About ISU

The Internet Services Unit (ISU) is a department of King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST) responsible for providing Internet services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with Saudi Telecommunication Company (STC), the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) and a number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from the private sector. ISU was established in 1418 HJ (1998) and reports to to the Vice President for Scientific Research Support.

Signing a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with local ISPs guaranteeing uninterrupted services and refunding them with a full day cost for each 90 minutes or more of interruption caused by ISU.
Connecting to the Internet from different points around the world
Monitoring international bandwidth and increase it before it cause any traffic jams
Establishing two POPs, one in Riyadh and one in Jeddah, for diversity and backup
Providing hot standby backup devices and servers
Signing contracts with hardware and software vendors for technical support
Managing and operating the network operating center by educated and trained Saudi staff
Managing the network 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
Providing a test lab for testing new technologies before adapting them in the network

Connecting ISPs and Universities in KSA to the International Internet.
Managing and operating the Network Operation Center (ISU NOC) including hardware and software necessary for connecting to the Internet.
Managing and operating the Saudi Network Information Center SaudiNIC including domain name registration and IP number allocation.
Establishing a network security center in cooperation with other government agencies.
Participate in general awareness programs related to Internet and provide technical advise.
Note : All The tasks of Licensing Internet Services in KSA along with all the issues of preparing regulations and policies had been handed over to the Communications and Information Technology Commission .