2009/6/15 Michuki Mwangi <michuki@swiftkenya.com>

Watson,

Watson Kambo wrote:
> Thanks Mich,
>
> So does it mean guys in Europe and Japan who have #Mbs, got a buddy in
> Sweden who has 11Mbps link, do not actually have the same its actually an
> 'upto #Mbs' .... Or is it coz, correct me if am wrong, most of the traffic
> might be Local ( only Swedish) that they get this then if its international
> traffic then they share...

Its the very same as my previous mail with the following significant
differences.

the 11Mbps connection mostly on some DSL service has proper backhaul to
the ISP. Contention on the last mile is hardly an issue.

As you rightfully observed with a greater percentage of the traffic
being local (also known as peering - mainly at no cost - aka bill and
keep) and with cheap local capacity available to the providers -
connecting to the local exchange for over 60 percent of your traffic
becomes a trivial experience. As with Sweden, Korea, Germany and others
most ISPs have between multiple 1Gbps, 10Gps and 40 Gbps links to the
IXP. At such high capacities having 1:4 contention ratios or less
becomes the norm.

The cost of transit (traffic that cannot be reached through peering
hence needs to going through some carriers network depending on where
you are this could be about 40% on average for some maybe more), is
relatively cheaper compared. For instance transit costs with operators
like Congent and others is around $6/Mbps and highest will be about
$10/Mbps. (see www.drpeering.net). Therefore when buying in bulk it
becomes cheaper.

MY question is why the National fiber bandwith
> should cost the same as theUndersea ... I would think if all I do with my
> net is read email from my Kenya friends, and read Kenyan Newspaper probably
> watch kenyan TV online, then I can have enough capacity to do this like in
> Mbs...
>

The cost of the local infrastructure with competition normally brings
such costs down. Therefore if your ISP was able to buy dark fiber or
huge circuits from one building to another or to an IXP for a rate thats
within reason this may change. As it stands the last mile is
underdeveloped and hence we cannot see any significant cost reductions
at this stage.

By under-developed what i mean is that the operators with the
infrastructure have failed to realise the kind of gold they have on the
ground. Folks still sell 128kbps on fiber while the rest of the fiber
lays idle. In the 25yrs fiber cables have its worth making sure that you
make use of each year of its life - one year less is money lost.

Best regards,

Mich.