RE: Tanzanian ISPs move closer to establishing an Internet exchange

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

Makes sense to me. 2Mbps in the US or UK can be got for slightly under
$1,800, or even less. In Africa, that's what it costs an end user to
purchase a 128Kbps circuit. So, yes, we are definitely not profiting from
it, and the satellite companies are.

Recently, a potential client hoped he'd pay only the equivalent of 80
British pounds for a 512Kbps link to the Internet. I bet NTL gave him a
really good deal.

My feeling is satellite and IP service providers could have charged less
money for their service, and still made a lot of money off their African
clientele, but because earlier service providers have charged exorbitant
amounts of money, which has seemed and been acceptable to the African ISP,
they see no problem coming in with the same price structure.

I even lost count on the number of satellite companies from all parts of the
world offering me service. I wonder how long it takes them to search the web
for my name and e-mail address.

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
antonio at nambu.uem.mz
Sent: Wednesday, May 14, 2003 10:08 AM
To: Bill Woodcock
Cc: John Tully; afnog at afnog.org
Subject: Re: Tanzanian ISPs move closer to establishing an Internet exchange


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....

Cheers,



On 13 May 2003 at 14:21, Bill Woodcock wrote:

>       On Tue, 13 May 2003, Brian Candler wrote:
>     > Building an IX would be an attractive commercial proposition.
> 
> I don't understand your argument...  You're saying that if Africa were 
> like the rest of the world, IXes would be a profit-making enterprise, 
> although they aren't in the rest of the world?
> 
> I'm not sure what you're getting at.
> 
> Brian made the assertion that the dollar cost of intra-African traffic 
> shipped through extra-African exchanges was approximately US$400M. I 
> emailed him to ask his sources privately, and Randy emailed to ask his 
> sources publicly.  I don't think I have reason to question the 
> assertion, I'd just like to see the backing source numbers.
> 
>                                 -Bill
> 
> 
> 
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