It won’t even take a month until this year’s FOSS4G 2018 opens its doors to participants and visitors in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. For Till Adams, it will soon be time to pack suitcases to make his way to Dar es Salaam. By the way, registration for the conference is still possible today and the corresponding tickets can be purchased here. The FOSS4G is the GIS event of the year among connoisseurs; a visit is worthwhile!

In the context of the conference and the preparation of Till Adams’ presentation “Approaches to WebGIS in times of unstable or weak Internet connections”, we at terrestris have increasingly dealt with network availability in Africa. At the beginning of the third millennium, a fibre optic cable was laid around the continent of Africa, which has led to a significant increase in network availability in Africa’s major cities. The WACS fibre optic cable link, which went into operation in May 2002, runs from South Africa along the West African coast to Europe.

Fibre is therefore not only an issue in Europe, but also in Africa. Whether the companies terrestris and mundialis, with the experience they have gained in the context of GIS support for fiber optic expansion planning in Germany and Europe, can also deliver support in Africa is perhaps one of the exciting questions that Till Adams will take with him to East Africa. The focus of his talk, however, is more on how to deal with weak and possibly temporarily interrupted Internet connections from the software side. We will discuss this in more detail at a later date.

Contact us if you have any questions about the upcoming FOSS4G. Maybe we’ll see some of you in Dar es Salaam soon!