[afnog] Challenges in the African Continent
Shaheel Luckoo - Personal
sluckoo at intnet.mu
Sun Mar 29 12:27:03 UTC 2009
The question of whether is there a demand for additional bandwidth has been
the buzz issue for years now and I think it's a very legitimate and business
sense one.
Check out this blog - an example:
http://www.mnmeetingsmag.com/ME2/Sites/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Blog&mod=Blo
gTopics&mid=8C60F825D09B410EB47ECFE93D970A81&tier=7&id=E7A5B5495A6F41E3810B1
668F9C0DA6A&SiteID=EF6D2CB169354E10B5DC680FF1B81EED
Internet connectivity has proven a major obstacle in providing equitable
access to information in Africa.
http://www.apc.org/en/news/openaccess/africa/internet-africa-well-organised-
racket
International trade and the exchange of ideas are essential to a country's
success. Therefore the cost of international bandwidth poses a significant
barrier to the ability of African countries to participate in world trade
and to increase their capacity and skills. Without cheaper international
bandwidth Africa runs the danger of being left behind in the global race.
http://fibreforafrica.net/main.shtml?x=4051584&als[MYALIAS6]=Why%20affordabl
e%20international%20bandwidth%20matters&als[select]=4051582
Regards,
Shaheel Luckoo
Mauritius
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Challenges in the African Continent (SM)
2. Re: Challenges in the African Continent (Mark Tinka)
3. Re: Challenges in the African Continent (Graham Beneke)
4. Re: Challenges in the African Continent (SM)
5. Re: Challenges in the African Continent (Mark Tinka)
6. Re: Challenges in the African Continent (Mark Tinka)
7. Re: Challenges in the African Continent (Mark Tinka)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:05:13 -0700
From: SM <sm at resistor.net>
Subject: Re: [afnog] Challenges in the African Continent
To: afnog at afnog.org
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20090328104710.030f7528 at resistor.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
At 06:27 27-03-2009, Shaheel Luckoo - Personal wrote:
>challenge for the future. If we look at other continents or
>countries we notice that the end users have a very high bandwidth
>for inland communications and that too at a very low cost. For
>example in Hong Kong the end users have enormous bandwidth for
>services and websites being hosted locally. I am well aware that the
>International bandwidth is quite high for this part of the world and
>also the lack of inadequate telecommunication infrastructure because
>of the rural divide which exists in Africa.
Is there a demand for additional bandwidth?
You mentioned Hong Kong. You could do regional comparison of the two
markets. BTW, the problem is not specific to the African continent.
>I am well aware that the majority of our continent's web hosting are
>being done either in the US or in European countries.
What are the benefits of doing web hosting locally?
Regards,
-sm
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:45:30 +0800
From: Mark Tinka <mtinka at globaltransit.net>
Subject: Re: [afnog] Challenges in the African Continent
To: SM <sm at resistor.net>
Cc: afnog at afnog.org
Message-ID: <200903291345.38237.mtinka at globaltransit.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
On Sunday 29 March 2009 02:05:13 am SM wrote:
> Is there a demand for additional bandwidth?
Is this a rhetorical question?
> You mentioned Hong Kong. You could do regional
> comparison of the two markets.
Do you mean regional for comparison between HK and other
Asian countries + between African countries?
> BTW, the problem is not
> specific to the African continent.
I'm guessing the OP is aware the problem isn't unique to
Africa, but perhaps that its scale might be slightly
compounded.
> What are the benefits of doing web hosting locally?
Is this a rhetorical question?
Cheers,
Mark.
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 08:39:15 +0200
From: Graham Beneke <graham-ml at apolix.co.za>
Subject: Re: [afnog] Challenges in the African Continent
To: Shaheel Luckoo - Personal <sluckoo at intnet.mu>, afnog at afnog.org
Message-ID: <49CF1793.6020804 at apolix.co.za>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Shaheel Luckoo - Personal wrote:
> If we look at other continents or countries we
> notice that the end users have a very high bandwidth for inland
> communications and that too at a very low cost. For example in Hong Kong
> the end users have enormous bandwidth for services and websites being
> hosted locally.
It is not fair to try to compare Africa with places like Hong Kong. The
sheer population density in Hong Kong makes the business case for
broadband completely different. Hong Kong has high bandwidth because it
makes financial sense. If you want that same kind of bandwidth - go live
in Hong Kong ;-)
> the lack of inadequate
> telecommunication infrastructure because of the rural divide which
> exists in Africa.
What is this 'rural divide' you refer to? Providing broadband services
to rural/low density areas will always be more expensive than elsewhere
- this is the case even in rural Hong Kong.
In South Africa the most significant factor preventing the roll out of
infrastructure has been regulated monopolies and duopolies. Now that
this has been resolved there is a explosion of infrastructure
deployment. If the business case is there then it will happen.
> I am well aware that the majority of our continent?s web hosting are
> being done either in the US or in European countries.
I think that this is a skills issue. The cost of obtaining skilled
engineers that can build datacenters of the grades that are seen in the
US and EU is extremely high. The fact that many of these skills would
need to be imported does not help the costs.
While local datacenters remain more costly and less reliable than their
international counterparts they will remain less popular for the hosting
of services.
> As such, I would like to know whether there are certain strategies in
> place to overcome this pressing challenge and if so what are they and
> how us the community can help.
You need to identify what is holding back the development in your area.
If it is regulatory then engage the stakeholders. If it financial then
find an investor and present to them a business case. If its something
else then tell us about it - I'd be interested. :-)
regards
--
Graham Beneke
Apolix Internet Services
E-Mail/MSN/Jabber: graham at apolix.co.za Skype: grbeneke
VoIP: 087-750-5696 Cell: 082-432-1873
http://www.apolix.co.za/
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:37:26 -0700
From: SM <sm at resistor.net>
Subject: Re: [afnog] Challenges in the African Continent
To: afnog at afnog.org
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20090329003635.03353bd0 at resistor.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
At 22:45 28-03-2009, Mark Tinka wrote:
>Is this a rhetorical question?
My question is about determining whether there is a business case for
additional bandwidth. If there isn't any demand, the ISPs won't
recoup their cost.
>Do you mean regional for comparison between HK and other
>Asian countries + between African countries?
Hong Kong is next to China. That country has a sizable market. I'm
not including other Asian countries as there are cultural barriers to
take into account. We cannot consider Africa as one region as the
continent is not one homogenous group. It would be more appropriate
to consider cultural and geographic factors as well as inter-connectivity.
>I'm guessing the OP is aware the problem isn't unique to
>Africa, but perhaps that its scale might be slightly
>compounded.
One of the disadvantages of Africa is that it has English and French
speaking countries. In my opinion, such markets tend to access
content that is outside the region. The continent does have some
advantages. For example, it has not yet experienced an explosion in
connectivity. It is a nascent market.
>Is this a rhetorical question?
This is the Internet after all. Locality isn't the determining
factor. We should analyze whether it makes business sense to host
locally. That encompasses more than the financial aspect.
Regards,
-sm
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:28:08 +0800
From: Mark Tinka <mtinka at globaltransit.net>
Subject: Re: [afnog] Challenges in the African Continent
To: SM <sm at resistor.net>
Cc: afnog at afnog.org
Message-ID: <200903291928.16831.mtinka at globaltransit.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
On Sunday 29 March 2009 04:37:26 pm SM wrote:
> My question is about determining whether there is a
> business case for additional bandwidth. If there isn't
> any demand, the ISPs won't recoup their cost.
You must be kidding, right... there is always demand for
more bandwidth, and a great deal of demand for the same in
most African countries, particularly those currently not
using any submarine infrastructure to reach the rest of the
world.
The issues limiting growth (not demand) are:
a) lack of submarine infrastructure that lowers operators'
opex.
b) insufficient high-speed national/regional infrastructure
that both operators and users alike can use.
c) sky-high per-Mbps prices that leads to a barrier to
growth (not demand) for both operators and users.
Those are the real problems...
> Hong Kong is next to China. That country has a sizable
> market. I'm not including other Asian countries as there
> are cultural barriers to take into account.
I guess what I was trying to say is regional comparisons may
not be absolutely necessary. The issue the OP is stressing
is, "why is HK better off"? He might as well be asking, "why
is South Korea better off"? Or, "why is Finland better off"?
The real question is, what is holding Africa up?
> We cannot
> consider Africa as one region as the continent is not one
> homogenous group. It would be more appropriate to
> consider cultural and geographic factors as well as
> inter-connectivity.
Agree, but like I said, we don't have to break it down into
regions to get it. The issues faced by most African
countries regarding Internet connectivity are well-
understood. The question is, how do we fix them?
Particularly more so as proliferation of submarine capacity
into landlocked African countries will require the co-
operation of several governments at a technical, economic
and political level.
> One of the disadvantages of Africa is that it has English
> and French speaking countries. In my opinion, such
> markets tend to access content that is outside the
> region.
This doesn't make any sense to me, and does not answer why
Africa is lagging behind in terms of connectivity to the
rest of the world.
> The continent does have some advantages. For
> example, it has not yet experienced an explosion in
> connectivity. It is a nascent market.
And this is a good thing?
I'm sorry, I really don't get your logic here. Growth in
connectivity is generally seen as a good thing, across the
board. Not even sure whether I need to explain this, and how
the lack of growth is a "bad" thing for Africa.
> This is the Internet after all. Locality isn't the
> determining factor. We should analyze whether it makes
> business sense to host locally. That encompasses more
> than the financial aspect.
My jaw is touching the floor with this one, mate.
Since when was keeping local traffic local bad for business?
Mark.
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Message: 6
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:42:32 +0800
From: Mark Tinka <mtinka at globaltransit.net>
Subject: Re: [afnog] Challenges in the African Continent
To: "Shaheel Luckoo - Personal" <sluckoo at intnet.mu>
Cc: afnog at afnog.org
Message-ID: <200903291943.44337.mtinka at globaltransit.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-6"
On Friday 27 March 2009 09:27:00 pm Shaheel Luckoo -
Personal wrote:
> As such, I would like to know whether there are certain
> strategies in place to overcome this pressing challenge
> and if so what are they and how us the community can
> help.
The high level strategies that I see going on (in order to
reduce the cost of Internet access + increase penetration)
are:
a) reduce dependence on expensive and non-scalable satellite
infrastructure by transferring traffic to sub-sea and/or
terrestrial optic fibre.
b) increase growth of national and regional optic fibre
infrastructure in the ground in order to take full
advantage of international capacity while reducing local
loop costs.
c) deregulate the market for increased competition, which
will lead to better pricing and higher quality services
for end-users.
d) other strategic economic activities governments would
undertake to encourage investment in rural areas where
the existence of Internet access is minimal at best.
There could be other strategies, seeing as I'm not directly
involved in these kinds of government/private activities.
However, their efficacy may be worth arguing.
Cheers,
Mark.
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Message: 7
Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:58:48 +0800
From: Mark Tinka <mtinka at globaltransit.net>
Subject: Re: [afnog] Challenges in the African Continent
To: Graham Beneke <graham-ml at apolix.co.za>
Cc: afnog at afnog.org, Shaheel Luckoo - Personal <sluckoo at intnet.mu>
Message-ID: <200903291959.05573.mtinka at globaltransit.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
On Sunday 29 March 2009 02:39:15 pm Graham Beneke wrote:
> It is not fair to try to compare Africa with places like
> Hong Kong. The sheer population density in Hong Kong
> makes the business case for broadband completely
> different. Hong Kong has high bandwidth because it makes
> financial sense. If you want that same kind of bandwidth
> - go live in Hong Kong ;-)
Besides, it's a fairly small country - much easier to wrap
fibre around than as opposed to, say, a much larger country
in Africa.
Same reason Singapore is blanketed in Wi-Fi. They can afford
to do it!
Hence, as you mention, we should look at Africa on its own
merits, but still drawing on examples from (more) developed
nations.
> I think that this is a skills issue. The cost of
> obtaining skilled engineers that can build datacenters of
> the grades that are seen in the US and EU is extremely
> high. The fact that many of these skills would need to be
> imported does not help the costs.
I think this is jumping the gun a little. You are referring
to a fairly mid-to-large scale deployment.
A lot of ISP's in Africa have a bit of space in their
buildings that host mostly a handful of routers, switches
and a few customer-supporting production servers (mail, DNS,
that sort of thing). Much of the remaining space could be
used to host a couple of web servers (for instance), each in
turn hosting a number of web sites (virtual hosts), e.t.c.
Of course, as this grows, it would be necessary to consider
a more purpose-built, neutral facility. However, we need to
start somewhere - allow growth to be natural and understood.
Cheers,
Mark.
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