SEACOM goes Live.

July 24, 2009 · Filed under Uncategorized

Dear Friends.

Thursday the 23rd of July 2009 will go down in history as the day Kenya got to commence the enjoyment of highspeed broadband internet. After years of waiting in anticipation and theorizing on the benefits of highspeed internet it is finally here. In a highly publicized and coordinated event SEACOM turned on the switch which instantaneously beamed Terabytes of bandwidth at the speed of light through highly polished and engineered strands of glass.

This was the moment that the countries on the eastern seaboard of Africa have been preparing for in more than a decade. In a single day the telecommunications paradigm has shifted dramatically. Whereas just yesterday a telephone call from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam would have first travelled to a satellite in outer space before bouncing back to Tanzania, now it will simply travel a few kilometres under the sea and arrive in a fraction of the time it took to do so before. Whereas to watch a 5minute youtube video took almost 10minutes to download now it should take just under 6seconds. Opening an internet page will be instantaneous as opposed to before when to open an e-mail account took you almost 10 minutes to access your first mail if not longer.

Beyond this however is the fact that with all this improvement in service the costs will actually go down instead of up. We are normally made to believe that when you want higher quality you should be prepared to pay more. In this case however the opposite is the reality. There is alot of debate as to whether the costs will drop by 90% or 20% – 30%. What is not in doubt is a price increase is not even considered despite the massive investment the various players and SEACOM have put into the project. Some are now wondering how will the players recoup investment?

The answer is actually to do with the concept of less price attracts greater demand. So less is more in the new economics of telecommunications. If internet access is made more affordable then many citizens will naturally want to enjoy the benefits. The more subscibers join the internet also known as uptake in technical jargon the more the firms stand to benefit. Why is this considered workable?

The answer lies in a study done by the World bank on an actual cable called SAT3 which is a fibre-optic cable along the western seaboard of Africa. This cable was a closed access system which eventhough it provided some bandwidth to the west Africans ended up being as expensive as satellite so that some countries such as Nigeria actually opted to use satellite. This is why internet speeds in Nigeria were almost as pathetic as the ones in Nairobi despite the presence of a fibre-optic cable. It has to be said though that SAT3 has only a tenth of the bandwidth that SEACOM is offering to us now i.e. SAT3 had about 120Gb/s as opposed to 1.28Tb/s for SEACOM.

Fibre-optic cables have a lifespan of between 20 – 25yrs. During that time they have to recover their investment costs and generate profit. Now if you keep prices high and no one uses your cable the bandwidth you have will be useless. Your cable will not generate any sales and return on investment will be minimal. This is why it is better to keep prices as low as possible to encourage heavy use which will then generate revenue and also hopefully create an addiction for the internet which will mean people cant do without it.

SAT3 demonstrated that artificially high price amounts to a denial of service to consumers and therefore it is like there is no cable. Hence it is in SEACOM’s interest to keep prices low. That will also have major implications for other facets of life in Africa. This will lead to monumentous change in the way Africans view information.

From a purely commercial angle m-commerce & e-commerce will take on added significance. Small and medium sized business will want to take advantage of the internet to sell their goods to the world. With cheaper access and more bandwidth they will be able to invest in content rich websites which will hopefully attract customers. Gamers will be able to upload and design games using open source software. Companies will be able to take advantage of new internet phenomena like cloud computing which could save them millions in expensive databases.

Perhaps one of the biggest changes will come when the government fully digitizes it’s services which will improve service delivery and reduce incidences of corruption. Most notable of this will be for example the ministries of justice, health, lands, education, agriculture and government procurement. It has been said 90% of the governments corruption occurs in procurement. If this aspect becomes automated and removes personal negotiations and manipulations it will be virtually impossible for corruption to occur undetected. Think of it if tenders are submitted online and payment done online and the selection is done based on mathematical scientific models it will not be possible for government officials to influence the system.

In addition our universities and institutes of higher learning will benefit tremendously from the enormous bandwidth and the greater possibilities to share and acquire access to massive amounts of information. This will mean that our academic institutions will not only be consumers but will also be able to upload valuable information into the global superhighway and therefore introduce a potentially valuable source of revenue. Searching the internet today you notice the lack of African content whether in business or cultural or literal works. This is set to change with digitization and easier access to the internet.

There are also numerous opportunities for our academics and students to participate in global projects aimed at enhancing or finding solutions to humanity’s problems through global participation on scientific projects such as wolfram alpha or medical, agricultural, meteorological, biotechnical and engineering projects.

There is also the potentially promising field of BPO [Business Process Outsourcing] which is a potential generator of employment for our youth. It may also be the conduit on which Kenya will develope other competitive and potentially more valuable IT skills. India has shown what is possible to achieve in this sector and where the future is headed. Kenya which has a relatively well educated youth has the potential to excel in this new sectors which could revolutionize Kenya’s economy.

Finally before I let you guys living in Kenya go I would like to suggest you do a historical experiment to test your current internet speed before switching to the fibre-optic cable. To do this go to speedtest.net and choose a city of the world say Washington DC or Amsterdam and test your current speed before switching to SEACOM or TEAMS. Do the test 3 times and divide the result by 3 to get an average speed. Keep those results in safe place and then when you effect the change do the test again and see the difference. You will also be able to compare your speed with other places in the world. The site tests your download, upload and ping speeds. So you should have 3 different speeds to test for. If you have already switched, it will be interesting to see how you compare to Europe which currently has the highest speeds eventhough South Korea enjoys some of the highest as a country.

In conclusion the completion of this project is the first among almost a dozen initiatives to build fibre around Africa. In Kenya which is a mobile technology phenomenon technologies such as WiMAX and the deployment of 3G & 4G networks will lead to a richer mobile experience. Africa is truly transforming as the number of undersea cables under construction means that West Africa may end up with almost 7 cables the largest of which is the proposed WACS with a whopping 3.84Tb/s while East Africa may see upto 4 cables. This may truly turn out to be the beginning of the age of Africa. Africa, Kenya Yes We can.

JellyFish.