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

[Harry Delano]

Thanks Mctim. Well articulated.

Hopefully, we keep the dollars local by sending the "VOIP" and other packets
directly, other than on a mundane roundtrip to Europe/US then back.

See you, all going well in August..

Regards,
Harry 

-----Original Message-----
From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2010 11:03 AM
To: harry at comtelsys.co.ke
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] The urgent case for a Regional Internet Exchange
Point (RIXP)

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