West Africa high speed internet

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Sewell on January 14, 2010 at 2:11pm

I believe the solution for the average person is to be found in state of the art wireless networks like the 3G networks that ATT and Verizon are building out here in the US, Asia and Europe. I have an I-phone and absolutely love it. I get great reliability and performance from this phone and it does everything, email, text, internet, pictures, video, music, podcast streaming, etc., etc. The network design allows entrepreneurs to setup wireless nodes that are connected to a high speed backbone. The cost of that connection can then be distributed across hundreds and thousands of subscribers.

I think this is the platform of the future for internet users and the old Telecom backbones have their place for industrial users and large operations that require massive bandwidth, but this medium is so functional that I find it hard to believe it will not replace the computer as we know it today.

I can see a very near term future where I-phone users simply dock their phone to a very simple, low cost terminal and surf the internet, work on a larger screen with full keyboard when they want to office for an extended amount of time. These kinds of semi-dumb terminals would be very inexpensive (could be retrofitted old pc's running the necessary software) and readily available in internet cafes, airports, anywhere people might need to work for an hour or two on a full size monitor and keyboard.

The brains however would be the phone with applications and data being pushed across the network by the provider, backed up on their servers so phones can be easily replaced and data restored whenever needed. I have been using an I-phone for about 4 weeks and I already use it more than my home computer.

I consider it one of the greatest innovations of our time.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Dodds on January 14, 2010 at 3:02pm

It makes sense that the backbone will be built out with fiber whenever feasible and "the last mile" will be LTE, WiMAX, possibly in meshes. If a particular area builds sufficient demand then fiber from the backbone to the premise may take off. Helpful sites which showcase the development in the US (which has a higher cable modem presence due to legacy cable networks): http://www.ftthcouncil.org , http://www.connectednation.com , http://www.dslreports.com/

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Sewell on January 14, 2010 at 3:40pm

Ed, you mention the 'last mile' and I think you agree the wireless platform is a much more cost effective platform for expanding access to dense populations in undeveloped countries. Consider that movies/television media is already being heavily distributed via internet in the US and Europe to viewers accessing these services on the internet (i.e. ESPN 360, HULU, etc.), not on traditional cable networks or satelite. On the surface this would appear unrelated to our discussion but it all raises the specter of a web-centric future that many have failed to fully understand the effect of. This is a sea-change in the market as it becomes increasingly web-centric. Add to this the very real prospect that desktop PC software that individuals own and install is likely to soon become an ancient artifact as companies like Microsoft are investing heavily in cloud software distribution to global customers. This reduces or eliminates entirely the prospect of piracy and ads momentum to the web-centric future I am referring to. Software developers will not design and package software for users to install anymore. You will log in to Adobe.com and other software company portals and you will use their online software with enhanced functionality, delivered at a lower cost, on any computer. Now you no longer need a high powered PC to perform photo editing or graphic design. How does this relate to the topic at hand? Well it heavily favors those network providers that are focussed on simply delivering high speed internet service. This can be delivered wirelessly at much reduced cost to those who have invested in wireless network infrastructure vs traditional telephone companies and cable networks. Cable television requires tremendous bandwidth to deliver media to the individual consumer in their home via costly fiber or coaxial cable. Cable customers get a high quality product but the cost is very high and I seriously doubt if Africa will ever have large in-the-ground cable networks simply because the economics do not work. Online video quality is not as good as that which cable and satelite deliver, however that is improving daily as the software to deliver this content improves.

Consider also the lack of reliable electric service in much of West Africa and wireless seems to be the only reliable means by which you could serve large populations. A small solar farm and backup generator can maintain a cell station that serves hundreds of customers reliably.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Dodds on January 14, 2010 at 5:21pm

Jesse: Points well taken. I notice here in the States that Cox Cable is teaming with Clearwire to bring wireless to places that it would be too expensive to drop coax or fiber. The global trends I'm clueless about is indicated by these factors 1) most people on the planet are illiterate, 2) most people access the internet via mobile device (usually cell or smart phone -- not that the flash developers/portal types acknowledge this), and 3) projects like literacybridge.org are using dedicated audio devices to tackle the literacy jump for info dissemination (Unicef has found good success with RapidSMS, however). It seems like the web folks and the mobile folks are "talking" past each other. I don't have any grand answers other than to say these two "camps" had better start cooperating or they're both doomed to expensive, unnecessary redundancy.
I've thought about your solar/generator duo as part of the smart (distributed) grid solution in the rural parts of the US, too.

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Sewell on January 15, 2010 at 5:39pm

Ed,

I was talking to a customer who is involved with a wood gasification manufacturer, working on a conversion kit for deisel generators. This kind fo technology can have major implications for countries like Africa where waste wood is plentiful but the cost of deisel fuel is prohibitive. A gasifier that is running off of wood waste, converting that wood into liquid fule to run a genset is an ideal solution for some of these rural parts of the world that currently import massive quantities of deisel fuel at great cost. Considering the impact that this could have simply in terms of local job creation, the effect is potentially miraculous.

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Permalink Reply by Jesse Sewell on January 18, 2010 at 6:50am

One factor that has help the US and other developed nations complete high speed networks is the abundance of competiton and investors wanting to jump in and install fiber optic networks with the hope of providing high speed connections to the public network and potentially selling these smaller fiber networks at some point in the future at a very sizable return. Small regional competitors in the US have done this very profitably. One of Americas most profitable private telecom company was born out of a very simple idea. A former oil and gas executive realized that East Texas had miles and miles of abandoned natural gas lines that were no longer usable for transporting gas simply because they were outdated. He purchased the lines and installed fiber optic cables in them. Later he sold his network for several hundred million dollars. I believe the name of the company was LCI.

Does Africa have these kinds of private investors that are willing to take a chance on Angola or Mozambique or Tanzania or Ghana and install these kinds of networks and expand the current infrastructure to everyones benefit?

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Permalink Reply by John Hawker on February 19, 2010 at 8:18am

Backbone is everything. Even with fibre going into the coastal countries, I don't see it being available in rural or even semi rural areas in the near future.

If the USA is building pure IP Satellites for rural and semi rural access, using next gen DVB-S2 solutions similar to what I have worked on for last 10 years in Asia (IPSTAR - world's first Pure IP Satellite and largest at launch) then Africa needs to look at other solutions.

The answer is a mix - cable to coastal areas - some fibre and microwave to less populated areas, local distribution by LTE - some but smaller number of WiMax distributions - backhaul will remain with Satellite for many of these projects, simply because Satellite can uplink bandwidth from places outside Africa that are cheaper than in Africa.

O3B IF (note the if) successful with it's plans will take a lot of voice traffic - data traffic will go to new Satellite solutions.

Their will be no one solution - rather as per today - a mixture of pipes to get to everyone.

IP AFRICA has a keen interest and roll to play in these concepts.

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