[kictanet] IG Discussions- Day 2 of 10: Infrastructure Issues-Submarine Cables

Fri May 1 20:18:20 EAT 2009

 Hi

I would like to follow up on Michuki’s HO:  “*there's no broadband in Kenya*
”.

1stly, Do we need a definition for broadband?

In the UK, Wanadoo accused by rival service providers (BT Group and
Telewest) of “*confusing consumers by promoting services with speeds of
150kbps or 256kbps as broadband*”

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3563320.stm.)

2ndly, this article that a friend shared with me provides a good reason why
we should seriously be considering local content development.

Companies such as Youtube, facebook, myspace have large audiences in
developing countries, Kenya being no exception; however these countries have
limited and expensive broadband, generate little advertising revenue and
require more resources (servers, bandwidth).

To reduce costs associated with providing services some internet companies
have taken “the drastic step of cutting off developing countries” from
accessing their services!!

(
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/technology/start-ups/27global.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss
)

Kind regards

Mwende

*Disclaimer: Views expressed here are the author’s own*

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Michuki Mwangi <michuki at swiftkenya.com>wrote:

> Hi Walu, et al,
>
> Access:
>
> I believe that we need to move beyond the marketing hype into the
> realities. IMHO there's no broadband in Kenya. In my basic understanding
> Broadband means affordable and fast connectivity. What we have is
> average-to-unreliable connectivity that costs more than its worth.
>
> I believe the ongoing investments into wireless solutions while they
> work will continue to hold us into the pre-broadband phase for a long
> time to come.
>
> Mobile broadband seems to be a working solution but their ability to
> scale will continue to pose challenges on quality.
>
> Therefore investment in fixed infrastructure solutions like FTTH and
> FTTC are going to be important considerations to be made if we are to
> leap into broadband phase.
>
> At this point, it would be ideal if regulators would open up the last
> mile (within residential spaces) for anyone interested to invest in that
> space with fixed infrastructure.
>
> The de facto point here is that for a long time residential access has
> been neglected for a long time. The focus has been mainly at CBDs until
> the mobile 2G and 3G solutions were introduced.
>
> Maybe policy has a role to play in providing incentives for players who
> make efforts in providing fixed infrastructure in residential locations.
>
> Affordability:
>
> The pricing will still remain high until we have a inexpensive local
> loop solution.
>
> As far as the cables go it will be good to know more details before
> folks can make conclusions. For instance is the 500-100USD per month for
> bits or bytes?. It would be good to know what pricing model the cable
> operators want to have in place for instance does one buy a circuit from
> point A to B or does one buy a circuit with Internet on it already?.
>
> Selling circuits are the ideal way to go hence it allows operators and
> others to buy large pipes STM1 (144 Mbps) from say Nairobi to London.
> Its cheaper to buy transit capacity from London which goes for about $10
> Per MB per month the other costs will be for the circuit back to Nairobi
> and that can be low if talking of big pipes. But then the models are not
> clear to me so i cannot give conclusions on what is.
>
> Content:
>
> The only way we can drive up content availability is by placing the
> requisite infrastructure. As it stands, few host content locally the
> pricing is beyond and facilities are few hence higher pricing.
>
> In Kenya my estimated total collocation/hosting capacity available is
> well under 2,000m2 and am being kind here. In Europe one company
> Telehouse has 30,000m2 of datacenter space 20,000m2 of which is in the UK.
>
> We have afew factors in favor of Kenya for instance cheap land and
> professional Labor (we cannot compare to EU rates). The only expense is
> power but we have abundant solar energy that can serve the demand for
> green data-centers one would wish to build. As some of you may know
> Europe ran out of hosting space back in 2006 and has lead to the
> emergence of Asia as the next collo destination.
>
> Its upon the region to realise that we could be home to the future
> worlds data centers with low cost energy, land and labor in our favor.
>
> That way we have both local and international content hosted locally and
> this will drive costs of access to lows never imagined.
>
> Quality:
>
> Quality of service will improve;
>
> 1) With better and affordable local loop infrastructure (not over
> subscribed wireless base stations) - i understand that the regulatory
> licensing structure had a negative impact on this as operators had to
> pay an annual fee per installed site?. Probably fixed wired solutions
> that have no recurrent costs are the way to go?
>
> 2) Increased percentage of locally hosted/accessed content (peering
> traffic) which is subject to less contention and better access speeds
>
> 3) better pricing models on transit capacity which will reduce the
> contention ratios given by service providers
>
> 4) More training of engineers in building scalable services and routing
> infrastructure.
>
> Regards,
>
> Michuki.
>
>
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