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Australia’s Pivotel partners with Internet for Humanity for provide internet connection to remote parts of Uganda

by Milicent Atieno

Pivotel, the Australia-based satellite telecom service provider has partnered with the not-for-profit firm Internet for Humanity to provide internet access and communication devices to households in the remote regions of Uganda.

Pivotel partnership is through its subsidiary company, Global Marine Networks (GMN). GMN will provide Redport Optimiser Premier units and provide ongoing support to the Internet for Humanity endeavors. The partnership will also see 18 new IT centers established in Uganda. In addition to IT, the centers will also support other sectors such as healthcare provision, education, and agriculture.

The internet connections Ugandans will be getting will be consists of highly compressed data. The hotspots data compression technology will aim at reducing the amount of data use while online. Some of the things that will be compressed include images and banners. The compression technology will give users as much as 80% data savings.

We are committing over $13,000 of hardware and more again in ongoing services in the first phase of our partnership, which continues a 10-year relationship already valued at over $130,000, thanks to our newly acquired satellite data business, Global Marine Networks,” said Robert Sakker, the Executive Director at Pivotel.

The Internet for Humanity partnership is GMN’s longest-running corporate social responsibility partner, and we are proud to continue the legacy that has already helped tens of thousands of students, families, teachers, doctors, nurses, and farmers to improve their knowledge and their livelihood in Uganda.”

Sakker further said that Pivotel would look into expanding the project’s impact across Uganda by providing additional satellite data connectivity in areas with no internet access. That is in addition to providing technical support to Internet for Humanity endeavors.

A representative from the Internet for Humanity Uganda, Robert Tabula, says that people living in the Western Countries take high-speed connectivity for granted. Yet, in some other parts of the world, there is no connectivity to begin with, let alone the prospects of complaining about it being slow.

When we set up a computer in a new school or community health clinic, we have many people who think it’s a television. It takes a lot of time to teach people how to use email and the internet, but when they grasp the concept, they flourish,” said Tabula.

Until now, teachers have been using their own textbooks from five or ten years ago and teaching that outdated information to the students. Now, we are seeing teachers and students using the internet to get up to the minute information and email other schools sharing knowledge and creating a community.”

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