[kictanet] My take: IG Discussions- Day 2 of 10: InfrastructureIssues-Submarine Cables

Tue Apr 28 09:34:18 EAT 2009

I've been doing a preliminary report on the impact of the sub-marine
cable on development in Kenya. I agree with most of what Walu has said
but I think that the cables do present an opportunity. 

I would increase your access score to 2. Seeing that mobile phone
companies will be in a position to offer internet access at a fraction
of the current cost. The question is though who is there to take
advantage of this (fully agree with your content score of 1). However I
don't foresee bandwidth prices going up with the number of cables coming
over and the players in the market. Methinks content will be king and
dictate the price.

I wish to add another category we can score under and that is impact on
development. I give it a score of 2. Kenya seems to be banking on the
BPO sector for this. I see many talking of call centres (including
Safaricom's recently launched call centre) as the way to go. However we
should concentrate on the more 'back office' kind of activities such as
data entry, digisation, animation e.t.c and less on customer interaction
services like call centres. I don't think that in the middle of a
recession companies will want to be seen exporting jobs abroad. Copying
the India model won't work for us. 

Key will be to have a shared vision of where Kenya wants to go with
this. There seems to be a lot of disconnect between stakeholders. A
truly active national association (KICTANET?) would be of great help as
will a comprehensive ICT park strategy, working with the industry and
universities. Like I said an opportunity...

Victor

Ps: I'll circulate the prelim report to listers for comment

-----Original Message-----
From: kictanet-bounces+v-gathara=dfid.gov.uk at lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+v-gathara=dfid.gov.uk at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
Behalf Of John Walubengo
Sent: 28 April 2009 08:21
To: Victor Gathara
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] IG Discussions- Day 2 of 10:
InfrastructureIssues-Submarine Cables

Welcome to day 2. Hopefully it would be more interactive than
yesterday...I want to believe that the paralysis in our politics has not
infected and paralysed us. And just like during the cold war, scientists
and technocrats accross the divide continued to exchange internet
packets inspite of...

Nway without too much digression, today we want to interrogate several
assumptions about the long awaited submarine cable(s) that are poised to
hit our coastal city of Mombasa.  SEACOM, TEAMs, EASsy are all expected
to be operational starting July 09 (SEACOM), TEAMS (Sep 09) and EASsy
(2010?)

Here's my take/opinion on their impact based on a scale of Low(1),
Moderate(2) and High(3)

i) Access:- Score=1, Low Impact on Access The undersea cable is a
top-tier infrastructure that has no impact at the (User) Access level.
User access level is a function of the maturity of the domestic(local)
infrastructure.  Unless this is developed proportionately, we shall have
an an awkward situation similar to a country with top-notch Universities
(Submarine cable) but no Primary and Secondary Schools to provide the
students (no Access)...

ii) Affordability: Score= 2,Moderate Impact on Internet Service Costs.
Yes, the prices are likely to go down from the current retail levels of
about 2500USD per 1MB to btwn 500-1000USD per 1MB of bandwidth.  But I
have serious doubts if this prices will be sustained at these low levels
because the investors in these cables are not in it for fun - they have
calculated ROI targets that anticipate a huge uptake of the bandwidth.
In the likely event that this uptake failes to happen, I see prices
beginning to go up by the end of the 1st year of the cable operation.
The investors in the cable will then begin to milk the few subscribers
who may have jumped onto the highway in order to pay for the cost of the
capital sunk into the cables.  Yes, maybe I just cant get over the nasty
SAT3  experience where the submarine fiber cable landed in the West
African region with little impact on pricing.

iii) Content: Score=1, Low Impact on Content.
Incidentally, digital content should be independent of infrastructure.
I mean, we do not need the submarine cable for our Lecturers at the
universities to have their notes in digital form. We do not need the
submarine cable to digitize government records.  Content is intricately
related to eventual cost of Internet Service and ideally should be fully
developed before the submarine cable.

iv) Quality. Score=2, Moderate Impact on Internet Quality.
"Broadband Quality of Internet" is what every service provider is
screaming about. But Broadband standard in .KE is way off the mark when
compared to India or Europe. I will remain sceptical until proven
otherwise but I forsee the undersea cable having moderate impact on
quality because of our poorly managed domestic User and  Telco networks.
Most Telco networks that will act as gateways to the submarine cable are
full of Viruses, Spam, Proxies, and ill-configured Servers, Routers and
Switches that introduce congestion and bottlenecks rather facilate
broadband access to the Submarine cable.

We have today to hear your views on this...and the floor is open.

walu.

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