[kictanet] The urgent case for a Regional Internet Exchange Point (RIXP)

[McTim]

Hi Harry,

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 10:39 PM, Harry Delano <harry at comtelsys.co.ke> wrote:
> Listers,
>
>
> I have noticed, that while all laudable efforts in speeding up our broadband
> connectivity to the
> rest of the world hits top gear, saddeningly regional local
> interconnectivity lags behind. Why
> is this so...?

Economics is the answer

>
> For instance reaching a branch office located in Tanzania from their Kenya
> HQ office,or  vice
> versa means traffic transits out from our cyberspace to some international
> exchange point
> somwhere in London, hits the return trip back via some other Link to Dar.
> This especially
> affects VOIP connectivity and quality, between interconnected offices, and
> other services
> that rely on good QOS.

yes, well the Interent is a "best-effort" beast.  If you want those
VOIP packets to go str8 to ke from tz and back, then yoou have to pay
for that.  So far (and I proposed a Pan-African virtual IXP long
before the EARPTO effort) no one is really willing to haul those bits
for you without charging you for that haulage.

>
> This, especially while we are working on the economic, Social, and perhaps
> Political
> intergration of the Comesa block seems to fly in the face of the major
> milestones that have
> been achieved in the Telecommunication sectors of the member countries, and
> I strongly
> suggest the industry addresses this urgently. We need  a Regional Internet
> Exchange point
> set up. Perhaps name it COMESA-IXP or something. But one thing is clear; the
> more we
> each send traffic destined locally on a roundtrip to Europe or elsewhere and
> back, means
> we incur huge transiting costs in the process, which dollars that we export
> out should be
> be used to expand and develop our local & Regional interconnection
> capacity..

Well, that is the paradigm, but I'm not sure that it applies to the
same extent it used to...when folk have so much bandwidth, they are
giving it away for free (a la KDN hotspots), then they aren't
utilising their bandwidth fully. In other words, the "huge transiting
costs" are fixed, and seemingly cheaper than paying for a direct link.

>
> I think, this is an issue worth being addressed and I'd be interested to
> discuss this more
> with anyone interested to drive this forward. Anyone..?

TESPOK/ISOC in August.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel