Savage Island Network History (White Paper Links)

Niue (pronounced 'new-way') is a small Island in the South Pacific located at around 169 West by 19 South, and is so very isolated, the problem of Internet services has been a difficult one to say the very least. All overseas connections are expensive, bandwidth is very limited (and again, expensive).

Local communication until a few years ago involved small phones with cranks on the side in most villages. Telecom Niue eventually upgraded those connections and local switching services improved as well. This made it possible to consider electronic communications as a possibility and it didn't take long to create local interest in where that could go.

Development of the first version of the Savage Island Network began around January of 1995. At that time, the original system ran as a standard BBS (RABBS) running under Digital Research DOS, and was configured as a local only (intranet)email, file server and BBS service. Dubbed the Savage Island Network after the original name given to the Island of Niue by Captain Cook, that system ran 24 hours a day 7 days a week and provided the first electronic communications of it's kind on Niue, primarily to the government of Niue's internal administrative infrastructure and a handful of users interested in data communications.

With only twenty to thirty users, the privately owned Savage Island Network was the beginning of telecommunications development on Niue and served as a training tool and learning environment for the local users as well as those who assumed the challenge of things to come and the need to be familiar with new technologies. Interestingly enough, that system logged an enourmous number of calls with what by Niue standards was a very high level of communication traffic. The need was there-potential seen.

That system was replaced with a 32 bit version of the WildCat BBS system, and the users found themselves fast into the world of HTML and other "new look and feel" interfaces. Still it was a local only BBS running file services, ftp, news groups email and in general, being used as a teaching tool for the fifty or so users on-line. Government departments could exchange data electronically without printing it, or traveling to other departments on the Island. Value was beginning to show, traffic was on the increase and the user base was building.

Enter Internet User's Society........

About the time that my personal resources were starting to feel the sting of the legendary "self funded" hobby, and also during the time when ideas for an affordable world wide connection for our services were running low, the Government of Niue introduced me to the Internet User's Society in Boston Massachusetts. After many discussions with government officials and other interested parties on Niue, it was decided that the project would continue, as a private sector development, and Savage Island Network would join forces with the Internet User's Society to form the Internet Users Society Niue, in order to complete the task of bringing world wide email and Internet services to Niue.

The fundamental plan was to set up the ccTLD .nu domain to be sold as domain registrations on the open global market. The resources generated by those sales would then be used to develop and maintain the Internet services on Niue. After a few set backs and a lot of hard work, we brought the email-only services on-line and opened to the Niuean public in March of 1997 after some weeks of testing.

Now after some years of on-line time with world wide email services we are finally seeing the Internet as a standard communications utility. With full Internet services to Niue, and progress and development of world wide communications services, the IT development on Niue can continue as planned. Our systems continue to improve, and the services have been opened up to all permanent Niuean residents and the government of Niue as a no cost service. The traffic has increased, the machines are state of the art, and the demand is following the generation of resources brilliantly.

Full services have been on-line since June 1999, and we look forward to whatever new developments in telecommunications, health and education that we can provide with the resources being generated by the .nu domain sales. So, if you happen to register a .nu domain, please remember that you are helping to keep Niue on-line in a way that would not be possible otherwise, and you are helping development at the grass roots level in other areas as well. Thank you for that!

-Richard Saint Clair, Alofi Niue-

White Paper Links

SolarFi, Building Solar Powered Wifi
Cyclone Heta, A Hands on Report
White Paper 2: Building Wireless on Niue
White Paper 1: Niue's .NU
Niue's NU-Buy the Book
Addressing the World, Erica Wass