Specialized in the Internet via the satellite, the start-up of Sophia will enable the association to develop distant learning in high schools of Ulundi in South Africa.
CommTimeCast is going to give possibilities to /www.tsfworld.org">Technologie Sans Frontière, an association funded by Laurent Bardin, an engineer in Information Technology in Sophia Antipolis. It is an association which has no purpose of gain and profit and has the vocation to offer a springboard for Technologies of Information and Communication to disadvantaged regions of South Africa. It has set up the South Africa Net 2001 project, which however needs technological means to be carried out.
Distance learning capacities overdriven
A start-up of Sophia has just given those means. Specialized in the telecommunication market via satellites, CommTime Cast has offered indeed to the association an exhaustive configuration of diffusion-reception via satellite. This gift will allow to develop a distance learning programme via satellite in the «lycées» (high schools) of Ulundi in South Africa. The configuration is important. It includes a complete pack of a satellite antenna equipped with a professional dual front end and two IP set top decoders; a broadcast service of 4 hours training programmes per week; a ftp multicast service on this broadcast time to download big files at the bandwidth of 512 K and 1 Mbits per second.
According to « Technologie Sans Frontières », this configuration will make it possible to send lots of data, either training programmes or various information. Moreover, it will be sent within a minimum time, a quality of image and sound in high definition. This tool will duplicate by 10 and even by 100 our capacity of distance learning, once the hardware will be set up in the lycées of Ulundi and the first trainings started there', specified Laurent Bardin, president of the association.
According to Michel Del Giudice, CEO of Comm Time Cast, « new technologies make it possible, from now on, and at an affordable cost, to transmit knowledge to all and for all. This project consists in developing a solution adapted to the place in a very pragmatic way,. The experience acquired in this context will certainly be precious for many countries which survival depends of the acquisition of knowledge and 'savoir faire' for young generations.'