Job,

A few clarifications as below:

The setup is all Google backed from the Gigabit uplink (zero cost to the ISP here)

The cost of the uplink (refreshing) is not catered for by Google. So about 30% of the traffic served by the cache consumes the uplink of the service provider(can be international/undersea capacity or Google peer).

All the ISP does is to peer with it ensuring all google related traffic stays within the network

True, the ISP can peer with Google...but in Mombasa. The main reason ISPs peer with Google is to have redundancy but the cost of picking it from Mombasa vs using undersea may not be too different. Our terrestrial connectivity costs are expensive and the traffic needs to be carried from Mombasa to Nairobi ...maybe at a cost of about 1,000/Mbps

other CDNs are doing the same

So far all other CDNs are also anchored in ISP networks and the big challenge still is who will absorb the cost of refreshing

My own opinion on this is lack of will to work together. For instance, if KIXP members came together and agreed to absorb the 30% cost of refreshing the caches and content delivery in Nairobi then it would be possible for say Google, Akamai, Cloudflare, etc to be pulled from KIXP in Nairobi and refreshed using the contributions by the members - or those who are pulling content from the CDNs. Nothing is at zero cost, there's a cost but the problem is evryone else wants it for free.

For the end user cost, our main hindrance in the country is the cost of acquisition and maintenance of the access network (prohibitive costs of licenses, permits, 'facilitation', etc) and this is the bulk of the cost for delivery of Internet services. Until the unit cost of access networks and terrestrial in-country networks reduce substantially the cost of delivering the content may not significantly drop.

But, I could be wrong.

Kennedy

On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 12:50 PM, Job Muriuki via skunkworks <skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke> wrote:

Hello Skunks,

I have been researching on google cache and its availability and learned that it was supposed to be setup at KIXP for all ISPs to peer but due to capitalism this didn't take off.
As a result, Google decided to set it up on any ISPs data center as long as they push over 5Gbps. The setup is all Google backed from the Gigabit uplink (zero cost to the ISP here) the actual servers and management of the same. All the ISP does is to peer with it ensuring all google related traffic stays within the network and we all know how much of Google traffic we consume.

Now come to the end user cost of internet considering the bulk of it is Google and prices are still high at least for dedicated services considering you get the traffic from servers in the data center.

I think other CDNs are doing the same meaning the actual cost to ISPs should be lower than they say it costs them when you negotiate rates. I could over looked some factors but considering the fiber capacity lying underutilised within Kenya I think costs should lower. Want do you think?

Regards,
Job Muriuki,

Skype: heviejob

Sent with Mailtrack

_______________________________________________
skunkworks mailing list
skunkworks@lists.my.co.ke
------------
List info, subscribe/unsubscribe
http://lists.my.co.ke/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/skunkworks
------------

Skunkworks Rules
http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94
------------
Other services @ http://my.co.ke