Internet: From Your House to Ours

INTERNET: FROM YOUR HOUSE TO OURS

            Ever since our arrival in Botswana more than six months ago, one of our goals has been to stay connected to our family and friends back home.  The prepaid cell phones we received upon arrival came with SIM cards from a network with no inexpensive way to call the United States.  During our two months of training in Kanye, our children tried to figure out bargain ways for them to call or SMS (i.e. text) us. Because of the six to seven hour time difference (Botswana does not switch to and from Daylight Time) and our busy schedules, our calls and texts were few and far between.

            Then there is the matter of internet access.  While we came to Africa with laptops and a shared iPad, we were not sure what to expect.  Certainly our host family in Kanye had no internet connection.  We availed ourselves of one of the local internet cafes from time to time.  We were warned about programs loaded onto some public computers that could record password information.  So, when we could, maybe every other Sunday afternoon, we hauled our laptops to those internet cafes that would allow us to connect our computers directly to the internet via an Ethernet cable.  The connection was often slow.  Wi-Fi did not seem to be available.

            Most of the volunteers in our group are in their 20’s, and most are much more dependent upon computers (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, etc.) than the two of us.  Still, the lack of computer access was a challenge for all of us.  I think that Peace Corps had at least two reasons for us to live largely without computers during training: to force us to spend concentrated time learning about a new culture, and to make us appreciate more how people live today without internet access.

            I do not want to leave the impression that Botswana, or the rest of Africa, is devoid of the many advances in computer technology over the past thirty years.  Far from it.  In some ways, Africa leads the world in the use of mobile technology.  I get a text on my phone every time I use my debit card at the supermarket.  I can transfer airtime and money credits from one mobile device to another.  I buy prepaid electricity credits from a neighbor who owns a special hand held device.  He takes my money and prints out a receipt with a 16-digit code.  I enter that code onto a keyboard on the “smart meter” installed in my kitchen.  The screen on the meter acknowledges the code, and then displays how many kilowatt-hours of electricity credit I just bought.  Over the next few weeks, I can watch the kwh’s decline with use, and the meter even emits small red flashes when an appliance is using heavier amounts of electricity.

            Back to the internet.  We did not want to make long-term plans for internet access until we learned of our placement.  For instance, if we were to live in a village without electrical or telephone lines, then certain solutions would not work.  There are three mobile telephone companies doing business in Botswana, and each company’s coverage varies somewhat.  We would not want to make a commitment to one company if its signal did not reach our home.

            We ended up getting placed in Goodhope, a village of 6000 about 90km from the nearest large town, Lobatse.  That might not sound promising for any sort of internet connectivity.  But we got lucky.  About fifteen years ago, Goodhope became the host to a number of regional government offices.  Botswana is divided into ten districts (similar to states or provinces), and some of those districts in turn are divided into two or more sub-districts.  We are part of the sprawling Southern District, and the Goodhope sub-district offices serve its sub-region with a variety of offices: land registry, public health, agriculture, planning, public works, education, etc. Then there is the five-year-old Goodhope Senior Secondary School (Stephanie’s work base), a massive boarding school housing 2400 students.  All of these institutions all need internet connectivity. 

            This means that mobile phone service is excellent in Goodhope from all three companies.  The landline telephone company even has a regional office here.  We considered our options.  We could get a small device, an external modem, which fits into the USB slot of a laptop.  A SIM card slides into the modem, and then the computer has internet access over the selected mobile phone network, just like a smart phone in the United States.  As in America, the mobile phone companies advertise 3G speed over their networks (4G is not an option here).  Unfortunately, the reality is that in places like Goodhope, the speed ends up being more like 2G.  We also talked with a more experienced volunteer about another option: DSL (called ADSL here).  It is available in some locations, but not all.  Its speeds are faster and more reliable than 3G, and in some cases may be fast enough to download videos.  It is more expensive than 3G, but we were told it is well worth it.

            So, about a week after we arrived in Goodhope in November, I began my quest for DSL.  The sign outside the local telephone company building said that it had customer service hours one day a week: on Wednesdays.  So the following Wednesday, I trudged the 30 minute dusty walk to the office, only to find it was closed up tight.  I did some other errands and came back later but the office was still closed.  The place looked more like a switching center with some telephone poles in the lot – it did not look much like a customer service place.

            So, on November 30, I took a combi to Lobatse (usually about an hour’s trip).  I visited the telephone company office there and told the representative that I wanted to get DSL for my home in Goodhope.  There was an application form in front of her, and I took one to fill out.  She told me that I couldn’t fill it out, at least not yet, that I had to apply first for a regular telephone line.  She said that a technician would come to my neighborhood and determine whether telephone and DSL service was possible.  Since our village has no street names, let alone house numbers, it is difficult to locate houses.  The application asked for our plot number, which I did not know.  I did the best I could giving directions.

            Then I began to wait anxiously.  I felt that perhaps the process would speed up if I could locate my plot number.  I could not talk with my landlord about it (that’s a whole ‘nother story), so I traveled one day to the Land Board office.  In Botswana, every citizen is entitled to several free plots of land: one for cattle, one for planting crops, and one for building a house.  In a country almost the size of Texas and with only 2 million people, there is a lot of land to go around.  The Land Board administers a very rigorous application process for land seekers.  The Board is a combination of a planning office, a land court and a deed registry.  I walked into the office and asked for help to determine my plot number.  Apparently copies of deeds are not publicly available, but I was directed to the survey group.   A helpful trio of young men got out a survey plan of my neighborhood, and we were able to determine that my house plot was one of about two or three lots.  Since Goodhope is now a sub-district center, the village has been subdivided into many lots, but most of them remain undeveloped.  Hence it is hard to determine from a survey exactly which plot is mine.  Undaunted, the survey crew announced that they would visit our house the next morning to determine the exact plot number.  And the next morning they arrived in an SUV: a driver, two surveyors and an assistant.  Armed with a survey plan, they quickly found some nearby concrete bounds and determined our plot number.

            By the second week of December, I hadn’t heard from the telephone company.  I decided to take a combi into Lobatse to check up on things.  I thought that having my plot number might speed things up.  At the customer service office, I met with the same lady as I had before.  I told her that I now had a plot number to add to my phone service application. She said that it really wasn’t necessary. I asked when a technician would come to my house to determine feasibility for DSL.  She said that is would happen soon.

            Nothing happened soon, but something did eventually happen.  On December 20^th, when Stephanie and I were at the other end of town meeting with the agricultural extension officer (part of our get to know the community assignment), Stephanie got a phone call from the telephone company: an engineer was in his car heading toward our house.  He would be there in 20 minutes.  I immediately excused myself and ran home -- in the heat.  There was no way we wanted to miss any opportunity to get DSL.  Sure enough, the engineer arrived at the landmark my application had set out for him, and I pointed out our nearby house.  He told me that he would scout out telephone lines in the vicinity and get back to me.  About 20 minutes later, he came back with the good news: there was good enough telephone connectivity nearby to enable DSL.  He said that he would report back to the office in Lobatse, and then I would get a call to come into the office, fill out an application, and pay a deposit.

            That began another waiting period.  December passed into January, and January into February, without a call form the phone company.  We were busy with other projects, so I did not have the time to follow-up.  Only in mid-February did I get around to calling customer service.  A very nice lady told me, after checking my file, that in fact I could go in and pay my deposit.

            Late in February, I took a combi to Lobatse, paid a 200 Pula deposit ($25) and filled out a DSL application.  Then, a week later while at work, Stephanie got a call that an installation crew was on its way.  She called me to get home ASAP (my school is much closer to home than hers).  I was in the middle of teaching a math class, so I couldn’t leave just yet.  When the bell rang, I bolted out of the classroom and ran home.  I arrived just as not one, but two trucks, each with a crew or workers, arrived at my house.  The foreman greeted me, and then looked toward the horizon in all directions, searching for telephone wires.  He announced that there were no telephone lines nearby and that we were not eligible to get DSL service because they do not install new telephone poles for that purpose.  I protested that there were electrical poles right up to my house, but he answered that the telephone company does not share with the electric utility (which turns out not to be really the case).  I said that someone from the telephone company had come out in December and verified our eligibility, and that I had paid my deposit just a week prior.

            Telling the man that I had paid the deposit did the trick.  He said, “well, since you have paid a deposit, I guess we’ll have to make an exception.”  So, the next thing I know, I am inside the house guiding one work crew.  They quickly wire the house for a telephone line, running it out through an air vent, under the soffit, over the roof drip edge and up to the roof peak.  The other crew took off somewhere.  I had to go back to teach another class.  When I returned about an hour later, the second crew had returned.  In the midday sun, one worker was digging a hole in the ground just outside our gate.  He was using just a spade.  He was down almost a meter by the time I caught up with him.  He quickly finished that hole, and then moved on to start another one, maybe 80 meters away.  I wanted to continue watching this amazing feat, but I had to go back to school for a meeting.  When I returned, two hours later, I found two telephone poles in place where the holes had been dug.  A wire stretched from my house, hooked to the new poles, and connected to a preexisting telephone wire maybe 150 meters away.  [See the attached photo showing the edge of our grass-free yard, with the first new pole in the left foreground, the second new pole behind it slightly to the right and the third (pre-existing) pole in the background, center.]  Stephanie had come home somewhere during the installation to share in the excitement.  When I returned, she was watching some workers finish up with the installation of our wireless router and landline telephone.  The router configured instantly to our laptops, and then we had fast DSL internet service.  In our home.  At last.

            We celebrated that evening by checking up on internet sites we had not visited for six months.   We made a list of apps that we wanted to download.  We made plans for Facetime calls with our children.  It was great. 

            Two days later, we got hit with a bad electrical storm.  It threw the main circuit breaker in our house.  There was a power surge and, yes, it fried out new internet router.  Without going into details, the telephone company rep came out the next business day with a loaner, and the day after that, with a replacement router.  We are happy as can be.  We can make Facetime calls.   We surf the internet And there is an added bonus: calls to our new landline phone from America are cheaper than to our cell phone.

New Telephone Poles: Our Gateway to the World