[kictanet] [KICTAnet] TEAMS | EASSY Fiber Cables Cut? SEACOM | LION?

Wed Feb 29 15:10:46 EAT 2012

Brian,

I still stick to my guns on this issue, our 4 cement companies used to make noise about the whole cost of energy and some even threatened to relocate to cheaper locations.

They are all still here and we have more and more people coming to share the cake, a cement kiln requires more power than your optimised data centre will ever need.  So let us stop using road side statements to justify a position

UNEP had at one time indicated that Nairobi was too unsafe, there were frequent water and power outages, and a high cost of living in Nairobi suggesting that they wanted to relocate - President Kibaki in no uncertain terms asked them to go right ahead and as they say the rest is history.

We need to stop looking at issues in isolated pockets and try and get a panoramic view of a situation, Konza up until I started shouting in the wilderness was being looked at in a silo (Ministry of Information) has confirmed by the PS in his statement that he was unaware of the procedure for carrying out a development.

If Konza is definitely a National project then it needs to be approached holistically and the best place would have been within the chief coordinator's office a.k.a Prime Ministry but since that did not happen and the office stands dissolved the next home for the project will have to be The Office of the President.

I digress, the issue of high energy costs can be easily mitigated by other elements which I will not go into right now, we need to look at it like a manufacturing process where what matters is the price of the end product but tweaking the various components to achieve the expected price.    

Instead of trying to get stats on Google's data centre power requirements why not ask Safaricom, I am sure there is someone with the requisite pay grade to give us the answer to that question.  Also note that Google does not virtualise therefore making their data centres more power hungry than new top of the line blade servers would need.

Lets also not forget that we are talking about setting up data centres to serve just a few million users, I am currently retrofitting a data centre to make it more energy efficient and if the state of that particular data centre is anything to go by then most of the energy being consumed is being dissipated as heat.

There are now entire data centres running off-grid utilising solar & wind with DC powered servers, a few months ago there was a demonstration of an outdoor off-grid data centre at the UNEP complex, with such initiatives why do we keep thinking that the only source of power must be KPLC?  Last time I checked no one had received a bill from the almighty for the use of solar and wind, but I might be wrong if you are aware of anyone who has please send me a copy.

I have a client who I advised many months ago to relocate his mail servers back here but they kept repeating the statements that I keep hearing on this post, by people who should know better, well today I have had to supply them with several Safaricom 3G modems as their ISP is as good as off the grid.

Why do we keep insisting that we are setting up for overseas customers, Kenya is the hub for Central and Western Africa a market that is more than sufficient to cut our teeth on after which Goggle (who have already installed a cache server locally) and their elk will soon come knocking. 

Industrialisation, innovation and intelligence begins at home, even the great Osho Rajnesh once said "seek not from without but first from within" 

Regards

Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696

----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe at gmail.com>
To: robert yawe <robertyawe at yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Wednesday, 29 February 2012, 9:56
Subject: Re: [kictanet] [KICTAnet] TEAMS | EASSY Fiber Cables Cut? SEACOM | LION?

Dear Robert,

Like it or not Nicholas' point is fundamentally true.

Let's go back to Internet 101: You either have eyeballs or you have
content. If you have content, the eyeballs will need to get to you so
you need to sit your content somewhere accessible, affordable and
secure. If you have eyeballs you need to provide them with a means to
get to the content or else they will go to someone else who can.

The problem with Kenya is not just that our energy is expensive. The
biggest problem is that it simply is not enough. Ask Dr. Ndemo or Paul
Kukubo what one of the leading questions any content owner asks when
they come visiting to find out what all the buzz is about Kenya and
whether they should consider putting up here? Yes, you got it - "can
you meet our energy needs?" Without a fail in every case the answer is
"no".

This is an issue that needs to be considered very carefully if we
intend to be a serious contender on the global scene.

Tried to find online stats about the average energy usage of a Google
data centet but apparently these are well kept secrets. But I remember
hearing sometime back that a single Google data center uses more
energy than the city of Nairobi(sic).

Regards,

Brian

On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 8:33 AM, robert yawe <robertyawe at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Nicholas,
>
> I strongly disagree with you on the issue of developing local hosting
> capacity, the only way we can reduce our reliance on the marine cable and
> also to give the rest of the world reason to keep us lit is if we have
> content to offer.
>
> Eugene makes a valid point in saying that we are spending hundreds of
> millions to make round trips on the internet it is essential that we carry
> out a true cost of connectivity analysis after which I will assure you that
> we shall still be better off setting up local data centres even with the
> high electricity costs.
>
> The world also needs to look for disaster recovery locations in safe
> heavens, Egypt might have lower energy costs but as it seems now its status
> as a safe destination has become questionable what is the worlds alternative
> if not Kenya with or without its high energy costs?
>
> Until recently I wore shoes made by Bata, recently I visited one of their
> shops to pick a new pair just to realise that it was made in China after
> which my loyalty weaned and now I will look at other stores that do not have
> local manufacturing capacity.
>
> Safaricom might enjoy the lower costs of hosting MPesa in Germany but when
> they are forced to route their traffic over expensive satellite connections
> suddenly the savings do not seem has lucrative.
>
> Regards
>
> Build local, use local, grow local and be local
>
> Robert Yawe
> KAY System Technologies Ltd
> Phoenix House, 6th Floor
> P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
> Kenya
>
> Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Nicholas J Dear <ndear at sundayafternoon.me.uk>
> To: robertyawe at yahoo.co.uk
> Cc: 'KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions' <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Sent: Tuesday, 28 February 2012, 17:07
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] [KICTAnet] TEAMS | EASSY Fiber Cables Cut? SEACOM |
> LION?
>
> This only makes sense if it makes sense to build data
> centres in Kenya - I don't believe it does.
>
> If you look at all the recent major data centre build outs
> (Apple, Google) - they're either happening where there is
> enormous amounts of cheap energy, or where it's extremely
> cold. Kenya doesn't have either of these features and I
> can't see how it's going to generate large quantities of
> cheap energy any time soon.
>
> N.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: kictanet-
>> bounces+ndear=sundayafternoon.me.uk at lists.kictanet.or.k
>> e [mailto:kictanet-
>> bounces+ndear=sundayafternoon.me.uk at lists.kictanet.or.k
>> e] On Behalf Of Eugene Lidede (Synergy)
>> Sent: 28 February 2012 16:55
>> To: Nicholas J Dear
>> Cc: 'KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions'
>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] [KICTAnet] TEAMS | EASSY Fiber
>> Cables Cut? SEACOM | LION?
>> Importance: High
>>
>> +1 Michuki on your good points
>>
>> > 1. Today we import more than 80% of the Internet
>> traffic consumed in
>> > Kenya causing an "Internet Transit Deficit" where
>> significantly less
>> > Internet traffic is generated locally than accessed
>> from overseas,
>> > similar to what was experienced between Europe and
>> the US during the
>> > late 1990's.
>>
>> However, what constitutes this traffic? Is it local
>> content held abroad or
>> is it genuinely content that cannot otherwise be
>> obtained/generated locally.
>> If it is local content held abroad, of which I am
>> convinced it is, what is
>> the best solution pre-2030: more fiber - both under sea
>> and terrestrial,
>> more redundant landing stations, better behaved
>> shipping lines or more
>> capacity and enabling environment for local hosting and
>> local content
>> providers?
>>
>> Considering a typical case where my suppliers are in
>> Kenya, my means of
>> production is in Kenya, my clients are in Kenya with an
>> occasionally client
>> or two from abroad. If I had an extra shilling to spend
>> on my business, what
>> would make more sense, reengineer my offering to
>> attract more international
>> clients or strengthen my local offering?
>>
>> How is it that we are comfortable with our top publicly
>> listed telco,
>> Safaricom delivering traffic to our top publicly listed
>> media house in the
>> UK? What ought to be the focus of our policy makers,
>> regulators and
>> licensors: facilitating scenarios as these or
>> formulating ways to reverse
>> such? Are there any benefits of such traffic
>> transactions happening here in
>> Kenya say at KIXP? How much would it cost say Safaricom
>> to host say NMG's
>> suite of websites, even if free of charge, verses how
>> much does it cost them
>> in terms of procured capacity, to deliver NMG bound
>> traffic to the UK? Are
>> there any short/long term benefits? Can both firms and
>> others be given tax
>> incentives to facilitate the above as opposed draining
>> money on software
>> certifications, a duplication of what more tax-payer
>> money is already
>> successfully doing at public universities?
>>
>> --
>>
>> Growing up in the seventies and eighties was
>> interesting... Across all homes
>> I knew, my friends, my cousins and even the one I grew
>> up in, the best of
>> everything was not for regular use by the "locals". The
>> best cutlery, the
>> best linen, we even had a term "Sunday Best" to
>> describe that one Kaunda
>> suit that could only be worn on Sundays. Chicken was
>> only to be served when
>> there were visitors (read "foreigners").  Back then,
>> things were done more
>> for the benefit of "foreigners" than for the benefit of
>> "locals" - or how do
>> you explain those grandiose wooden chests in the living
>> room with all manner
>> of expensive cutlery on display while "locals" made do
>> with plastic cups and
>> recycled blue-band tins.
>>
>> Fast forward 30 years, and yes only time has "changed".
>> We the lads and
>> lasses growing up in the seventies and eighties are now
>> in our  30s, 40s and
>> 50s and yes, we are policy makers but as you know old
>> habits die hard and so
>> do bad ones. Our preoccupation is on how to better
>> facilitate delivery of
>> traffic abroad for what has been generated locally and
>> is to be consumed
>> within our borders. This we see as good practice: pay
>> for export of our
>> locally produced content and pay some more for its
>> delivery back home
>> unmodified for consumption. We see no problem giving a
>> foreign company most
>> of our government data via opendata because they are
>> more competent than
>> locals in deciphering and analyzing the data on and
>> about the locals
>>
>> Why are we so preoccupied with the international market
>> as though there are
>> no business opportunities for locals?
>>
>> If indeed ICT and ecommerce is the next economic
>> frontier, "naomba
>> sirkal"... Nkt!
>>
>> Regards
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: kictanet-
>> bounces+eugene=synergy.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
>> [mailto:kictanet-
>> bounces+eugene=synergy.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] On
>> Behalf Of Michuki Mwangi
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 12:10 PM
>> To: Eugene Lidede
>> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
>> Subject: Re: [kictanet] TEAMS | EASSY Fibre Cables Cut?
>> SEACOM | LION?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/28/12 9:06 AM, James Mbugua wrote:
>> > Brian
>> >
>> > TEAMS general manager Joel Tanui said it will take
>> three weeks
>> > although that may be to avoid over promising.
>> >
>> > I'm told Eassy also has a cut near Djibouti and is
>> currently being
>> repaired.
>> >
>> > Operators now have no option but to switch to the
>> very expensive
>> > Seacom. By some accounts it is three times as
>> expensive as TEAMS.
>> >
>> > Safaricom which carries 80 per cent of Kenya's
>> internet traffic
>> > usually has 50 per cent going through TEAMS and has
>> switched this to
>> > Seacom.
>> >
>>
>> IMHO we need to have a clearer understanding of the
>> bigger picture to
>> set the long term goals and objectives.
>>
>> 1. Today we import more than 80% of the Internet
>> traffic consumed in
>> Kenya causing an "Internet Transit Deficit" where
>> significantly less
>> Internet traffic is generated locally than accessed
>> from overseas,
>> similar to what was experienced between Europe and the
>> US during the
>> late 1990's.
>>
>> 2. We are dependent on a single East-Bound path from
>> "Nairobi - Mombasa
>> - (Mumbai/Fujaira) before going to Europe. This is
>> despite the fact that
>> we have terrestrial capacity from Cape Town to Cairo to
>> provide an
>> North-bound path that would complement the longer path.
>>
>> 3. The BBC article did not mention that, with the
>> Submarine cable cuts
>> the Internet traffic between the East African Countries
>> Kenya, Tanzania,
>> Uganda, Rwanda are most adversely affected. My current
>> tests are showing
>> over 1sec latency from Nairobi to some networks in
>> Tanzania, Rwanda and
>> Uganda. This is despite the reality that Uganda and
>> Rwanda are largely
>> dependent on the terrestrial cables passing through
>> Kenya onto the cables.
>>
>> 4. South bound Internet traffic (to Southern Africa)
>> has acquires
>> satellite like latencies (higher than 500ms). As a
>> result of the cable
>> cuts. There's more than sufficient capacity
>> terrestrially but we still
>> have to go to Europe before going back South.
>>
>> If we can work towards resolving the above issues with
>> concrete plans
>> and solutions. It's likely that such cable cuts in the
>> future will not
>> cause the level of attention and anxiety that we see
>> are experiencing today.
>>
>>
>> My 2 cents.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Michuki.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>> ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT
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> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
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> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
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> people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
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-- 
Brian Munyao Longwe
e-mail: blongwe at gmail.com
cell:  +254715964281
blog : http://zinjlog.blogspot.com
meta-blog: http://mashilingi.blogspot.com

"Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to
stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for
anything."
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