East Africa suddenly finds itself inundated with optical fibre cable: the SEACOM cable went live just last week and hot on its heels is the Kenya Government sponsored TEAMS cable which is expected to be switched on in August – both cables battling to claim first-mover advantage and sell as much capacity as possible, as quickly as possible. The next attractions will be the EASSy cable and the France Telecom-owned Lion cable, which should both be connected within the next 8-12 months.
And so the region which has been inhibited by poor telecommunications infrastructure will literally have cable coming out of its ears by the end of 2010!
The first (and most anticipated) area of positive impact is cost. Even though the SEACOM consortium was quick to warn the public that they will have to wait a little longer for cheaper internet as industry players first want to recoup their investments, for countries which have largely been dependent on exorbitantly priced satellite connectivity, the region should still enjoy a noticeable drop in costs. This is because where satellite communication providers were charging as high as USD 7000 per megabyte, the SEACOM consortium will offer wholesale prices in the range of USD 100 per megabyte, with even more subsidised costs of between USD 10-25 to schools, research and health institutions. This is great news for businesses, learning institutions and individuals whose operating expenses will experience some relief in the medium to long term.
In addition to cost benefits, the region’s residents will finally be plugged into the world through reliable telecommunications infrastructure. What a dearth of opportunities this offers east Africa! The increased capacity via broadband internet will enable us to get more done faster - including, for instance, the ability to work collaboratively and securely across great distances, reliable video conferencing, even live streaming of audio visual content in a heartbeat and crystal clear VoIP calls. ‘Regular’ voice calls, international calls in particular, will also now be cheaper and more stable.
Governments in the region should quickly realise progress towards their anticipated socio-economic transformations as universal internet access draws even closer to becoming a reality. They have spent the last few years trying to understand and prepare for post-fibre East Africa - putting in place boards to manage and implement their ICT strategies and building policy and regulatory capacity in preparation for the changes that fibre will bring to their countries that cover critical areas such as identity theft, online transactions, the legality of e-communication and so on. They also expect to see business booming in the Business Process Outsourcing & Offshoring sector and countries like Kenya have already invested in marketing themselves as BPO destinations in Europe and North America.
This level of commitment is great for the region. It should inspire the confidence to stimulate the investments required to get more people and businesses online, moving transactions to cyber space in a region that has been reluctant to do so primarily for internet security reasons.
The push for the 24 hour economy just got a boost with fibre being able to support the communication requirements of companies that would seek to eliminate the traditional working environment altogether, enabling employees to work flexibly in terms of time and location.
The real value of optical fibre is in what the mwananchi (a.k.a. the guy on the street) does with it... the innovative African spirit has been waiting for infrastructure that is robust enough to support its ingenuity and now it’s finally here.
I can hardly wait to see what we do with it!
Showing posts with label bandwidth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bandwidth. Show all posts
Friday, 31 July 2009
Friday, 24 July 2009
Seacom has landed
The much vaunted Seacom undersea cable, linking Africa to Europe, landed this week and many of us waited expectantly for our internet speeds to move into the 21st century. If you have been following developments on Twitter, you will know already that for some people the dream is reality and for others like “MwendaRiungu: The #Seacom undersea fibre optic cable has landed in Kenyan coast, 5 ISPs hooked up, then......nothing! Still waiting....... “ it has completely failed to deliver.
If truth be told, most criticism does seem to be coming from the East African community, both in terms of bandwidth speeds, non-disclosure of which ISPs have signed with Seacom and with the fact that pricing remains largely unchanged. Perhaps the very effective Seacom PR machine should have added an element of expectation management to its strategy?
The reality is that many of Kenya’s ISPs are still tied into satellite contracts and will need to wait until these conclude before investing capital in buying space on Seacom. Also, less Kenyans have internet access than South Africans - which means that less people are sharing the bandwidth and infrastructure costs. Over time, as more people ‘go online’ this should hopefully help to drive down costs.
In South Africa, the promised massive reduction in bandwidth costs (up to 40%) making Internet access much cheaper for South African users is also not likely to be felt any time soon. In fact, analysts reckon that only corporations are likely to see a drastic drop in their Internet bill and consumers will continue to pay high tariffs for voice and data services. The launch of the Seacom cable does, however, mean that there is now some competition in a market that has been monopolistic for years.
At the launch yesterday, Cyril Ramaphosa said that Seacom would serve as “a catalyst for the east and south of Africa to speed up its economic development”. In South Africa, rumour has it that Telkom is buying space on Seacom and in Kenya it is unofficially official that Safaricom is one of the ISPs hooking up. Students in South Africa will be among the first people to directly benefit as TENET, the university network, was connected to Seacom yesterday.
While the Seacom landing is going to continue to fuel debate over the next few weeks, some positive, some cynical and much disillusioned, the one sure thing is that it is a significant step forward for bandwidth creation in East and southern Africa. Seacom will soon be joined by two further cables. The East African Marine System (Teams), scheduled for completion later in 2009, will link Kenya and the United Arab Emirates, and the Eastern African Submarine Cable System (Eassy), which lands in many of the same countries as Seacom, is expected to start service in mid-2010.
If truth be told, most criticism does seem to be coming from the East African community, both in terms of bandwidth speeds, non-disclosure of which ISPs have signed with Seacom and with the fact that pricing remains largely unchanged. Perhaps the very effective Seacom PR machine should have added an element of expectation management to its strategy?
The reality is that many of Kenya’s ISPs are still tied into satellite contracts and will need to wait until these conclude before investing capital in buying space on Seacom. Also, less Kenyans have internet access than South Africans - which means that less people are sharing the bandwidth and infrastructure costs. Over time, as more people ‘go online’ this should hopefully help to drive down costs.
In South Africa, the promised massive reduction in bandwidth costs (up to 40%) making Internet access much cheaper for South African users is also not likely to be felt any time soon. In fact, analysts reckon that only corporations are likely to see a drastic drop in their Internet bill and consumers will continue to pay high tariffs for voice and data services. The launch of the Seacom cable does, however, mean that there is now some competition in a market that has been monopolistic for years.
At the launch yesterday, Cyril Ramaphosa said that Seacom would serve as “a catalyst for the east and south of Africa to speed up its economic development”. In South Africa, rumour has it that Telkom is buying space on Seacom and in Kenya it is unofficially official that Safaricom is one of the ISPs hooking up. Students in South Africa will be among the first people to directly benefit as TENET, the university network, was connected to Seacom yesterday.
While the Seacom landing is going to continue to fuel debate over the next few weeks, some positive, some cynical and much disillusioned, the one sure thing is that it is a significant step forward for bandwidth creation in East and southern Africa. Seacom will soon be joined by two further cables. The East African Marine System (Teams), scheduled for completion later in 2009, will link Kenya and the United Arab Emirates, and the Eastern African Submarine Cable System (Eassy), which lands in many of the same countries as Seacom, is expected to start service in mid-2010.
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