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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">I’m going to attempt to comment the best I can on this.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Firstly – from Liquid’s position – we have an open, published, transparent peering policy – it basically says – we will peer openly, provided that basic conditions are met.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">That document can be read at
<a href="https://www.liquidtelecom.net/peering_policy">https://www.liquidtelecom.net/peering_policy</a> - and is as transparent as it can be.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Now, there are also challenges relating to peering – and most of them are not actually contractual - they are technical. We have seen many times where the technical configurations still cause traffic
to flow via much longer paths because of the way the BGP announcements are done – where we see this – we attempt to talk to partners to get it rectified – and sometimes succeed – but with literally hundreds of thousands of routes in the routing table – problems
like these can take time to detect and be resolved.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Secondly – we have seen a number of ISP’s that have a default action when problems occur of turning off the peering – rather than rectifying the problem – and it can take time to get those peering
sessions re-established – we do our best </span><span style="font-family:"Segoe UI Emoji",sans-serif;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">😊</span><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Thirdly – while Liquid and most of the other Kenyan players do have open peering policies – and I congratulate all of them on that – this is not always the case with the larger international players.
The content providers (Google and others) will peer openly – Tier-1 ISP’s typically will not – and where they do – the amount of traffic from the tier-1 providers is actually pretty low – most of the content comes from the content providers (Google for example
accounts for a massive percentage of the traffic), and these content providers very often do not have presence in Nairobi. In fact – there is one content provider who is in the country but they only peer in Mombasa – at a non-neutral location – and backhaul
cost between Nairobi and Mombasa costs money.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Obviously from our position though – we will continue to attempt to peer – and improve the peering relationships – and as far as I know – we are currently Africa’s most peered network – a position
we are proud of – and I don’t believe that the peering issues you are referring to are related to the IXP or the lack of willingness by Kenyan IXP’s to peer – I believe they come down to a the issues of technical skill, maintenance of peering connections
and a host of other factors internal to ISP’s.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">As regards the question of peering at 200G – peering at gigabit and 10gigabit speeds is relatively cost effective – peering at 100gig speeds currently doesn’t make economic sense while the traffic
demand isn’t there and the costs are what they are (100gig equipment is *<b>very</b>* costly, where even the optics are running into thousands of dollars per side)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Anyway – that’s my comment<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Andrew Alston<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Liquid Telecommunications – Group Head of IP Strategy<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN-US">From:</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> kictanet [mailto:kictanet-bounces+andrew.alston=liquidtelecom.com@lists.kictanet.or.ke]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Job Muriuki via kictanet<br>
<b>Sent:</b> 03 May 2018 12:19<br>
<b>To:</b> Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston@liquidtelecom.com><br>
<b>Cc:</b> Job Muriuki <muriukin@gmail.com><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [kictanet] Local IXP (KIXP) peering and Local traffic<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#20124D">Anyone here from Tespok or CA shed some light.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#4B4B4B;background:white">I have a question on what governs local ISP peering in Kenya. There is KIXP at EADC which was set up so to keep local traffic local. Is it open
to international carriers like Seacom, Tata, Etisalat, Hurricane electric, China Telkom and others who are present at EADC?
</span><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#4B4B4B;background:white">The reason I ask is if you take service, IP transit service from any of the carriers and you are not peering at KIXP your IPs (Local traffic) go
all the way to either France or UAE and back to Kenya while they could have just peered at KIXP and offer faster and "affordable" connections. It makes no sense for a connection to
<span class="gmail-gr">ecitizen</span> or a server hosted locally at say Node Africa to have to go to IXPs in other countries and brought back to Kenya getting treated and charged as international traffic.
</span><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#4B4B4B;background:white">Is KIXP that unreliable or what is the challenge? If we don't grow our local capacity to deliver gigabit speeds in our IXP and take advantage of
CDNs available locally, will we ever fully <span class="gmail-gr">utilise</span> the internet and create jobs at the same time without having multinationals come do it?</span><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#4B4B4B;background:white">Currently getting a data pipe from point A to B over a fiber connection within Kenya is more expensive than getting an internet connection from
the same provider which will be carried on the same fiber link as the data pipe which makes absorption of hosting services in Kenya way expensive compared to hosting servers in Europe or America. Most Kenyans and even some government agencies result in hosting
services overseas and the users are in Kenya then what is the point of investing in fiber locally and have it rot underground while cash is sent to companies out there for a service we can provide locally?</span><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#20124D"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Regards,<br>
Job Muriuki,<br>
<br>
Skype: heviejob<br>
<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://mailtrack.io?utm_source=gmail&utm_medium=signature&utm_campaign=signaturevirality1&"><span style="text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="16" height="14" style="width:.1666in;height:.15in" id="_x0000_i1026" src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/mailtrack-signature/sent_with_mailtrack.png" alt="Mailtrack"></span></a><span style="color:#777777">Sent
with <a href="https://mailtrack.io?utm_source=gmail&utm_medium=signature&utm_campaign=signaturevirality1&">
Mailtrack</a> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
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