fest’nalenga…fest napuan…zion fest…streamed online

This is a first for Vanuatu and for the fest Napuan festival that has become a huge musical annual event for Vanuatu, to have this musical event streamed online. This is made possible through WiMAX broadband technology using a CPE-Si subscriber unit. If you’d like to hear what the folks in Vila are listening to, here is the ip address that you can use on your internet browser or itunes: http://202.80.37.47:8000/listen.m3u

We are only streaming audio this year maybe in years to come we may be able to stream both audio and video. The festival will be on tonight, tomorrow night through till sunday for the zion fest…enjoy

Wireless Broadband thriving in Vila!!!

                                   

Getting fast internet on demand around Port Vila and surrounding suburbs can be a very tricky task, some places even impossible. The broadband network run by TVL is mainly concentrated in the CBD through the existing ancient copper cable network. This, at times is very slow and unreliable. TVL has ventured into wireless broadband (WiMAX) as an alternative solution to provide broadband internet service to residents and commercial enterprises in the rural areas of Efate albeit within a 17km radius of the two telecom towers in Vila.

Telecom Vanuatu Limited is working towards extending its WiMAX network further into the rural areas of Efate and other islands in the country. There currently is the 3.5GHz Alvarion Breezemax system running for the past 7 months however there has been a few complaints coming from a satellite application company that a channel on their C band has had some interference with it since TVL installed their WiMAX equipments. A few tests were done to try to confirm this accusation and also determine the soucre of this noise, it was found that the WiMAX equipments were not the source of this noise but TVL has taken measures to change its frequency range from the current 3.5GHz frequency to 2.3GHz as ITU is also thinking of relocating the 3.5GHz range else where.

The new 2.3GHz WiMAX equipments have arrived in Vila from the Israeli manufacturer; Alvarion, and are ready for deployment. So I’m just putting the word out there for anybody traveling or thinking to relocate to Vila that YES!!! wireless broadband is available and rapidly picking up momentum in Vanuatu.

Now you can either buy your equipment overseas and then rent the broadband internet package from TVL or you can just purchase the subscriber units from TVL. I suggest you buy the equipment overseas to make things easier. Here is a picture of the equipment TVL currently supports:

         

 

 

The Beautification of Port Vila (Part2)

I heard rumours that the footpaths were funded by the millennium challenge fund, this got me going!! since that money should surely be used in developing our rural infrastructures. I made a few phone calls and found out that the MC fund had nothing to do with the building of the footpaths and that their funding came from the municipality itself(which should be). That kinda made sense since it is under the jurisdiction of the municipality. I’ll be posting some pictures of some of the work taking place around town on my next post on this topic…till then

Sunshiners release 2nd Album in Europe

Sunshiners have relaesed their second album in europe. For those of you not familiar with this reggae group, it is made up of four musicians from various Vanuatu’s top reggae groups and a group of french musicians and producer. They have toured all over europe, asia and the carribeans attending music festivals such as WOMAD. Their first release was a huge success in europe and are continuing to make waves with their blend of reggae. So far all their songs have been remixes of songs like: woman, she drives me crazy, take the long way home, baby jane, back in black…the list goes on.

It is good to see locals getting international exposure and flagging the Vanuatu flag around the globe. Hope to see you guys making it on to the “big stage”.

Here is a link to their myspace website:

http://www.myspace.com/sunshinersfromvanuatu

Here are a few of their video clips on youtube

GO VANUATU!!!

All the best boys for tomorrows football semifinal in the SPG

The Beautification of Port Vila (Part1)

Over the recent weeks there has been work on building footpaths along the roads of Vila town, it seems like the Municipal is finally trying to do something about the safety of people walking along the roads and the fact that there are so many cars on our roads now. This new Mayor should be commended on pumping some life into the municipality. The only problem I see is that some of the footpaths are built over telecom land lines…I hope the town planners are aware of this and doing something about it, I will be calling them up tomorrow and asking about this. Will keep you posted

La Piste Bleue

Last Saturday, 25th August, I participated in an annual bush trekking event called “La Piste Bleue”, it was organized by our local (foreign owned) power company, Unelco. The walk takes you through the bush treks of efate island, where Port Vila is locatetd.  I thought I was fit for the walk so ended  up  not  doing  any training what so ever for it (wasn’t my best idea yet), to make matters worse I ended up on the piss the previous night but was truly up and ready for the walk come 0230hrs for pickup. We just made the registrations and got given our participants’ shirts and team tags (3 in a group), once we all got dropped off at the starting point and the formalities said and done it was time for the fun to begin. Here is me feeling confident about myself, the walk started off with a nice and relaxing pace for the first half hour or so but then my mates started to lift the tempo of the walk. I managed to keep up with the group for the first 3 check points and also taking in the sights along the way, after that cramps started playing up with my right leg…should have done some training, hell, some folks even ran the whole length of the bush track. My body starting aching all over and my head started getting heavy, funnily enough I really did enjoy the pain and was determined on finishing the walking no matter what, we had another 5 check points to go before we finished the walk. Along the way we met some good Samaritans who gave me some medicine for the cramps plus on every check point there were medics available the massages etc…that was a big help. At some spots along the way, the view was breath taking looking into the back into Port Vila town or the deep valleys or dense rainforest. Somehow the air up on those mountains just felt a lot cleaner and very refreshing than the air down in the coast, it made the pain even sweeter and the experience a blessing. We wavered through the thick mud, mini creeks,countless hills, narrow walkways, rope aided climbs and one river crossing to reach our destination in a little over 8 hours. It was an awesome feeling to finish the walk and share the journey with my mates, I am already looking forward to next year and yes, I will be better equipped for La Piste Bleue.