On 17th February 2020 AHERI with the support of Basic Internet Foundation deployed the first Internet HotSpot at Akala Community Centre. The centre is one kilometre from Akala Market located on the Kisumu-Bondo Road in South Gem Ward. Most citizens rely on subsistence farming for their upkeep in the area . The Centre is used as a meeting point for women and youth groups to review their financial empowerment projects. The Centre also has a demonstration farm that is used for educating members of the local women and youth groups on modern farming practices to guarantee food security. The Centre will provide Internet connectivity and a Digital Learning Centre to equip Community members with the knowledge and skills needed to use the Internet and ICTs.
The team started the deployment by conducting tests to measure the signal strength and get the direction of the nearest mobile base station that would provide connectivity to the Community Centre. The team was able to obtain a fair signal from Ndori trading centre which is approximately 15 Kilometres from the Community Centre. The signal measurements can be found in the image below.
Upon completion of the network measurements and identification of the direction of the base station with the best signal, the team mounted the radio on a 15 Metre poll, Installed cable infrastructure and a cabinet to host the community server, router and switch. The team further installed four computers at the centre which will be used for learning and provision of digital services. In addition the radio provides an Internet Hotspot that can be used within the two acre compound at the Community Centre
