NamibHub is a product of Impulse Computer Services and was officially launched on 26 August 2009.

The launch date coincides with Namibia Day (Better known as Heroes' Day). The date also marks the birthday of its founder. As the name implies, NamibHub serves as a hub (Central Point) for the unification of premium quality web-, email-, domain hosting and registration service. Basically NamibHub as a product resembles ISP (Internet Services Provider) services. The product mainly serves the Namibian market but is in no way limited to such. NamibHub also has clients in Germany and South Africa.

Our dedicated Linux and Windows based servers are located in data centres in Chicago in the United States which puts us in the unique position to provide services on a global scale.  Unlike other service providers, all our setups are fully customized and customizable and therefore unique. Our products are of international quality with a personal touch that reflects the beauty and sophistication that a country like Namibia has to offer.

   About The Name

The word "Namib" refers to the Namib Desert which can be found in Namibia and southwest Angola which forms part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park. The name is of Nama origin. Of all the African people presently in Namibia and South Africa, the only truly original indiginous people of the region are the San (Bushman) who were the hunter gatherers and the Nama who lived a semi nomadic pastoral life. The Namib desert is considered one of the oldest in the world having existed for over 55 million years. Namibia, formerly known as South West Africa borrowed its name from the Namib Desert.

The name reflects our uniqueness and it is the reason why we associate our products and services with such. Volker has a deep founded admiration for natural things and therefore highly respects a heritage like the Namib for its natural beauty and sophistication.

One of the most intriguing wonders of the Namib are the Sossusvlei clay pan in the central Namib Desert, lying within the Namib Naukluft National Park. Sosusvlei is well known for its high, red sand dunes which surround it forming what can typically be described as a sand see.

The word "Hub" is derived from network hub as used in information technology. It is a fairly unsophisticated broadcast device used to link computers together. Hubs do not restrict or manage any of the traffic that flow through them. Just as a hub performs its function of distributing data without bias or discrimination, NamibHub wants to provide unsophisticated products and services to customers without limitations or restrictions. Our goal is to serve as a hub for Namibian customers without them having to worry about restrictions, eaves dropping, polytics and other matters.

To kick off with, NamibHub does not hide fees and we don't care to compare our product offerings with those of other ISPs. We feel that any person or company that speaks poorly about another has possible had a bad experience, is jelous or is trying to brainwash existing or potential clients in using their own services.

To put it mildly, our products are international, advanced, affordable and unique and can be considerd some of the best value money can buy.

We want our customers to feel confident that their rights and privileges are being looked after and protected. We don't agree or condone the monitoring or restriction of Internet services by anybody, feeling that such practices are an invasion of privacy and the freedom of speech and go against what our ancesors faught for. It is our opinion that the Internet should remain free and not dominated by people or corporations with financial gain, power or other hidden agendas. Our products emphasis personal freedom which refers to free will. All customers are free to use our services and to do so without a fear of being monitored. That said, we won't tollerate customers that don't respect the freedom, rights and previledges of other customers and we maintain the right to disrupt the services of any customer that we feel has a negative effect or impact on our and alternative service providers' customers.  Everybody is welcome to make use of our services, irrelevant of race, colour, language or nationality providing they obide by our site policies. Our internet services are secure and can be accessed globally.

   The Founder

Volker Bause is the founder and owner of NamibHub and was born in Windhoek, Namibia on 26 August 1971.

His native language is German but he is also fluent in Afrikaans and English. Volker attended schools in Namibia (South West Africa until its independence in 1990) such as Delta School Windhoek, Karibib Private School, Suiderhof Primary School, and Academia High School. He graduated from Academia High School with Standard 10 (Grade 12) in 1990 in the year of Namibia's independence.

Until 1991, Junior and Secondary Schools in Namibia fell under the curricumum as set by South Africa's Capetown Educational Department and matric exams for Namibia were still set and marked by South Africa's Capetown  Education Department.

In 1994-1995 senior secondary schools adopted the grade system as developed by the National Institution for Education and Development (NIED), one of the branches of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Youth, and Sport. The NIED was entrusted with the task of reforming and developing the curriculum, integrating the national language policy with English as the official language. Junior Secondary Schools were phased into the new system from 1991 to 1993. The goal of the new education plan was that all Namibians would acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills and a basic understanding of natural phenomena within a few years.

In January 1991 Volker was accepted to study computer science at the Cape Technicon in South Africa for a period of 3 years. The offer was declined when another study opportunity presented itself in the form of an Business Computing course which was only established a year earlier by the Polytechnic of Namibia in cooperation with mayor national and international companies such as Rossing Uranium, CDM de Beers, Municipality of Windhoek, Bank Windhoek and Namtrac. This provided Volker with the opportunity to attend and study what was considered one of the most prestige courses of the polytechnic at the time with the added benefit of being close to home, friends and family. Only a quarter of the original class of 25 which were accepted to attend the course graduated with a 3 year Diploma in Business Computing in 1994. Course materials were provided and moderated by the National Centre for Computer Technology in the United Kingdom with emphasis on the Namibian company needs at the time. In mid in 1991 Volker attracted the attention of CDM (Consolidate Diamond Mines / Namibia de Beers) which provided him with a bursary and job opportunity during and upon completion.

After his studies, Volker worked saught for a job closer to home and worked approximately 4-5 years for Namibian Computer Services which later became PQ Namibia, the result of a merger by Persetel (Which had a majority share in Namibian Computer Services) and QData Namibia. PQ Namibia was also later known as Comparex and eventually became Business Conexions. With a proud history of over 27 years in the market, Business Connexion is Namibia’s leading integrator of competitive, innovative and practical business solutions based on Information and Communication Technologies. Namibian Computer Services (Now Business Conexions) has/had a proven track record in designing and implementing business solutions for many of Namibia’s most successful public- and private-sector organizations.

In 1999 Volker established his own ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) company called Impulse Computer Services which gave rise to NamibHub as a product.

In recent years, Volker has concentrated his efforts in building his ICT around opensource and free solutions from which he derives his income by means of system anaysis, design and implementation. Volker is a firm believer in open source projects and philosophies like Linux which he combines with a multitude of free and enterprise quality products for a much more effective services and solutions. Volker's company, Impulse Computer Services Cc specializes in solutions based on products such as VMWARE, OpenSUSE Linux, Oracle, (i.e Virtual Box, OpenOffice & Java), Kerio, Bitdefender and Microsoft. It is Volker's opinion that most of an ICT companies profit should be derived through the delivery of services rather than just reselling of products. In Namibia, proper aftersales support is seriouly lacking and this is one of the areas where Volker has made his mark.

Volker is multi-talented and has lots of experience and hobbies in a variety of other areas such as Metal work, Wood work, Masonry, Restoration, Electricity & Electronics, Crayfishing, Digital Photography, Painting, Console Games etc. allowing customers to benefit from his unique knowledge and experience. Above all else, Volker values knowledge, experience and professionalism and spends a lot of time, money and effort in training and education.

   History

The idea for NamibHub was forged by Volker and can be primarily contributed to poor local services.  Years of having to deal with services provided by other Internet service providers sparked the idea that it would be much more fun, educational and professional to offer our own internet services. Finances, experience, knowledge and technological developments made this possible.  Personal experience with local email systems proved that these services were highly unreliable and unprofessional. It became obvious that clients prefered to phone us rather than the ISP when they experienced problems with Email, Internet, DNS and Web hosting. Clients generally do not have much insight into the background workings of email and other internet services and generally don't care as long as they work. Suffering similar problems as clients and being fed up with reliance on such poor services, Volker decided to investigate running his own dedicated server since 2005. This involved a lot of research, investigating, experience and finance.

What made NamibHub possible is Volker's own skill and understanding of internet services which was gained by the following:

  Studies into Linux, MTA (Mail Transfer Agents), DNS (Dynamic Name Services)
  Growing dedicate customer base
  Implementation of ADSL, 3G and other 24 hour broadband internet services by Telecom Namibia, MTC, MWEB and other Namibian service providers.
  The presentation of uncapped broadband internet facilities
  Personal interest in becoming more involved in services such as web page design and hosting driven by the expense and inaffectiveness of local advertising
  Interests in Remote Access and Internet Backup solutions.
  Research into the hosting of IM (Instant Messaging), VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and other internet based technologies.
  Running internet services requires a big budget which include but are not limited to the running costs of managed or dedicated servers or services, employee salaries, anti-virus software, research and development, maintenance and support by means of telephone, web page etc.
  Commitment of existing customer base and growth of a new customer base.

   Goals

NamibHub's immediate goal is to provide secure, professional and international email, webhosting and domain name services to customers throughout Namibia and abroad at reasonable prices while being profitable. We have gone through great lengths to build up international products that truly stand out amongst local and international solutions. As a customer you are assured of satisfaction and succes.

Products and services provided by NamibHub are complimented by those provided by Impulse Computer Services. Every product or services we provide strives for quality rather than quantity!

To achieve this, we constantly do self assesments and make changes to better suite our customers requirements and needs. We believe that everybody should get a second chance providing they show initiative in bettering themselves and leaving old issues and bad habbets in the past

   Green Planet

Our goal is to be green in terms of operation. Examples:

  It is our goal do a anual tree planting day in Namibia. This will be done annually on NamibHub's launch date.  The venue will be established and announced 3 months in advance and the 1st tree planting will be done on 26 August 2012. Invitations will be sent out in advance via email.

  Introduction of quoterly instead of monthly billing for cash payments.  Quoterly bills are charged as follows:

1. 1 January to 31 March
2.  1 April to 30 June
3.  1 July to 30 September
4. 1 October to 31 December.

The reason this is considered more energy efficient is because energy (Electricity) can be saved using computers, printers, lighting, climatization etc.

  Absense of active Adobe Flash or animation content on our web sites. Animated video uses more power because of higher CPU consumption. Flashy animated content is known to excellerate CPU (Central Processing Unit) and memory usage. This translates into more electricity being uses

  Our web pages are printer friendly. Arguments exist that by not printing email or other content you are saving the planet. While this certainly may be true in small emails and other content which are just a few lines or paragraphs long, the contrary is apparent on larger documents. Printing documents is considered more eco friendly than spending hours if not days reading them online, especially if done with eco friendly inks and paper and possible also green electricity.

What is not immediately apparent is that reading documents online does actually produce more waste, polution and greenhouse gasses than printing. Electronic component like your computers, broadband modems, telephone or ADSL lines etc. require electricity to operate. Most electricity in developing countries like Namibia is produced by processing carbon fuels which include charcoal, oil, diesel or one of many other carbon based fossil fuels. Power stations burning these fuels produce polution in the form of greenhouse gases in the form of carbon dioxide which excel global warming damage the ozone layer and lead to global warming.

To be noted is that carbon dioxide contributes 9%-26% to the greenhouse effect. Water Vapor actually contributes 36-72%. Any gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range is consdiered a greenhouse gas. Humans can cut down on the use of products that produce greenhouse gasses.

Every minute you spend on a computer based document, you are using power. Like it or not, computers need power to function and global warming is on the increase by the increase in energy production, be it your car burning fuel, you using your air conditioner or heater to climatize your home or office or you using your computer.  What does this lead to you may wonder. Definately sea levels are rising, polar icecaps are melting, wheather is becoming more visious and un-predictable. In our opinion, reading (Especially more complex data) of documents on technology like computers is much more damaging to our planet than printing of documents. 100's of people can read one single printed page while 100's of people would be the cause of much more carbon emmisions if they read that same page using a seperate computer each. Translate this figure to millions and you have a planet killer. Unfortunately most of us have forgotten the joy of going to a public library to take out a book as computers have become so much more convenient. Our motto, think before you do.
 
  Implementation of debit orders. Automatic collection of services fes means we don't have to print invoices, statements etc. and spend a lot of time and energy on collecting money. Debit orders are considered the most affordable and convenient form of payment, especially since annual fees remain the same. Pricing will be adapted annualy and should never exceed annual inflashion rates. It is common for IT pricing to become cheaper instead of increasing.

  Billing cash clients on a 3 months prepaid basis. This results in savings in energy administration, paperwork and complexity. At NamibHub we devide the year into quarters. Clients are charged quoterly and will be reminded weekly one month in advance providing ample opportunity to get their finances in order. This form of payment allows for convenience while being affordable.

As from 1 July 2010, all customers will be presented with annual contracts. The purpose of the contract is to protect everybody involved while ensuring us of a fixed income in terms of our internet services.

   Referals

NamibHub compensates people that refer our services. It is our opinion that customers that are loyal and promote our products should be rewarded. For every one year email contract signed with NamibHub, the refered will receive 10% discount based on the new contract which is signed for a 1 year period.

Should accumulated discounts exceed money owed, discounts based on the new contracts will be converted to credit which will be redeemable once accumulated funds exceed N$500. Alternatively such credit can be used as payment for other products or services as supplied by NamibHub or Impulse Computer Sercices (i.e. Anti-Virus Software).