Digital Inclusion: A model for e-Infrastructure and e-Services in Developing Countries
- Authors: Terzoli, Alfredo , Siebörger, Ingrid , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Gumbo, Sibukelo
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430973 , vital:72733 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98827-6_7
- Description: A large portion of the South African population is still not connected in a productive manner to the Internet, despite the existence of a govern-ment plan for public broadband, ‘SA Connect’. One reason for this could be the lack of an appropriate model, through which connectivity can be diffused in a meaningful way through all areas of South Africa. This paper presents the model developed over more than a decade of experimentation in real life settings in the Siyakhula Living Lab, a joint venture between the universities of Rhodes and Fort Hare, South Afri-ca. The model proposes the ‘Broadband Island’ as basic e-infrastructure unit, which clusters nearby points-of-presence hosted in schools. In each Broadband Island is located an applications integra-tion platform, TeleWeaver, which monetizes channels of access to the local community, to support the e-infrastructure while providing useful services to the population and the Government.
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- Date Issued: 2018
An IMS subscriber location function for OpenBaton—A standards based MANO environment
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Chindeka, Tapiwa C , Terzoli, Alfredo
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430567 , vital:72700 , 10.1109/AFRCON.2017.8095600
- Description: In the past, virtualisation, and with it the move toward the cloud, has had a strong influence on the ICT (Information Communication Technology) sector, and now seems set to revolutionise the telecommunications sector as well. The virtualisation into software artefacts of functions that would usually be deployed as hardware has come to be known as Net-work Function Virtualisation (NFV), and the European Telecommunica-tions Standards Institute (ETSI) through its MANO (Management and Orchestration) framework has outlined comprehensively how such functions could be orchestrated and managed over infrastructure such as the cloud. A set of functions of particular interest are the call session control functions (CSCFs) and HSS (Home Subscriber Server) of the IP Multimedia System (IMS) which perform signalling and authentication functions for multimedia calls in contexts such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE). IMS has enjoyed significant focus in the past from the re-search community, as such an implementation of an IMS service pack-age has been provided in an open source MANO-compliant implemen-tation called OpenBaton. While the service package provides the IMS CSCFs and HSS, it does not include a Subscriber Location Function (SLF) which provides a mapping function to map a subscriber identity to a hosting HSS. The SLF is an important element for building distributed networks that partition user data into multiple databases, and as such represents a useful inclusion to the developer community. This paper describes an extension to the OpenBaton service package that in-cludes an SLF for partitioning large user populations across multiple HSSes and resolving individual addresses in real-time.
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- Date Issued: 2017
E-Government as a Means to Support Communal, Large ICT Infrastructure in Poor Areas
- Authors: Gumbo, Sibukelo , Terzoli, Alfredo , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431287 , vital:72761 , https://www.academic-bookshop.com/ourshop/prod_5067238-ECEG-2016-Proceedings-of-the-16th-European-Conference-on-eGovernment.html
- Description: Citizen-facing e-Government appears inevitable given current technol-ogy trends, and certainly has many advantages. One overlooked bene-fit, in our opinion, is its potential to make financially viable communal “large ICT” installations, which would diffuse ICT in poor communities where ICT is currently absent.(By “large ICT” we refer to end-user equipment such as desktops or laptops, on which would be possible to produce content, including software. The presence of “large ICT” in a community is critical in our opinion for the empowerment of the commu-nity, especially its younger component.) This paper explores this poten-tial in e-Government, describing a model conceptualized in the Siyakhu-la Living Lab in South Africa and partially implemented, through an inte-gration platform named “TeleWeaver”. The model behind TeleWeaver is an adaptation of the classic Internet business model-whereby users of services do not directly pay for the services they use. This model is especially relevant currently in South Africa, because of the an-nouncement by the government to pilot connecting to the internet gov-ernment facilities, including schools, in eight poor district municipalities.
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- Date Issued: 2016
HealthMessenger: an e-Health service to support ICT deployments in poor areas
- Authors: Gremu, Chikumbutso , Terzoli, Alfredo , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430609 , vital:72703 , 10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2016.7530632
- Description: Development and implementation of appropriate e-services as well as revenue generation are key to deploying and sustaining ICT installa-tions in poor areas in developing countries. The area of e-Health is a promising area for e-Services that are important to populations in poor areas and health service organisations that are already spending mon-ey on different health initiatives in these areas. This paper discusses an e-Health service that facilitates dissemination of health information to people living in poor areas and that is subsequently used to generate revenue to support deployment and development of ICT in the areas. The tool was developed within the context of the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), a multi-stakeholder operation that promotes ICT for Development in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Creation of health con-tent for the e-health service and its subsequent consumption happen in two different environments from a technological and social point of view. To enable this to happen, the e-service comprises two component applications that run in a peer-to-peer fashion. The component that is used to disseminate content for end-user consumption is called the HealthMessenger. The HealthMessenger is hosted on an environment called TeleWeaver, an application integration platform developed within the SLL to host software applications targeting people living in poor ar-eas. The platform is customised to support services with a revenue generation component.
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- Date Issued: 2016
TeleWeaver: an architectural overview of a customised application server for rurality
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Gumbo, Sibukelo
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430624 , vital:72704 , 10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2016.7530616
- Description: The Siyakhula Living Lab in the rural Eastern Cape province of South Africa has been in existence for over a decade now. In this time, sever-al software artefacts have been developed by students and partners with the aim of providing contextually-relevant services to the rural community. However, reliance on different platforms and paradigms has meant that the deployment of such services would be difficult to implement and maintain reliably in actual practice. What is required is a single software platform that can act as a docking station for multiple applications, as well as a routing substrate for applications living inside and outside the platform. A candidate platform to enable this is currently being integrated under the codename Teleweaver and is built from a free, open source J2EE application server and integrates with other software components. This paper provides an architectural overview of the platform and demonstrates how it provides a sustainable context for application development going forward.
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- Date Issued: 2016
The development of an e-Health system for health awareness campaigns in poor areas
- Authors: Gremu, Chikumbutso , Terzoli, Alfredo , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430638 , vital:72705 , 10.1109/ISTAFRICA.2015.7190527
- Description: This paper discusses work to develop an e-Health system called HealthAware to assist health service organisations to carry out targeted health awareness campaigns in poor areas. The system comprises two components called the Dashboard and the Health Messenger, which are web-based, Java applications that run in a peer-to-peer fashion. The Dashboard is used to create, manage, and publish awareness campaigns. The HealthMessenger facilitates end-users' access to the relevant awareness campaigns. A targeted communication strategy which splits the target population into subgroups based on their demo-graphic characteristics and geographic locations is used to determine relevant campaigns for a user. The HealthMessenger is hosted on an application service integration platform called TeleWeaver, while the Dashboard is hosted independently of TeleWeaver. Message queuing is used to ensure reliable communication between the Dashboard and the HealthMessenger. The implementation of HealthAware contributes knowledge on developing a system that ensures that users access only the information that is relevant to them. This addresses the challenge of sifting through potentially irrelevant information before arriving at the important information which is posed by generic materials.
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- Date Issued: 2015
Unicorn: A unified communication solution for marginalized communities
- Authors: Nyathi, Okelitsi , Terzoli, Alfredo , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430666 , vital:72707 , 10.1109/ICASTech.2013.6707506
- Description: The convergence of previously distinct networks into an All-IP network has resulted in an increase in the number and diversity of devices, channels and communication networks available to users. This has increased the number commu-nication options available and is evidenced by the number of different communication devices owned and services subscribed to. How-ever, this has created complexities that call for proper methods to manage these diverse and in-compatible communication options. The objective of Unified Communication (UC) is to seamlessly integrate the dispar-ate communication channels into a device independent plat-form that can easily be managed by users. Due its focus on a largely urban and highly connected market, UC has not benefited marginalized communities. This paper discusses the design and implementation of Unicorn, a UC solution for a middleware software platform called Teleweaver which was designed to support the development of services for marginalized communities. The solution integrates services from a telecommunication container called Mobicents. It seamlessly amalgamates voice, data and video onto one device independent unified platform easily accessible by users.
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- Date Issued: 2013
Research Testbed Networks: Practical Tools for Service Delivery?
- Authors: Wertlen, Ronald R , Siebörger, Ingrid , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Shibeshi, Zelalem S , Terzoli, Alfredo
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/429204 , vital:72567 , https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1681-4835.2012.tb00351.x
- Description: The Telkom Centre of Excellence (CoE) at Rhodes University, housed in the Computer Science department was opened in 1997. The CoE's focus on Distributed multimedia service platforms soon showed that the technology being researched could be applied in the disadvantaged peri‐urban communities. The CoE has thus concentrated its research on building a testbed network that delivers real services to real users. In 2007, the testbed was extended to include a marginalised rural area in the Siyakhula Living Lab. The greatest factor in the sustainability of the CoE testbed network has been maintaining usefulness to all the stakeholders over the last 12 years. Industrial funding, University outreach goals and research goals could all be harmonised, while sustaining the delivery of high quality informatics services in the community. This paper presents a brief case study of the communications network testbed and how it was applied to the Development Informatics space. It analyses the roles played by stakeholders in either assisting and sustaining or obstructing the service delivery. It makes key recommendations on best practices for research networks that can also bring informatics to disadvantaged communities. It shows how testbeds for the research of new technologies can be designed so as to allow Development Informatics work to take place on such networks.
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- Date Issued: 2012
A Framework for the Management of Operator Policies and User Preferences for Service Compositions in the IP Multimedia Subsystem
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Wells, George C
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430680 , vital:72708 , https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6032212
- Description: The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a telecommunication middleware platform with robust service features that enables the delivery of a wide range of services to mobile network subscribers. Network operators are encouraged to develop services from service building blocks in order to avoid redundancies by re-using existing functionality. In this environ-ment, operators must be able to control the service execution chain in order to prevent undesirable interactions from occurring between indi-vidual building blocks. It is also in their interests to provide subscribers with personalisation options so that they can modify service composi-tions and define their own preferences for how they would like their ser-vices to behave during live sessions. This paper describes a solution for these challenges that involves the storage of service information in an XDMS and allows operator staff and subscribers to manage this in-formation using the XCAP protocol. The ETSI-defined XCAP applica-tion usage named simservs was chosen to demonstrate an application usage that can be used to create service compositions in XML format. A prototype is described that uses components of the open source Mo-bicents project to verify the suitability of the design. This work is part of a larger effort aimed at modeling interaction management in the IMS through the use of a service broker that is part of an extended IMS ser-vice layer (EISL). The service broker's functional and structural architec-ture have not yet been standardised.
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- Date Issued: 2011
SOA driven architectures for service creation through enablers in an IMS testbed
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Wells,George C
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430726 , vital:72711 , https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/6144230
- Description: Standards development organisations have long been in agreement that the most appropriate and cost effective way of developing services for the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is through the use - and re-use - of service capabilities, which are the building blocks for developing complex services. IMS specifications provide a theoretical framework for how service capabilities can be aggregated into large service appli-cations. However, there is little evidence that mainstream IMS service development is capability-based, and many services are still designed in a monolithic way, with no re-use of existing functionality. Telecom-munication networks are well positioned to stimulate the Internet ser-vices market by exposing these service enablers to third parties. In this paper, we marry the two issues by defining an extended IMS service layer (EISL) that provides a service broker that is the central agent in both service interaction management and the execution of external re-quests from third parties. A prototypical implementation of the service broker is described that was developed using a converged SIP servlet container, and a discussion is also provided that details how third party developers could use HTTP APIs to interact with a service broker in or-der to gain access to network capabilities.
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- Date Issued: 2011
Towards IPTV service discovery and selection in an IMS environment
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Musvibe, Ray , Terzoli, Alfredo , Wells, George C
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430795 , vital:72716 , 10.1109/ICUMT.2010.5676637
- Description: The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a telecommunication middleware architecture that behaves as a docking station for a wide range of mul-timedia services. Several so-called killer applications have been envi-sioned for this platform such as multimedia group communications and location based services (LBS), but one of the most common business cases for IMS remains IPTV (Internet Protocol TV). Several IMS stand-ards development bodies and non-IMS players have contributed knowledge to the topic of IPTV, and the mechanisms needed to support various IPTV services are well understood. In addition, there are exam-ples of researchers who have implemented IPTV services in their net-work testbeds. However, many of them do not make use of the full power of the specifications which describe the mechanisms of service discovery and service selection. These processes define support for customer device configuration, service personalisation and service se-lection in a multi-service provider ecosystem. This position paper pro-poses solutions to some of the open questions in this area and pro-vides an architecture for a testbed that properly supports service dis-covery and selection. An initial implementation addressing the topic of auto-configuration of IMS terminals for service discovery is also pre-sented.
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- Date Issued: 2010
Using JAIN SLEE as an interaction and policy manager for enabler-based services in next generation networks
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Wells, George C
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431382 , vital:72770 , https://journals.pan.pl/dlibra/publication/100205/edition/86373/content
- Description: The IP Multimedia Subsystem is a telecommunications framework with a standard architecture for the provision of services. While the services themselves have not been standardised, standards do exist for basic technologies that can be re-used and aggregated in order to construct more complex services. These elements are called service capabilities by the 3GPP and service enablers by the OMA, both of which are repu-table standards bodies in this area. In order to provide re-usability, there is a need to manage access to the service capabilities. Also, in order to build complex services, there is a further need to be able to manage and coordinate the interactions that occur between service capabilities. The 3GPP and the OMA have separately defined network entities that are responsible for handling aspects of these requirements, and are known as a service capability interaction manager (SCIM) and a policy enforcer respectively. However, the internal structure of the SCIM and the policy enforcer have not been standardised by the relevant bodies. In addition, as the SCIM and the policy enforcer have been defined through complementary yet separate processes, there is an opportunity to unify efforts from both bodies. This paper builds on work and stand-ards defined by the bodies, and proposes the design of an interaction manager with features borrowed from both the SCIM and the policy en-forcer. To help validate the design, we have identified a platform known as JAIN SLEE which we believe conforms to the model proposed, and we discuss how JAIN SLEE can be used to implement our ideas.
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- Date Issued: 2010
An Asterisk-based framework for E-learning using open protocols and open source software
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Shibeshi, Zelalem S , Terzoli, Alfredo , Wells, George C
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/429091 , vital:72559 , https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5338904
- Description: This paper describes the conceptual design of an e-learning system that is based on open protocols and open source software. This is an initial step towards providing a framework within which remote lectures at our university can be conducted with other institutions in the Southern African region. The motivation for this effort is born out of a desire to avoid expensive and inflexible commercial tools that have been used in the past, often with undesirable side effects. Our design promises to deliver most of the features that can be expected of a modern e-learning system such as a Web interface, space for lecture material, real-time audio and video support, instant messaging and the ability to convey presence. We identified two modes of operation, one as a Web-based video archive and the other as a live virtual classroom. It is hoped that this dual-mode setup will support different modes of learning for students and suit different bandwidth resources among institutions.
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- Date Issued: 2009
An open service delivery platform for adding value to softswitch-based telephony environments
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Wells, George C
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428450 , vital:72512 , https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alfredo-Ter-zoli/publication/251923990_An_open_service_delivery_platform_for_adding_value_to_softswitch-based_telephony_environments/links/0c9605298fdf0ef8d3000000/An-open-service-delivery-platform-for-adding-value-to-softswitch-based-telephony-environments.pdf
- Description: Softswitches have played a crucial role in next generation networks (NGNs) not only as the primary agents responsible for controlling the data and media paths between endpoints, but also as hosts of telepho-ny applications such as billing and legal intercept. Even though very useful and flexible application interfaces have been used to program these softswitches, there is much benefit that can be derived from de-coupling the application layer from the switching core. NGN architec-tures such as the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) have borrowed the concept of an application server from the IT domain in order to deliver enhanced services to the network. This paper describes an initial inves-tigation into the development of a service delivery platform (SDP) based on the JAIN Service Logic and Execution Environment (JSLEE) indus-try standard, to provide advanced services that can be deployed over a telephony environment called iLanga, which is based on the open source software PBX named Asterisk.
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- Date Issued: 2008
Prototyping a p2p sip user agent with support for multiple overlays
- Authors: Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Wells, George C
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430858 , vital:72722 , 10.1109/PERCOM.2008.102
- Description: This paper describes a systematic approach to provide support at the user agent level for peer-to-peer based multimedia communications us-ing SIP (session initiation protocol). In a society that is becoming in-creasingly mobile, the advantages of engaging in interactive sessions without relying on central servers or infrastructure are clear. Yet, cur-rently many user agents and devices have little support for peer-to-peer communications. In this paper, we motivate for the use of structured peer-to-peer protocols called DHTs, as a foundation for a peer-to-peer layer. We introduce the concept of "DHTplug-ins" which assist in ab-stracting the interface between the higher level application and the pro-prietary APIs exposed by the underlying DHTs, allowing us to manipu-late user agents with peer-to-peer logic. This embeddable-DHT concept allows these user agents to use different DHTs with one common inter-face and participate in multiple overlays. We show how an open source SIP user agent was thus modified and how realtime communications were supported.
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- Date Issued: 2008
The localisation into isiXhosa of the iLanga telephone system
- Authors: Dalvit, Lorenzo , Tsietsi, Mosiuoa , Terzoli, Alfredo , Maseko, Pamela , Sam, Msindisi S , Mapi, Thandeka
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431358 , vital:72767 , https://nru.uncst.go.ug/bitstream/handle/123456789/6552/Information Communica-tion Technologies page 410.pdf?sequence=1isAllowed=y#page=256
- Description: In this paper we describe the localisation of iLanga, a VoIP PBX sys-tem, into isiXhosa. In South Africa, for social and political reasons, mak-ing systems available in the African languages is becoming more and more important. On the one hand, it gives access to the use of technol-ogy to people who are not fluent in English. On the other hand, it has a strong symbolic value. Although a variety of software is already availa-ble in a number of African languages, localisation in such language is still in its early stage. The process presented interesting challenges both from the technical and the linguistic point of view.
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- Date Issued: 2008