1www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/scs/net/talk09/icfa-aug09.ppt

New E. Coast of Africa Fibre

Prepared by: Les CottrellSLAC,Umar KalimSEECS,NUST/SLAC

Presented to the International Committee on Future Accelerators

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Summary• Current State

• What is happening?

• Impact

• Next Steps

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World Throughput Trends Behind Europe5 Yrs: Russia, Latin America, Mid East 6 Yrs: SE Asia9 Yrs: South Asia12 Yrs: Cent. Asia16 Yrs: Africa

Central Asia, and Africa are in

Danger of Falling Even Farther

behindIn 10 years at the

current rate Africa will be 1000 times

worse than Europe

Derived throughput ~ 8 * 1460 /(RTT * sqrt(loss))Mathis et. al

1993

Current State: E. Africa worst in Africa• Not only is Africa in a

sorry state Internet wise

• But also within Africa E. and Central Africa are the worst off

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Current State: RTT & GEOS• RTTs > 400 ms are probably via GEOStationary

Satellite connections• Central & E. Africa only

have had GEOS connections

• Satellite connections are low bandwidth and costly in $/Mbps for sub-Sahara– E.g broadband costs 50

times that in US– >800% of monthly salary

c.f. 20% in US

PingER• Coverage extended to better

understand Africa– 50 countries, > 160 sites

• Funding from Pakistan & pro-bono

What is happening• Up until July 2009 only one (no competition)

submarine fibre optic cable to sub-Saharan Africa (SAT3) costly (no competition) & only W. Coast

• 2010 Football World Cup => scramble to provide fibre optic connections to S. Africa, both E & W Coast

• Multiple providers = competition

• E. Coast: Seacom & TEAMs landed Jul 2009, Seacom working

Impact: RTT etc.• As sites move their routing from GEOS to terestrial

connections, we can expect:– Dramatically reduced Round Trip Time (RTT), e.g. from 700ms to

350ms – seen immediately– Reduced losses and jitter due to higher bandwidth capacity and

reduced contention – when routes etc. stabilizedAug 1 ’09 23:00hr

Aug 1 ’09 23:00hr

SLAC to Kenya siteSLAC to Kenya site

325ms325ms720ms720ms

Avg RTTAvg RTT

LossLoss

• Effects have been seen in leading Kenyan & Tanzanian hosts

Next Steps: Going inland• Extend coverage from landing points to capitals and major

cites• Need fibre connections inland

CentralCentral

NorthernNorthern

SouthernSouthern

Next Steps: Beyond Fibre’s reach• In areas where fibre connections are not available

(e.g. rural areas), the main contenders appear to be:– wireless, e.g. microwave, cellphone towers, WiMax etc., – Low Earth Orbiting Satellites (LEOS) for example

Google signed up with Liberty Global and HSBC in a bid to launch 16 LEOS satellites, to bring high-speed internet access to Africa by end 2010,

– and weather balloons, also see here for some dicsussion of the attractivenss of this technology.

Next Steps: Let’s get together• Get leaders such as universities, academic

establishments (teach the teachers) to get togeher to form NRENs for country

• Bargain for cheaper rates• BW most expensive

worldwide ($4K/Mbps)• Then NRENS get together

to create International eXchange Points (IXPs)– Avoid intercountry links

using expensive intercontinental links via Europe and the US.

Routing• Used to typically go through a satellite provider

such as Newskies• Now TZ & KE go via London

and Teleglobe & terrestrial fibre• IXPs starting up, e.g.

• S. Africa direct to Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique

• Burkina Faso direct to Mali, Senegal, Benin

• Ubuntunet Alliance• Founders: Kenya, Malawi,

Mozambique, Rwanda South Africa• Joined by DRC, SD, TZ, UG

S. Africa

Burkina Faso

Impact for Science• African scientists isolated

• Lack critical mass, need network to collaborate

• Brain drain

• Brain gain, tap diaspora

• Massification – blend distance learning

• Provide leadership, train trainers

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More Information• Case Study:

– https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/New+E.+Coast+of+Africa+Fibre

• Ubuntunet Alliance– http://www.ubuntunet.net/

• Weather balloons– http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=694&doc

_id=178131&– http://crossedcrocodiles.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/undersea-bro

adband-fiber-optic-cables-to-africa/

• Google LEOS’– http://gigaom.com/2008/09/09/google-invests-in-satellite-based-int

ernet-startup/

Africa is Huge• India 10% area, but > population, hard to get fibre everywhere

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…and diverse (e.g. languages)• More than 1,000 indigenous

African languages including several spoken by tens of millions such as Igbo, Swahili, Hausa, Amharic, and Yoruba;

• Plus Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Spanish, Indian languages, others

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African World Status

• Internet city connections

Fibres

Light at night

CapacityFrom Telegeography

World ViewsCartogram perspective see

www.geog.qmw.ac.uk/gbhgis/conference/cartogram.html

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Population

Internet Users 2002

Area

Tertiary Education fromhttp://www.worldmapper.org/

Possible Attractions

• Large Population (~1 Billion)

• Youthful population• Saturation of developed

markets makes emerging markets interesting to business (Vital Wave)

• Leapfrog technologies (cell phones, wireless …)

MatureMatureEmerging StrategicEmerging Strategic

Emerging NicheEmerging NicheEmerging LongtermEmerging Longterm

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PingER Deployment• PingER project originally (1995) for measuring network

performance for US, Europe and Japanese HEP community - now mainly R&E sites

• Extended this century to measure Digital Divide:– Collaboration with ICTP Science Dissemination Unit http://sdu.ictp.it – ICFA/SCIC: http://icfa-scic.web.cern.ch/ICFA-SCIC/

– Monitors (>40 in 23 countries – 3 Africa)

– Beacons ~ 90 (all monitors monitor beacons)

– Remote sites (>700)

• >165 countries (98% world’s population, >99% world’s connected population)

PingER Growth in Time

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ICFA

ICTP & NATO

IHY/eGY

NUST

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World Measurements: Min RTT from US• Maps show increased coverage • Min RTT indicates best possible, i.e. no queuing• >400ms probably geo-stationary satellite• Between developed regions min-RTT dominated by

distance - Little improvement possible• Only a few places still using satellite for international

access, mainly Africa & Central Asia

2000 2008

Loss

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With TCP (>80% Internet traffic) recovery from loss can take several seconds, such delays make interactive use annoying to impossible.For non TCP multi-media traffic loss causes poor voice/video (VoIP/H323) above 1.5%,loss > 0.5% unacceptable for IPTVhttp://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wan-mon/tutorial.html#loss

Africa by far worst region,

10-20 times worse than developed regions

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Similar Results from Europe (CERN)(so for rest use SLAC Results since more coverage)

• EU, US/CA, Oceania, E. Asia lead

• SE Europe, Russia catching up

• S. Asia. Mid East, C. Asia poor

• Africa poor and falling behind

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Some Other World Views

Voice & video (de-jitter) Network & Host Fragility

Data TransferCapacity

ITCP Internet Weather for Africa

• www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/africa-weather08.mov

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Demo• Shows population=bubble area, y=throughput, x=RTT as a

function of time• Note

– Improved performance & increase of coverage with time

– Africa clusters towards long RTT and poor throughput (bottom left) and generally far worse than rest of world

– African varies by countries (cf Egypt & Ethiopia)

– Big variations year to year

• Correlate with DOI index (opportunity, infrastructure, usage)• by mobile telephony, Internet tariffs, #computers, fixed line phones, mobile subscribers,

Internet users)/population

• http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/pinger-metrics-motion-chart.html

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Google Motion Chart Applet

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Mediterranean. & Africa vs HDI

• There is a good correlation between the 2 measures• N. Africa has 10 times poorer performance than Europe• N. Africa several times better than say E. Africa• E. Africa poor,

limited by satellite access

• W. Africa big differences, some (Senegal) can afford SAT3 fibre others use satellite

• Great diversity between & within regions

HDI related to GDP, life expectancy, tertiary education etc.

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African Situation

• Access to the internet is so desirable to students in Africa that they spend considerable time and money to get it. Many students surveyed, with no internet connection at their universities, resorted to private, fee-charging internet cafes to study and learn. www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Online.html

Internet Café in Ghana

• School in a secondary town in an East Coast country with networked computer lab spends 2/3rds of its annual budget to pay for the dial-up connection.

– Disconnects Heloise Emdon, Acacia Southern Africa

1 yr of Internet access > average annual income of most Africans, Survey by Paul Budde Communications

• Survey (IHY meeting Ethiopia in November ’07) of leading Universities in 17 countries (will repeat with more clarity):

– Each had tens of 1000’s of students, 1000 or so staff– Best had 2 Mbits, worst dial up 56kbps– Often access restricted to faculty

Sub-Saharan broadband cost off-scale

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www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2009/index.html

Source ITU

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Opportunities: Routing• Seen from TENET

Cape Town ZA

• Only Botswana & Zimbabwe are direct

• Most go via Europe or USA

• Wastes costly international bandwidth

• Need IXPs in Africa

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IXPs a Major Issue for African Internet• International bandwidth prices are biggest contributor to high costs• African users effectively subsidise international transit providers!• Fibre optic links are few and expensive reliance on satellite

connectivity• High satellite latency slow speed, high prices• Growth of Internet businesses is inhibited• In 2003 10 out of 53 countries had IXPs, now 16• More IXPs lower latency, lower costs, more usage• Both national and regional IXPs needed• Also needed: regional carriers, more fibre optic infrastructure

investment• Need NRENs country ->region

– Then international IXPsInternetInternet

AA BBIXP•Américo Muchanga

americo@uem.mz, •25 September 2005

Opportunities: Fibre, satellite, mobiles• Satellite is extremely effective in reaching places where the volume of traffic

would not justify a fibre connection. • GEOS satellite $/Mbps 300-1000 x Fibre, severely bandwidth-constrained and

high latency• So fibre international and to major cities

– Scramble to provide international fibre for

World Cup 2010– then wireless (cell phone, wimax, LEOS…) – cell phone growth leads Internet growth by 4.5 years

• 16 LEOS (reduce latency) - Sep 2008• Google signed up with Liberty Global and HSBC in a bid to launch 16 LEOS satellites, to bring high-

speed internet access to Africa by end 2010

– ABUJA Africa's first communications satellite has suffered an energy failure just 18 months after its launch - Nov. 2008

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African International Fibres 2010

Current:SAT-3-WASC run by a consortium of state monopolies that has opted for elite rather than mass market.Prices tend to align to satellite in the absence of competition!“Black” Fibres installedalong roads, pylons etc. remain unused because of monopoly regulation!

36http://www.internetworldstats.com/

Africa

Huge growth

~ 3x lower penetration than any other region

huge potential market

Many systemic factors:Electricity, import duties,skills, disease, protectionist policies, conflict, corruption.

PingER: African coverage• Host monitored in 50 of 60 countries (98.7% pop)• ~130 hosts monitored in Africa• Cannot find hosts in Chad, Comoros, Eq. Guinea, Sao Tome, Somalia

• Yellow only 1 host (so could be anomalous, e.g. Libya)

• Need help for contacts: (cottrell@slac.stanford.edu)

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Only 1 hostOnly 1 host Hosts monitored/beaconsHosts monitored/beacons

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Conclusions: The bad• Poor performance affects data transfer, multi-media,

VoIP, IT development & country performance / development

• DD exists between regions & countries, rural vs cities, poor vs rich, old vs young…

• Decreasing use of satellites, expensive, but still needed for many remote countries in Africa and C. Asia

• Last mile problems, and network fragility• Current providers (cable and satellite) have a lot to loose

– Many of these have close links to regulators and governments (e.g. over 50% of ISPs in Africa are government controlled)

• Africa worst by all measures (throughput, loss, jitter, DOI, international bandwidth, users, costs …) and falling further behind.

Conclusions: There is Hope• World cup: international fibre access + competition• LEOS• Leapfrog last mile fixed wire with wireless• Cheaper end points: OLTP, net computer, smart-phones

• Banding together of universities => leverage influence & get deals => NRENs => IXPsUsers– E.g. Ubuntunet, Bandwidth Initiative

• Standards:– Harmonization of regulations country to country– Cheaper cell phone, can’t afford multiple technologies & frequencies

• Regulatory regimes becoming:– more open/transparent, less resistant to change

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“The way we develop here in Africa will be different from the way the big nations

developed. They grew up with computers. We are growing up with mobile phones.

- Fritz Ekwoge”

Conclusions: PingER• Measures Internet performance

– non subjective, – relatively easy/quick to measure (c.f. ITU etc methods)

• So monthly, daily updates

– correlates strongly with economic/technical/development indices– Increase coverage of monitoring to understand Internet performance

• Gives baselines, trends, effect of improvements

• Relative comparisons countries, regions, sites

• Lot of granularity:– within countries, monthly, daily

• Reasonable coverage for Africa (48 of 53 countries)

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IHY Sites & PingER

Google maps– Zoom, pan etc.

• IHY coordinates from Monique Petitdidier (CNRS)

• SIDs from Deborah Scherrer (Stanford)

• To come: Barbara Thompson (NASA)

www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wan-mon/viper/ihy_googlemap.htm

8:30am 19 Dec

PingER monitoring of

events• Effect of

Mediterranean fibre cuts Dec 2008

• confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Effects+of+Mediterranean+Fibre+Cuts+December+2008

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0:00am 22 Dec

Kbits/s

Contour map of performance Dec 2008 for hostsIn countries affected by fibre cutContour map of performance Dec 2008 for hostsIn countries affected by fibre cut

RTTSLAC to Oman

Sec

onds

Sec

onds

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More Information

• Thanks: – Incentive: ICFA/SCIC, Monique Petitdidier, ICTP, ITU – Funding: DoE/SLAC/HEP, Pakistan HEC– Effort: SLAC, ICTP (Trieste), FNAL, Georgia Tech, administrators

at over 40 monitoring sites• ITU/WIS Report 2006 & 2007 (or Google: “WSIS Report 2007”)

– www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2007/report.html– www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2009/index.html

• Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa– www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Online.html

• PingER– www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger, sdu.ictp.it/pinger/africa.html– www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/icfa/icfa-net-paper-jan09/

• Global Information watch: www.giswatch.org • Need network contacts in Africa:

cottrell@slac.stanford.edu