive Schreiner - 2004/05/11 - 77 rooms # Lillian Britten - 2004/05/26 + complete 2005/02 - 22 rooms # Dingemans - 2004/05/28 - 76 rooms - complete 2006/01 # Prince Alfred - 2005/02/23 - 51 rooms # Truro - 2005/02/22 - 22 rooms # Salisbury 2005/02/23 - 30 rooms (utp 2 years after wireless) # Stanley Kidd 1-4 - 2005/02/28 # Founders Lodge - 2005/09 - 8 rooms completed # Eleanor Brown 2006/02 - 30 rooms # Cradock Place 2006/02 - 30 rooms # Skidd Annexe 1 2006/02 - 25 rooms # Skidd Annexe 2 2006/02 - 25 rooms # Gavin Reilly extensions 2006/02 - 24 rooms