The flag of Pitcairn the smallest UK dependency ... 025° 04' South 130° 06' West

Communications Technology on The Island Today:

The computer and telecom equipment installed on Pitcairn as of 1 Nov 99, with installation dates:

• USGS Geological Survey Sensor Network (Christian's Cave) [late 1990's]
• Govt offices email (secure) system [Fall 1999]
• Govt Inmarsat A / M Telephone & Fax hookup [late 1990's - Present]
• Early 20th Century 'plug based' phone system [1920's - 1930's ?]
• Every island household has access to some kind of 'ham radio' equipment (shortwave transmitter), for SSB radio telephone service
  

Ownership Information of the *.PN domain:

• The Pitcairn Island Goverment is the Owner and Operator (O&O) of the "upper level domain" on behalf of the island residents. 
• The upper level domain's syntax is in the format {LEGAL-URL}.pn
• The "upper level domain" is administered at : www.government.pn
• The Pitcairn government became the 'owner' of the domain {URL}.pn around 2000-2001, from the outcome of a UK courts decision -- the control of the domain was not transferred to the Pitcairn Island Govermernt in the beginning, thus the dispute reached the courts

Technical & Engeenering Issues

Unresolved Electrical Power Issues on Pitcairn:

• As of 2001, the island only has ~9.0 {hours / day} of electrical power provided by a 10 {kw} diesel generator
• Electrical power is not available 24 hours / day
• 24 hour / day electrical power is needed for emergency web communications, as in future it may not be so easy to reach NZ or Tahiti on HF frequencies -- this is due to the global decline in use of the HF spectrum, a seperate issue from this document

Unresolved Network 'Head End' Technical issues:

• TCP / IP Filtering (to prevent stuff like SYN Floods...etc) "Network Layer Issue"
• Net Protocol Filtering (HTTP, FTP, IMAP / POP, telnet) "Application Layer Issue"
• Net Content Filtering (HTTP, Mail attachments, upper level domain access rules) "Application / Session Layer Issue"

• the current Internet network system is not able to ramp up its conncection speed to the web to (approach or equal) 256 kbs, as there may be future applications where a broadband link may be needed -- this unresolved speed cannot be ignored forever
• a redundant satcom link is needed to keep a satcom web circuit open at all times -- for fundamental safety & health reasons, this is a 'quality of life issue'

  • a redundant www satcom link will not be affordable to the Pitcairn Island ISP as sales of  the "*.PN" domain have been slower than antisipated
  • satcom www link redundancy will probably be affordable by 2006, but this is a guesstimate

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The Current Internet Arrangement

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Sometime during March 2002, the Pitcairn Island Government (the monopoly ISP) launched a wireless internet service for local residents.

The internet comes to the home by a 19.2 kbs radio data service designed for laptop computer users.

• The main Internet connection to the island is a 64 kbs (56 kbs?) satcom www link to an Hawaiian (USA) ISP
• The satcom curcuit tosts $600 USD / month (2002, all USD figures)
• The yearly cost to the island ISP is ~ $7200 USD (subject to changes in NZD --> USD rates)
• The connection cost (per hour) works out to be 0.82 USD
  
• The cost to the subscriber is $40 NZ / month (there is no discount for year + connection contracts) 
• all of the costs of providing the 'web service' are paid for by the Pitcairn Island ISP (the Goverment); effectivly this means that the Pitcian Government is subsudizing the 'web connection cost' to the consumer by funds obtained from reselling "*.PN" domain names 
• at least 300 *.PN domain names need to be sold (per year) to maintain the basic web connection to Pitcairn Island (see above satcom connection figures) 
• considering all of the (direct and indirect ) costs as well as 'sunk costs' the web service will not really start paying for itself until 2008 or later -- it may take some time for the islanders to become net savvy, and able to use the web in business transactions ... that would ultimatly return money to the Pitcairn Goverment

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Document Revisions

Initial version
1998 : 03 OCT 98, 16 DEC 98

This version
2003 : 29 JUL 2003