Minutes of Thursday Meeting

[Charles Musisi <cmusisi@uol.co.ug>]

Hey, I'm posting this on behalf and consent of Hope Mugagga -- Our 
secretary to the
UiXP. These are the minutes of our meeting last Thursday.

--enjoy.

Minutes of the UiXP meeting held on the 14th February 2002
Venue: Board Room on the 2nd Floor at Workers' House

Meeting opened shortly after 10:30am

Charles Musisi welcomed everyone present and went on to present an update 
of the
activities of the UiXP highlighting what was  already circulated in an earlier
report.

- UiXP registered as a company Limited by Guarantee without Shares on 
September 13th,
2001. The justification being the best of options to enable the UiXP to 
conduct business, establish itself as a legal entity and offered no 
restrictions in meeting the immediate
goals of the UiXP i.e non-profit, professional body, one-man-one-vote 
principle
ensures no one entity dominates activity, no share capital required, makes 
enough income to sustain staff & expenses able to recover coast and meet
its expenses..

- UCC gave input to process when they gave their views on the articles, 
contentious sections were amended and filed with registrar's office

- m/s katende sempebwa & company advocates were retained to file 
registration application and submit articles & Memo. of association who 
graciously accepted to offer this service without up-front payment of their 
fees. However, the registry fees and other expenses i.e stamp duty,
photocopying and binding books amounting to Ug. Shillings 200,000 were paid 
by CFI/UoL.

- UCC gave letter of no objection in November for the UiXP to setup and 
operate while it formulates a license.

- Towards the end of October, on strong urging by the UCC, Charles Musisi 
as the interim Chairman entered into a tenancy agreement for occupancy of 
Room 404 at the Communications House. This is the location that came out 
best among many survey the assistance of Techies' group.

- A small grant amounting to British Pounds 18,000 was solicited from the 
Department of Foreign & International Development(Dfid) of the UK, and this 
was approved on or about October 2001.
GAMOS Ltd was contracted by Dfid to disburse this grant.

- Nigel Scott from GAMOS Ltd visited Uganda in November during which visit 
expense requests were submitted to him. Within the time constraint of his 
visit, Proforma Invoices were collected from reputable vendors for the 
supply of various items.

 From the bids received, NCR and INCAFEX were selected to respectively 
supply and Install the LAN -- with its accessories i.e RACK, patch panel & 
patch cord etc.. and the Power Back-Up source.

- The following 2 Bank Accounts were opened with Barclays Bank of Uganda.

Uganda Internet Exchange Point 	Ug. Shillings Account No. 1164060
Uganda Internet Exchange Point		US. Dollar Account No. 	4241201

Signatories to Accounts are:

Charles Musisi		Director & Interim Chairman
Badru Ntege		Director
Hope Mugagga		Director & Secretary to Board

Requires 2 signatories(Chairman and any other)

The rest Charles's report was narration of issues already contained in an 
earlier
report posted on the lists.

In reaction to the report various participants said the following:

Isaac Kasaana(Afsat):

The critical need beyond anything else was to start while any shortcomings 
will be
mended as work progresses. The key functions that need attention, in Isaac's
words were:

- A business manager to coordinate installations, procurements and any
other day-to-day matters. ToRs for the individual identified should be drawn
immediately so that work he/she starts.

- Technical staff be brought on as needed to perform specific  tasks, 
preferably
as volunteers since many of them already hold regular jobs at their respective
places of work.

- In order for the IXO operation to be sustainable, immediate steps be to 
reach out
to groups like the Parliament of  of Uganda, WFP, UNICEF, UNDP, Uganda Home 
Pages,
Metrocomia and others who are known to generate local traffic.

Rob Gipman(MTN) made his contribution but also clarified on a number of issues:

- that the IXP be built to be stable, and noted that experience with the 
commercial
IXP was that the backbone on whole never went down, instead most failure 
was from
the ISP's inability to properly operate their networks and connected devices.

- concurred that prospective members with own external gateways may join, 
for as long
as the purpose was for traffic within the boundaries of Uganda.

-- On co-location, care will have to be taken to ensure no one uses the 
facilities to
gain uncompetitive advantage over others. That is, the tariff for 
co-locating will have
to be carefully worked to fully reflect this.

Donald Twesige(also from MTN), argued that the IXP should stick to proven
manufacturers brand names for the PC/servers to benefit from warranty and 
guarantee
performance.

In any case the immediate needs of the IXP didn't require top of the range 
servers
as off the shelf PCs with known track records can suffice.

Mark Lukyamuzi, Mark Tinka, Noah Sematimba and the rest of the Sanyutel 
crew argued for
purpose built "home" made servers because they had tested parts, were 
cheaper and can
put together within a short time.

Noah Sematimba proposed that a workshop be conducted to acquaint technical 
staff from
participating orgnaisations with key skills requisite in running stable BGP 
routes.
The proposed date for this about 2 months from when the IXP opens.

UTL was represented by Eric Mulindwa who was warmly welcomed, and 
encouraged to ask UTL management to fully support this process.

Staffing:

Previous staff models proposed were reviewed with the following view prevailed.

That a business manager, whose role will be to coordinate activities should be
hired/identified for an initial period of 2 month, upon which a review will
be made to determine the actual staffing needs of the IXP. ToRs & CV be 
published on
the mailing for quick review and he/she starts work immediately. The time 
line on
this is Friday 22nd February 2002.

Volunteer technical staff come forward to supervise the ongoing LAN and 
Power Back-up installations. Compensation for out of pocket expenses like 
transport and meals
should/will be provided. Modalities will be put in place for support calls 
to be
escalated to competent technical staff from among techies' group or friends 
elsewhere.

- Tariff structure:

A tariff be determined and adopted not later than Friday 22nd Februay after 
review of
the business plan.  Charles Musisi will post a draft of the business plan 
for review.

- Premise and facilities:

The rented premises on Communications House will immediately be opened for 
work on the installation of LAN and Power back-up system to start. All 
necessary items required to operation be procured, and facilities put in 
place without further delay.

NCR will supply a 43U RACK, build the LAN, in as much is practical, based 
on the design proposed by Techies' 
Group(http://uixp.co.ug/archives/bin00002.bin), while INCAFEX will
install the Power Back-up system.

While appreciation was extended to the offer by some members of the 
Techies' group to build purpose designed Servers, on close scrutiny it 
doesn't appear like this is of immediate importance, but rather normal 
Desktop PCs suffice the needs of the moment. These will be procured from 
local vendors from the funds available while money will be made available
in the  budget to have the proposed Servers to be built when that need 
becomes apparent.

- A work in progress report  be presented to the list during course of the 
coming weeks.

- Expenditures and financial reports will be furnished to the membership on 
a regular
basis.

- Conduct of Business:

While every effort should be made to call face-to-face meetings, the 
mailings lists,
phone calls, e-mail/fax and other means will be used to conduct business. 
For the record, resolutions or consultations done will be posted on the 
board list and cc: to other lists
were relevant. The taskforce list will revert to the board list and will be 
archived
and passwd protected.

It is expected other interest groups will emerge from the activities of the 
UiXP. These will be facilitated to every extent possible to encourage broad 
participation from interested members of the Internet Community. The 
Techies list is encouraged to continue.

For an appropriate time, an attempt will made to open up a general assembly 
list for all members of the Internet Community.

Lists will enact own rules of business to suit membership.

Meeting adjourned at 12:20pm.

Attendance:

Hope Mugagga	Uganda Connect Project(Secretary to Board)

Isaac Kasaana	-- Afsat Communications (U) Ltd - Board Member
Maurice Barigye -- Afsat Communications (U) Ltd --
Observer & new member of the Techies' Interest Group

Rob Gipman		MTN -- Techies' Group
Donald Twesige	MTN -- 	Techies' Group

Eric Mulindwa		Uganda Telecom Ltd(UTLOnline), Techies group

Mark Tinka		Sanyutel  -- Techies' Group
Mark Lukyamuzi		Sanyutel  -- Techies' Group & Representing
			Badru Ntege a Board member

David Lubowa		Sanyutel -- techies' Group

Charles Musisi		CFI/UoL	- Board Member & Interim Chairman