Albania

[RIPE NCC Billing <]

Oh great, just 10 minutes after Daniel left for Kazakhstan I get this
message...


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Date:     Fri, 22 Sep 95 17:01:12 UTC
From:     MHolman@localhost (Mike Holman)
To:       billing@localhost, dfk@localhost
Subject:  Re: Problems in Albania 


          Okay, look - I'm sweating my balls off in Albania trying to
          get a network going by myself.  This is not Germany, this is
          not France, this is a charity effort in a technical
          wasteland.  We get water 3 times a day, where many in the
          city get it once, I haven't been able to get a fax in in 3
          weeks, and my phone often goes out for over a week at a
          time.  They have fewer than 100,000 phones *nationwide*. As
          far as finding sponsors, I went out and found three, Soros,
          USIS, and UNDP.  I haven't seen a penny from the latter two,
          despite all the good intentions in the world, which has
          completely screwed up my planning.  I'm now trying to get
          this net started on $19,500, which if you think about the
          cost of just buying one Cisco router is ridiculous.  I
          offered $1500 out of this measly budget, which is going to
          be quite painful, I assure you (especially since that was
          going to come from some reimbursed money, and I found out
          today that those people want to hold up the payment for some
          typical bullshit), and I told you it's in the UNDP budget if
          that ever gets signed.  If you can find other sponsors,
          fine, go ask them for money.  I've had it.  I've been
          working on this project for a year, and you really can't
          believe all the difficulties of getting something working
          here.  As one person, I get to be network engineer,
          designer, secretary, market analyst, presentation man,
          professor, shipping coordinator, proposal writer, radio
          operator, etc., etc.

          I leave on October 1, the satellite upgrade is supposed to
          happen at the end of next week.  You're welcome to forward
          this letter to the mailing list.  That's all I have to say.

          Bill Eldridge
          Albnet
          Tirana, Albania

----

Dear Bill,

I'm afraid I cannot do much for you.

Quoting minutes from the RIPE NCC Contributors Committee meeting:

    5.  Procedures for Waiving of NCC Fees

                The committee has discussed  issue  on  the  mailing
                list.   Daniel  Karrenberg  circulated  the  list of
                options he had developed together with a short  sum-
                mary of pros and cons.


    Discussion & Decisions

                After  a  short  but  intensive discussion there was
                consensus that NCC fees should not  be  waived  fees
                for anyone anymore.  Every LIR should pay the appro-
                priate fee.  The  rationale  being  that  sufficient
                sources  are  available  for  those  in real need of
                sponsorship.  It was agreed that it is not the  task
                of the contributors as a group to sponsor networking
                activities nor is it the task of the NCC to evaluate
                requests for sponsorship.


I heard a suggestion from Daniel Karrenberg dfk@localhost that you can
always try to contact him for suggestions  - e.g. finding sponsors. No
guarantee on the timescales of replies from him, though.

Regards,

Roderik Muit
RIPE NCC

 MHolman@localhost (Mike Holman) writes:
 * 
 *           Hi Roderik,
 * 
 *                What I wanted to avoid has happened - UNDP isn't paying
 *           the Albanian internet project until/if the government signs
 *           it, a process which has already dragged out for some months,
 *           and will certainly take another month or more.
 * 
 *                What this means is that my budget is now a total of
 *           $19,500 to pay for the router, wireless modems, dial-up
 *           connections, a Linux machine, and to pay an engineer who's
 *           been helping me unpaid for the last 2 months and was
 *           supposed to be hired to replace me when I leave October 1.
 * 
 *                This means I have maximum of $1500 to pay for RIPE
 *           membership, and even that's going to be painful.  The
 *           satellite upgrade goes in at the end of next week.  Please
 *           pass this on to your subscribers and see if this is
 *           acceptable.  The original 3000 ECUs is in the UNDP project,
 *           so when/if that gets signed, you'll see the rest of your
 *           money.
 * 
 *                Considering the backwards conditions of Albania and its
 *           telecommunications, the extreme difficulty of getting
 *           anything done here, and that this would be the first
 *           internet connection for the country, I hope this will be
 *           acceptable.
 * 
 *           Thanks,
 *           Bill Eldridge
 *           Tirana, Albania
 * 


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