Summary

  • REHRED built a cross-border working group and participatory plan before the project had a Haitian IP node.
  • In November 1996, the shared server was still being configured; access lines, member-approved tariffs and user connections remained future steps.

A message was not yet a Haitian network

On 23 August 1993, Daniel Pimienta circulated what he called the first message from REHRED in Haiti via the Internet. Schiller Jean-Baptiste’s message traveled from Port-au-Prince to Santo Domingo through ACN, then was forwarded to Pimienta, who read it at INET93 in San Francisco. The report says this was neither REHRED’s own infrastructure nor a completed Haitian Internet domain. It records a route for one message, not a domestic circuit or national service. Archived message report

That boundary is the story. Haiti’s research network came together in layers: people and email first, an organization and service plan next, then a local server and temporary Internet connection. Each had a different operator and status.

A regional project met a local interruption

REDALC sent a diagnostic mission to Haiti in June 1991. A workshop in Santo Domingo the next month sought to prepare networks in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The paired effort did not proceed in sync. A report by Schiller Jean Baptiste and Daniel Pimienta says political change in Port-au-Prince jeopardized the plan; the Dominican network REDID formed in May 1992 without a Haitian counterpart. The authors treated the gap as a reason to change methods, not wait for both projects to restart together. Network plan

Their proposal moved some coordination across the border. Haitian users and technicians could form a group abroad, particularly in the French Caribbean, and carry home technical and organizational groundwork. The plan also argued that a project should not rise and fall with political changes, and that its technical design should continue through political or natural disruption. These were design aims, not evidence that the network later withstood such shocks.

By May 1993, the initiative group used ACN email facilities to correspond with REDALC in Santo Domingo. The archived plan counts more than one hundred messages after the link began. A first group of about 50 researchers would test Internet use through ACN before the final service design. Training, information services, funding and a user-and-institution role in governance were also planned. The August message showed the arrangement working; it did not complete it. Plan and message count Message report

The 1996 record still shows preparation

A January 1996 update said there were no concrete Internet results yet, only preparation and organization. With TELECO’s support, REHRED held an awareness day, including an online session with a Dominican IP, and a three-day email course for about twenty NGOs. Participants still used ACN’s expensive cc:Mail, and the update said ACN had not yet moved to Internet service. This is a dated snapshot, not proof that no one in Haiti could reach the Internet by another route. January update

By November, REHRED reported a new arrangement. ACN had developed satellite Internet access earlier in 1996 and offered a free experimental 64 kbps link to the REHRED server for six months. AUPELF and REHRED agreed to install one national research-and-development network instead of separate REFER and REHRED systems. AUPELF provided the server and connection equipment; REHRED brought access to ACN. Each organization would provide a part-time network administrator, with basic training from AUPELF. November update

The equipment was a Pentium 100 PC running Unix/Linux, connected by radio through a Windows NT server to ACN. But the server was still being configured. REHRED hoped to get eight telephone access lines and did not yet have them. User connections were expected in December, more likely January 1997. The sources establish the plan and configuration state, not that access opened on schedule.

Service membership was institutional, not individual. An annual member fee was to include one email account, a few connection hours, introductory training and remote support. A fixed supplement would buy more accounts and time; further use would be billed by hour or unit. Prices were still being calculated and required member approval. The agreement and free link were provisional for six months, subject to review. November update

What the chronology establishes

The dates describe different thresholds, not competing answers to one “arrival” date. In 1993, one REHRED message used an Internet route through ACN. In January 1996, the project still reported preparation and expensive proprietary email. By November, a shared research server and temporary satellite-fed Internet link were being configured while user access and prices remained unresolved. “Connected” can describe the message, provider, server or users; the records do not collapse those states.

The earliest durable result visible here was organizational: a group and service plan continued while equipment, connectivity and tariffs were assembled. Whether January access began, how many institutions joined and whether the trial was renewed remain unanswered.

Sources