E-mail in Eritrea

Basic Description of Email services

Currently email is available in Eritrea, but full Internet access is not. Basic Internet access will probably be available in Eritrea at the end of 1999.

The Eritrean Technical Exchange (ETE) is the major wholesale service provider in Eritrea at the moment. ETE is running a modified UUCP transport over dial-up connections between the U.S. and Eritrea. The transport includes compression and batching of email in order to increase the efficiency of the transfers.

Linux PC servers are installed at the Department of Energy, Asmara University, and two commercial providers: EWAN Technical Solutions and Tfanus Enterprises. The servers provide dial-up email services in Eritrea and batching and transport of email to the Internet. The Linux servers connect to ETE in San Francisco from 3-7 times a day, except for the University of Asmara server which receives its email through EWAN.

The user interface is usually a variant of UUPC. But users can also use commercial software such as Eudora, Netscape, or Microsoft Explorer if they subscribe to a dial-up PPP account with one of the commercial providers. The Department of Energy server connects to about 35 institutions, while commercial providers service several hundred institutions and individuals.

The email user base has almost expanded to the point where it could financially sustain full TCP/IP connectivity, if and when a continuous international connection is permitted. ETE is also the technical administrator for the .ER domain and provides domain name services to this end. ETE is a non-profit project of the International Collaborative for Science, Education and the Environment, and accepts donations to support its network development activities in Eritrea.