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

Sun May 10 20:47:26 EAT 2009

Hi

I would like to contribute to the discussion on residential broadband access
though belatedly. Installing fibre for last mile access involves a
substantial commitment of fixed costs, mainly associated with civil works.

To reduce this capital cost some municipalities are installing multiple
‘dark’ fibre as it is economical to install substantial excess capacity,
relative to initial demand. One such initiative is by the city of Stockholm,
in Sweden, which owns and operates an open and operator-neutral
infrastructure for telephone and data communications, under a city chartered
company, Stokab.

Stokab was founded in 1994 when the telecommunications sector was fully
liberalised due to the reluctance of the incumbent operator to meet the
demand for high capacity networks.  Since then, the company has provided
fibre optic infrastructure on an open access basis to service providers and
large businesses including telecommunication operators, ISPs, cable
television networks, mobile telephone operators, municipalities, county
councils, major banks, insurance companies, multi-sited organisations and
media companies based in the commercial districts and industrial areas of
Stockholm.

The aim of the company is to contribute to making Stockholm an ICT capital
by lowering the barriers to market entry for service providers, and
therefore increasing competition. The guiding philosophy for the
establishment of the city network is that telecommunications infrastructure
should be provided as a ‘public good’ facilitating access to advanced
communications services to all citizens. Stokab’s open access network (OAN),
hopes to contribute to improved welfare and greater efficiency of
municipality services, reduce the need to travel and thus ease traffic
congestion ultimately contributing to a better environment.

May be this is an initiative that municipalities in Kenya may wish to
consider.

Kind regards

Mwende

*Disclaimer: Views expressed here (except those quoted or referenced) are
the author’s own*

References

   1. Stokab. http://www.stokab.se/templates/StandardPage.aspx?id=306
   2. Lehr, W., Sirbu, M. Gillett, S. (2004) *Broadband Open Access: Lessons
   from Municipal Network Case Studies*.
   http://people.csail.mit.edu/wlehr/Lehr-Papers_files/Lehr%20Sirbu%20Gillett%20Broadband%20Open%20Access.pdf
   3. Regulatory Barriers For Fibre Deployment:  The “Legacy Trap” -
   Barriers to Fibre Deployments in the EU.
   http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/telecoms_review1/responses/a_h/ftth.pdf

* *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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