[Afpif] Transit vs. peering Focust for Africa by 2021

Tue Aug 18 07:47:14 UTC 2015

Dear Patrick,

Who are your real customers - is operators in Africa? 

Meoli

From: Patrick Christian [mailto:pchristian at telegeography.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 2015 2:17 AM
To: Michael Kende
Cc: Meoli Kashorda; Michuki Mwangi; Mark Tinka; Nishal Goburdhan;
afpif at afpif.org; Kennedy Aseda; Karen Rose
Subject: Re: [Afpif] Transit vs. peering Focust for Africa by 2021

Hi Michael,

Sorry for the delayed response, I just spoke with my colleague. He was
considering adding questions regarding local traffic to our current IP
backbone survey, but decided not to because the bulk of our route data comes
from big IP backbone providers and adding questions on origin of traffic or
trying to define local with Level 3, Cogent, etc  would be too burdensome
for the survey and would affect response rate (we do not use network
analysis tools to get data, just surveys). However, we put the idea back on
the table to add the question to surveys for our broadband ISP contacts that
take part in the survey.  I think we would have a better chance of getting
data from them.

So to sum up, we do think it is feasible to collect this data from part of
our research contacts that take part in the survey. It wasn't part of our
current survey, but we are considering adding the question(s) for our next
survey... Another question we have is whether our customers are even
interested in this type of data (I am, but not sure if they are... have to
look into that, too)

Regarding IP transit prices, we have been tracking prices from mostly the
primary hubs. Best data from Joburg, Lagos, Ghana, Nairobi, Djibouti City
and more sporadic data from secondary hubs like Dar Es Salaam, Dakar,
Abidjan... We are just starting to get intra-African pricing, but not very
easy to get data consistently so far :(

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Best, Patrick

On Aug 12, 2015, at 1:26 AM, Michael Kende wrote:

Hi Patrick,

No worries on my end - this is what I had understood that it is not possible
with the current data - if you could look into it that would be great.  As
for IP transit prices, is it for all countries, most, or just the largest?

Please do let us know what your colleague has to say.

Thanks very much,

Michael

From: Patrick Christian <pchristian at telegeography.com>
Date: Wednesday 12 August 2015 03:11
To: Michael Kende <kende at isoc.org>
Cc: Meoli Kashorda <mkashorda at kenet.or.ke>, Michuki Mwangi
<mwangi at isoc.org>, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka at seacom.mu>, Nishal Goburdhan
<nishal at controlfreak.co.za>, "afpif at afpif.org" <afpif at afpif.org>, Kennedy
Aseda <kaseda at kenet.or.ke>, Karen Rose <rose at isoc.org>
Subject: Re: [Afpif] Transit vs. peering Focust for Africa by 2021

Dear Meoli and Michael,

I hope I haven't misled you. The data we collect from IP backbone providers
does not contain the origin/destination of traffic. They provide us with the
capacity and public IP traffic rate (link utilization) data of their
international links. With our current data set and survey instrument I don't
think what you ask, Michael,  would be feasible; however, my colleague was
looking into this question a couple of months ago. I'd like to speak with
him and then get back to you.  

And Meoli, regarding pricing, we track transport and IP transit prices but
primarily Africa to Europe, we do not have much intra-Africa pricing data
unfortunately.

Last, we will be releasing the latest edition of our Global Internet
Geography (Internet backbone networks report) in the next week or so. If
interested, I can send you a summary of findings.

Patrick

On Aug 11, 2015, at 1:44 AM, Michael Kende wrote:

Hello, 

This is a very interesting discussion, and I also believe both that this
data is not available, and that it would be very valuable.  Patrick, as you
seem to have international traffic between countries in the region and to
other regions, what would be needed to get local traffic by country, and do
you think it is feasible?  I for one would love to have more information on
your current research that you could share.

Thanks

MIchael

From: Meoli Kashorda <mkashorda at kenet.or.ke>
Date: Tuesday 11 August 2015 08:10
To: Patrick Christian <pchristian at telegeography.com>
Cc: Michuki Mwangi <mwangi at isoc.org>, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka at seacom.mu>,
Nishal Goburdhan <nishal at controlfreak.co.za>, "afpif at afpif.org"
<afpif at afpif.org>, Kennedy Aseda <kaseda at kenet.or.ke>, Michael Kende
<kende at isoc.org>, Karen Rose <rose at isoc.org>
Subject: Re: [Afpif] Transit vs. peering Focust for Africa by 2021

Dear Patrick,

As you have seen in our discussions, our interest is country you country
local traffic compared to global traffic mainly through Europe. We see very
low traffic between African countries - traffic follows content! 

I would still be interested in country by country international traffic data
and maybe IP transit costs in Africa. 

By the way, peering is NOT free for us in Africa -  we have to pay for
expensive national leased lines to peering nodes! Sometimes that can be more
expensive than  peering in Europe!  So the picture is complex - is content
that is driving our decisions or cost?

 We do need local Internet traffic research studies. 

Meoli

On Aug 11, 2015, at 1:39 AM, Patrick Christian
<pchristian at telegeography.com> wrote:

Maybe someone has already done a country by country study?

It could be that Telegeography may have some data around this. Patrick ?

Hi Michuki,

Our research is done on a country by country and regional basis but
unfortunately not at the granularity that you may be looking for--% of
traffic served locally. We focus on international/cross-border capacity and
traffic based on network data collected from ISPs/carriers in our annual
surveys. We see growth of local traffic in Africa through the increase of
intra-regional capacity/traffic (within Africa as a whole) compared to
inter-regional growth (Africa to Europe). I've just given away the gist of
my presentation for the conference :)  I'm happy to share more details on
our research if it helps or interests you.

Best,

Patrick

On Aug 10, 2015, at 7:19 AM, Michuki Mwangi wrote:

[Adding Patrick Christian from Telegeography, Michael Kende and Karen Rose]

On Aug 10, 2015, at 9:11 AM, Meoli Kashorda <mkashorda at kenet.or.ke> wrote:

Dear Mark,

Thanks for your very detailed responses. This is excellent preparation for
AFPIF 2015.

On the 60% local content, I am the one who misread the note from Michuki
(have not read the actual report). It suggests we shall achieve 60% not 80%
by 2021.

I have no data to challenge their forecast. But I do have some anecdotal
data on Kenya -  global CDNs are saving Kenyan operators about 50% of
international circuits capacity! And that Google and Akamai caches are
serving about 35-40% of traffic from Kenya. So we have probably achieved 40%
local traffic?

Maybe someone has already done a country by country study?

It could be that Telegeography may have some data around this. Patrick ?

We at KENET would appreciate a research grant to conduct EA study - anybody
generous?

This is interesting and good to know for a number of reasons. It has not
been clear if we could find a organization in the region that is interested
in engaging in this type of research work.

IMHO we are lacking on tools and data sources in our region that can be used
to progressively monitor the development. The first phase of this work is to
ensure that we have the data sources, tools and systems - access to the data
in a sustainable long term manner is just as important as the commissioning
the studies.

There is work underway coordinated by various organizations to try and
implement the tools in the region but this needs more collaboration from
network operators in hosting tools. For instance giving away Atlas probes is
a start, having them deployed on the network and keeping them on it far more
difficult that it should be :(

I would definitely like to hear what Michael and Karen Rose thoughts are on
such a study and not limiting it to EA but the entire region if possible.

I wonder why most of us are so quiet - maybe we already have anecdotal data
on each country represented in this mailing list? And Michuki could compile
it for AFPIF 2015 in two weeks?

If the data is available, we can definitely work on having it put together
for AfPIF-2015.

Regards,

Michuki.

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