RE: Tanzanian ISPs move closer to establishing an Internet exchange

["Mark Tinka" <mtinka at africaonline.co.ug>]

This is good news Brian. Finally glad to hear that this is happenning in
Kenya, considering Jambonet's history in the sector. This is definitely a
way forward.

This is the kind of level of trust and co-operation ISPs in Africa need.
It's an effort, but if we understand that satellite media puts each ISP at
pretty much the same level, backbone-wise, we can move forward and help each
other out, while dropping the bandwidth costs for each other as well the
economy in general.

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: Brian Longwe [mailto:brian at pch.net] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 12:45 PM
To: Mark Tinka
Cc: 'Brian Candler'; antonio at nambu.uem.mz; 'Bill Woodcock'; 'John Tully';
afnog at afnog.org
Subject: RE: Tanzanian ISPs move closer to establishing an Internet exchange



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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