Liquid Presentation AFPIF3 Final

Bridging the African Internet
Introduction – Mike Silber
•  Head of Legal and Commercial – Liquid Telecom
•  Board member
–  ICANN
–  .za Domain Name Authority
–  TENET
•  ISPA (South Africa) – Management Committee
Bridging the African Internet
•  Introduction to Liquid Telecom
•  Some context
•  Development of the African Internet
•  What’s been happening and what needs to happen?
•  Different types of operators have different needs and strategies
•  Challenges and Considerations
•  Our vision of a connected Africa
and…..
•  The Local Content Issue
Liquid Telecom Introduction
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Founded in 2004
Part of Econet Group
Traditionally a satellite and voice operator
Began planning fibre in 2008
Launched high speed fibre linking Zimbabwe to South Africa and the rest of
the world in 2010
Launched high speed fibre linking Zambia to Zimbabwe in 2011
More than 6000 km of fibre currently live running traffic
Further construction projects underway
Services include IP transit, National backhaul, International and National
MPLS, International high speed Ethernet and legacy STM-X SDH connections
Acquired Zimbabwe Online (ZOL) in 2012
Central Africa Fibre Project
• 
Provides a very high capacity optic fibre
network using state of the art technology
• 
The 8,500 km fibre network will connect all
the major cities and towns in Zimbabwe
Zambia, DRC and link to Liquid’s POP in
South Africa using the ring, mesh and star
topologies
• 
It s a mostly a construction project
• 
Also provides international connectivity to
the rest of the world
• 
Connects to the undersea cables
Fibre Build Quality
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Buried Ducted fibre 1m deep
Or OPGW on HV Power lines
Nodes have High Availability Power Systems
Next Generation SDH and DWDM
High speeds on all routes
Ring protection
Backed up with NOC, and field engineering
Metro rings in the cities
Fibre to the Premises in business and residential districts
IP Transit and MPLS
Backbone
IP Transit and Peering
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Liquid Telecom Backbone – AS30844
We like Peering!
peering@liquidtelecom.com
Major proportion of Internet transit supply to Zimbabwe, Zambia,
Lesotho
Over 300 peers, open peering at JINX and LINX and selective private
peering elsewhere. High Peering Ratio
Also operating AS30969, AS56696, AS37485, AS37374
Other AS numbers are peering locally in Zimbabwe, Zambia,
Botswana
Members of BINX, ZINX, ZIXP as well as JINX and LINX
Liquid Connectivity Map
•  Connection live to 4
sub sea cables
•  Redundant routes live
and under
development
•  One Network
•  Automatic protection
at Layer 2 or Layer 3
•  SLA that cannot be
matched in the region
Some Context
How we got here ….
2001
SAT3
2002
SAT3
2003
SAT3
2004
SAT3
2005
SAT3
2006
SAT3
2007
SAT3
2008
SAT3
2009
Seacom
TEAMs
2010
Main OnE
EASSy
GLO-1
2011
WACS
2012
ACE
2013
SAex
Fibre Capacity 2001
2001 SAT3
340 gigabits
Fibre Capacity 2009
2009 TEAMs
2009 Seacom
2001 SAT3
1280 gigabits
1280 gigabits
340 gigabits
Fibre Capacity 2010
2010 EASSy
4720 gigabits
2010 GLO-1
2010 MaIN OnE
2009 TEAMs
2009 Seacom
2001 SAT3
2500 gigabits
1920 gigabits
1280 gigabits
1280 gigabits
340 gigabits
Fibre Capacity 2011
2011 WACS
5120 gigabits
2010 EASSy
4720 gigabits
2010 GLO-1
2010 MaIN OnE
2009 TEAMs
2009 Seacom
2001 SAT3
2500 gigabits
1920 gigabits
1280 gigabits
1280 gigabits
340 gigabits
Fibre Capacity 2012
2012 ACE
5120 gigabits
2011 WACS
5120 gigabits
2010 EASSy
4720 gigabits
2010 GLO-1
2010 MaIN OnE
2009 TEAMs
2009 Seacom
2001 SAT3
2500 gigabits
1920 gigabits
1280 gigabits
1280 gigabits
340 gigabits
Fibre Capacity 2013
2013 SAex
12800 gigabits
2012 ACE
5120 gigabits
2011 WACS
5120 gigabits
2010 EASSy
4720 gigabits
2010 GLO-1
2010 MaIN OnE
2009 TEAMs
2009 Seacom
2001 SAT3
2500 gigabits
1920 gigabits
1280 gigabits
1280 gigabits
340 gigabits
Cost Breakdown Satellite/
Cable
Breakdown of broadband cost - using satellite
Other costs,
4%
Other costs,
International 9%
connectivity,
13%
Last mile,
34%
International
connectivity,
54%
Breakdown of broadband cost - using cable
Middle mile,
National 4%
backhaul, 3%
National
backhaul, 7%
Middle mile,
10%
Last mile,
61%
Monthly cost of broadband per subscriber (USD)
Comparing Operators and
Technologies
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Niche wireless
Wireline
Mass-market
wireless
Last mile
Middle mile
National backhaul
International connectivity
Other costs
UK Data Usage
Mobile Broadband
0.24 gigabytes
Residential Fixed Broadband
17 gigabytes
Monthly cost of broadband per subscriber (USD)
The Effect of Penetration on
Cost Per Subscriber
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Low BB
penetration
Mass-market
wireless
High BB
penetration
Last mile
Middle mile
National backhaul
International connectivity
Other costs
Submarine Cables will
Greatly Increase the
Affordability of Broadband
40
35
30
25
Other costs
International connectivity
20
National backhaul
Middle mile
15
Last mile
10
5
0
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Monthly Broadband Prices
Across Africa
Percentage split of packages below 1Mbit/s
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Above USD1000
USD500 - 1000
USD300 - 500
USD200 - 300
USD100 - 200
USD50 - 100
Below USD50
What’s been happening in
development of the African Internet?
Very generalised……
African Internet 2002
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Many Satellite Trunk Routes
Undersea fibres available but
often priced similarly or more
than satellite
Internet hubbing in Europe or
North America
Very few cross border connections
Some countries have local IXP
Expensive
High Latency
African Internet 2012
Artists Impression…
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Mostly sub sea Trunk Routes
Multiple sub sea routes and
competition leading to lower pricing
Internet hubbing mostly in Europe
IXP of choice for Africa is LINX
Some cross border connections,
mostly selling commercial transit to
countries with no landing stations
Nearly all countries have local IXP.
Many of these have participation from
local incumbent Telco
Cheaper than before
Latency to Europe about 50% less,
inter Africa Latency still about the
same as a direct satellite
African Internet 2022?
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Fully meshed terrestrial Internet?
Less direct connections to subsea
cables?
Cross border peering will be a reality
But who will do the cross border
peering?
We don’t expect to see a pan African
IXP
Will the African Internet backbone be
‘owned’ by African operators or
traditional tier 1 USA based carriers?
Will there be content and traffic to
support this?
What’s Happened
•  Sub sea cables built
•  Competition (not necessarily capacity) has brought about a
rapid crash in prices
•  Supply of sub sea capacity probably now has exceeded current
demand
•  Terrestrial fibre networks being built
•  Digging takes longer than laying fibre on sea bed
•  Crossing borders can take almost as long as negotiating
international sub sea Consortiums J
•  Cross border capacity usually used for commercial IP transit
from countries with landing stations to landlocked countries,
voice and corporate data networks
What Needs to Happen
•  Investment in high speed last mile will now drive growth in
subscribers
•  FTTH, WIMAX, LTE, ADSL
•  Local loop unbundling would be nice
•  Services based around high speed content will also drive growth in
bandwidth used by subscribers
•  More investment in terrestrial trunk routes, both national backhaul
and cross border will grow by business cases
•  The GSM networks (not the Internet) are the main drivers of
investment in national backhaul. 3G has capability to deliver to
millions of subscribers though not always at broadband speeds
•  Increased Internet Subscribers x more bandwidth per subscribers,
makes the cost per Mbps less expensive, drives subscriber growth
Different Folks have
different Interconnection
Strategies!
• 
• 
• 
• 
National incumbent Telco or PTO
MNO or Pan African network as part of a larger group
Independent MNO or Independent Entrepreneurial ISP
Liquid Telecom
National Incumbent Telco
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Often owns significant national copper and fibre network
Sometimes but not always is dominant supplier of Internet nationally
Has licence and permission to run most types of Telco service
Almost certainly will have made significant investment in a sub sea
consortium whether it is using that capacity or not
May own and have exclusivity on landing station
May have connection to borders where it interconnects to similar entity in
neighbouring country
But its network almost certainly stops at its own border
Cross border connection may be used for voice, IPLC half circuit and OSS,
maybe to sell Internet transit or buy Internet transit from its neighbour
Problems with such connections are lack of SLA, different networks so
probably no actual protection, you need to actually buy 2 links to have any
guarantee of QoS
Pan African Networks
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
MNO Group, Academic Network etc
Group has sizeable bandwidth needs
and national network in a number of
countries
Countries are not necessarily
bordering
Will have made substantial investment
in subsea capacity at group level
Desire is to link up those networks to a
Pan African network, aggregating and
hubbing the purchased sub sea
capacity at strategic landing points
Independent ISP or MNO
• 
• 
• 
• 
Entrepreneurial
Bandwidth needs below STM1
Or unable to make commitments in jumps of STM1
Needs resilience as its not possible to survive if single homed on one
fibre system
•  Buys IP transit but peers locally
•  More focussed on last mile and customer acquisition than long
distance infrastructure projects
•  May have business customers needing international private VPNs
Liquid Telecom
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Building one Network across multiple bordering countries
Licenced in those countries
Crossing borders
Open to JVs and partnerships
A “Carrier’s Carrier”
Servicing the needs of all different types of operator
Diverse products to support enterprise, home user, rural broadband
Challenges and issues
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Regulatory conditions to allow growth
Co-ordination with other government departments
Roads, Power, ICT Policy, Customs and Excise (borders)
Co-ordination between countries
Political instability
Construction projects
Cross border peerings will be low capacity in many cases, low
capacity means N x E1 = too expensive
•  Unique African challenges
The Result
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Internet wont develop to a plan
Different operators will follow
their own strategies
African Internet will evolve as
operators execute their strategies
It will end up being affordable to
most users
Most citizens and all businesses
will be users
We think it will look something
like this….
The Local Content Issue
•  For our case we see that 5% of total traffic in of Lesotho, Zimbabwe,
Zambia is for South Africa
•  Mostly South Africa News and TV, Internet banking, email/
commerce
•  Hardly any traffic at all between other neighbors say Zimbabwe and
Zambia or Zimbabwe and Botswana
•  Compare that to international voice where there is a lot
•  Pan African interest sites (e.g. Big Brother Africa) are usually hosted
in USA or Europe
The Local Content Issue
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
We looked at the top 25 Websites in
Nigeria, South Africa, Egypt, Ghana,
Cote D’Ivoire to see if they are hosted
locally
Compared to More developed Internet
nations
South Africa has 6, UK has 6, France
has 10 and Brazil 7
Egypt and Cote D’Ivoire have some
Ghana and Nigeria None
Worth noting that none are
particularly content heavy sites and
also that Nigeria is creating the most
video content of any African Nation
USA, Russia, China its mostly local sites
Country South Africa South Africa South Africa Top 25 9th 10th 13th Website bidorbuy.co.za news24.com fnb.co.za Locally
hosted Yes Yes Yes South Africa South Africa South Africa Ivory Coast Ivory Coast Egypt Egypt Egypt 14th 15th 19th 19th 24th 8th 13th 21st standardbank.co.za absa.co.zw iol.co.za mtn.ci aviso.ci masrawy.com ahram.org.eg yallakora.com Yes Yes Yes yes yes yes yes yes Go and Create Content
•  There is a gap in the market
•  Potentially very valuable African websites and applications yet to be
created
•  Someone will create such content and that person could be in this
room
•  Mark Zuckerberg is 28 years old
–  He lost 2 billion dollars on 21st May this year…..
Questions?