RE: Tanzanian ISPs move closer to establishing an Internet exchange

[Brian Longwe <brian at pch.net>]

I would discourage these kind of projects being done by the IXP - it's a
quick recipe for failure of the IX because it begins competing with it's
members.

However there's nothing to stop and operator from offering this kind of
solution (if they can win the confidence of their competitors ;-)

Having said that, here in Kenya 8 of the top ISPs have gotten together and
formed a consortium that is going to aggregate banbdwidth requirements and
operate a satellite gateway for delivery of transit services to the
members as well as any other ISP requiring transit with a CIR and real
SLA.

I cannot disclose much of the detail as we have just shortlisted four
space segment providers out of an initial 16 who have been fighting tooth
and nail to get what is probably going to be one of Africa's largest ISP
satellite capacity contracts (this is what they tell us).

The important point is that we have come up with a model where we own all
of the pipe (all the way to an overseas exchange) and allow ISPs to
contract directly for transit at that IX at prices in the range of $40-$90
per MB.

Since we are buying sapce segment at the transponder level the price per
Meg is unbelievable!

We should be starting deployment anytime around July/August.


Longwe

On Wed, 14 May 2003, Mark Tinka wrote:

> Hah, I thought of something similar last week, where a single satellite
> service is erected at say the IXP, and each ISP has a local fibre link to
> the IXP and shares the bandwidth, and bandwidth costs. This can be uplink
> only or uplink and downlink.
>
> However, honestly, you won't be able to get that level of trust among
> various ISPs, unless it's a government ruling. I guess the only way ISPs
> will be able to share a single transport service is when trans-oceanic fibre
> makes its way into the country. Only then, do I see ISPs scrambling for a
> piece of the pie.
>
> Regards,
>
> Mark Tinka - CCNA
> Network Engineer
> Africa Online Uganda
> 5th Floor, Commercial Plaza
> 7 Kampala Rd,
> Tel:   +256-41-258143
> Fax:   +256-41-258144
> E-mail: mtinka at africaonline.co.ug
> Web:     www.africaonline.co.ug
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-afnog at afnog.org [mailto:owner-afnog at afnog.org] On Behalf Of
> Brian Candler
> Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 11:57 AM
> To: antonio at nambu.uem.mz
> Cc: Bill Woodcock; John Tully; afnog at afnog.org
> Subject: Re: Tanzanian ISPs move closer to establishing an Internet exchange
>
>
> On Wed, May 14, 2003 at 09:08:11AM +0200, antonio at nambu.uem.mz wrote:
> > I don't know about numbers but I know that we aren't profiting from
> > it and the satellite providers are overprofiting to such an extent that
> > now you get thousands of satellite providers coming to you
> > everyday to offer you their services. They get a transponder which
> > will take up to 45Mbps of traffic, they will sell portions of 1Mbps,
> > 2Mbps, 5Mpbs and make a huge profit on that transponder. As I am
> > told, a transponder costs about US$45,000.00 a month and they
> > charge as much as US$15,000.00 for 2Mbps. So per transponder
> > they can get as much as US$360,000.00 a month..... That's what I
> > am told....
>
> Sounds like there is scope for a consortium of smaller African ISPs to buy a
> transponder and divide the bandwidth (and costs) between its members - if
> there is sufficient trust between them to achieve this.
>
> It does sound like these resellers are making excessive profits, but then
> again they are also taking some risks. If a client ISP folds or stops paying
> their bills, then the reseller ends up paying for the segment anyway; they
> also pay for unused portions on the transponder.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Brian.
>
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