Palestinian Academic Network - PLANET

The Palestinian Academic Network “PLANET” at Al-Quds University is the leading Educational Internet Service Provider in Palestine. Until 1995, Internet connectivity in Palestine was either limited to email services only, or through non Palestinian ISP outside Palestine. In 1995, PLANET was the first ISP to offer full dial up Internet access in Palestine. At that time PLANET started linking universities, colleges as well as schools with the Internet for a minimal connection fee. In many cases the connectivity was offered free of charge. It also linked Research Centers and some non- governmental organizations. Planet linked most of the Palestinian ministries using wireless means of communication such as microwave devices, since leased line service were still not offered by the local telephone company - PALTEL. In a later stage PLANET started offering connectivity between cities and within cities through leased lines provided by PALTEL.

PLANET hosted on its equipment most of the Palestinian web sites. In fact, most Palestinian universities, research centers and newspapers, started the web presence on PLANET servers.

Currently, the connectivity issue is solved by PALTEL, the government network and a few commercial ISP’s. Many of the organizations serviced by PLANET have switched to there own networks. Some of them have there own web servers now and have moved there sites to them. Many organizations still prefer to host there sites at PLANET for many reasons, including: good
connectivity, higher up times and good support.

PLANET mission is to provide the necessary organizational, technical and academic infrastructure, whereby Palestinian academicians, scholars and researchers will be able to have access to international academic resources and references, communicate with peer scholars, and connect local Palestinian universities in a national communications network.

PLANET headquarters at Al-Quds University campus in Abu Dies is functioning as an academic ISP. It's connected with the Internet through two leased lines (frame relay, 1Mb/s and 256kb/s) with the following main equipment:

• 3640 Cisco router with 30 internal modems allowing 30 users to connect (PPP) simultaneously.
• 2511 Cisco router connected to 16 external modems allowing 16 users to connect (PPP) simultaneously - Donation from PECDAR.
• Mail server, running send mail on redhat linux.
• Web server, running apache on redhat linux.
• Proxy server, running squid on redhat linux.
• NT server, that creates an inner network with print services.
• Two UPS's that provide power instantly in case of a power failure.
• 2 low grade PCs used by PLANET team.
  

• Badie Sartawi, Ph.D, Computer Science .
• Office Manager, Labiba Kaloti.
• Systems Administrator, Isam Ishaq, M. Sc., Communications.
• Systems Administrator, Marwan Rabie', Electronic Eng - Communications.
• User Support, Niveen Issa B. Sc.
• Webmaster, Khalil Jamous B. Sc.