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Decision-Maker's Guide to Offering
Web-to-Email Service in Your Institution

PREPARED BY THE BELLANET INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT
January 16, 2001


Web-to-Email Makes Access Real


Web-to-Email is a software service that enables people to navigate the web by email. Agora, Getweb, and www4mail are examples of Web-to-Email services. Web-to-Email bridges the information gap for millions of Internet users, most of them living in the South, whose access to the Internet is too slow, expensive, or otherwise inadequate to be able to use the Web effectively. These users usually have only a dial-up phone connection and an email account. With Web-to-Email:


How it works


Web-to-Email users need a few basic things:

Users sent an email to the Web-to-Email service specifying the URL of the desired web page:

To: www4mail@web.bellanet.org
Cc:
Subject:

http://www.undp.org
...

In this example, the user will receive by return email a message with an attachment containing the UNDP homepage as it appears on the web û without the graphics. Interactive elements of the page, including links and forms, are fully functional via email.


Hosting a Web-to-Email Service: Who Benefits?



What You Need to Become a Web-to-Email Host


A copy of www4mail software

www4mail is an Open Source application written in Perl. It was developed at The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). www4mail allows people to surf the web, fill in forms, use search engines, use web sites with cookies, in fact, do almost everything by email that one can do with a full Internet connection. www4mail is robust, well documented, and free for non-profit users.

One Internet-connected personal computer

Your organization must have an Internet-connected computer to use as a dedicated server. This computer performs only a few simple tasks, so the actual computing power you will need is relatively modest although we recommend a Pentium II or better for optimum performance. Ideally the computer will have Linux installed. This is a great way to make use of older computers in your organization û put them to work delivering web pages to Internet users in the South!

Bandwidth to Spare

To run an efficient Web-to-Email service your organization must have excess Internet bandwidth that it can afford to dedicate to access-challenged Internet users in the South. The amount of bandwidth occupied by a single Web-to-Email server operating 24 hours a day is around 350,000 KB per day, or up to 18,000 KB per hour during peak hours. If you think this will have a noticeable impact on service during peak hours, then

    1. your organization might not be a good candidate to run Web-to-Email
    2. you may consider establishing file size limits, quotas, or restricting the service to selected groups of users
    3. your organization may choose to fund the service as a special project, and acquire dedicated bandwidth for the Web-to-Email service

Institutional Commitment

Although the resources needed to set up and maintain Web-to-Email are modest, offering Web-to-Email is an important decision for any institution. Lack of dedicated staff time is the main reason why Web-to-Email services appear and disappear so unexpectedly. Each time this happens it disrupts service for the entire Web-to-Email community. Your organization should be committed to running a stable and reliable service for a number of years.

Ongoing maintenance must be an integral and accepted part of the support provided by IT staff, even though the clientele is outside the building. The implications of this in terms of budget and staff priorities must be clearly understood before proceeding. In summary, both program and IT managers must understand and value the service for it to be sustainable.

Institutional commitment will also suffer if the service starts to encroach on the institutionÆs bandwidth and cause slowdowns for in-house staff. For this reason itÆs important to understand the bandwidth implications before proceeding.

Technical Capacity

Installation

3 hoursÆ work for an experienced Linux user

Ongoing maintenance

3-4 hours per month


Frequently Asked Questions


Isn't Web-to-Email obsolete?

NO. Global demand for Web-to-Email far outstrips the capacity of the few publicly accessible Web-to-Email gateways available. As the number of Internet users expands, and as the web becomes ever-more bandwidth intense, so too does the number of Internet users with inadequate access to the web. According the best available estimates this trend will continue for at least another four years. Eventually, though, it is hoped that technological change will make Web-to-Email obsolete.

Could users use our Web-to-Email service to download pornography?

Technically YES, but it wonÆt be easy. Content filters scan each outgoing web page for key words and phrases associated with inappropriate material. Documents containing these words wonÆt be delivered.

Can we allow only users in the South or members of our network to access the service?

YES, you can customize the software to filter out unwanted domain names, in order to target your service to specific countries or organizations. You can set up a private Web-to-Email service to facilitate access to corporate Intranets by field staff, for instance.

Can we deny access to certain file types such as MP3 music files?

YES, you can set up the service so that certain file types are denied. www4mail also allows the host to establish monthly quotas for each user and to set file size limits.

Can we charge for the service or sell advertising in outgoing messages?

NO. www4mail software is for non-profit use only. However, three lines are available to the host in each outgoing email. This space can be used for service updates, public service messages and other non-commercial announcements.


Bellanet Can Help

Bellanet is available to provide technical assistance to development institutions wishing to establish a Web-to-Email service. Please contact us for more information:

Bellanet International Secretariat
PO Box 8500 Ottawa, ON K1G 3H9 Canada
Tel (613) 236 6163 ext 2398 ò Fax (613) 238 7230
Email info@bellanet.org ò Web http://www.bellanet.org

For More Information

Bellanet's Web-to-Email information page

http://www.Bellanet.org/email.html
www4mail source code and user guide
http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~www4mail

www4mail home page