UGANDAS READINESS FOR THE SUBMARINE CABLES

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UGANDAS READINESS FOR THE SUBMARINE CABLES

• IGF AUGUST 13, 2009
• Presented by Dr. Turahi David

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Introduction and Background

• Uganda is a landlocked country. Its therefore
  faced with high costs for Internet bandwidth due
  to the fact that the only means of access is via
  Satellite technology which remains very expensive
  for developing countries.
• This makes it very difficult for the country to
  fully exploit the vast benefits of the
  Information Age.
• Fiber Optic cable is therefore the cheaper
  alternative.

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Introduction and Background

• Fibre cable systems have two components
• Optic submarine fibre cables which are laid
  optimally on the ocean seabed and land at
  strategic sea ports
• Terrestrial backhaul fibre which connect to the
  hinterland land-locked countries.

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Delivery Mechanisms

• International fiber
• There are a number on international initiatives
  underway to deliver fiber to the east African
  coast. The table below summarises these
  initiatives.

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Delivering the fiber connectivity to Uganda

• Since we are a landlocked country we will
  depended on Fiber links from either Mombasa or
  Dar to our borders.
• There are already a number of private sector
  initiatives in Kenya to deliver fiber to the
  Ugandan Border
• The Tz National backbone envisages touching
  Bukoba and offers opportunity to connect to Dar
• The Kigali Bujumbura - Dar route has potential
  to offer redundancy for the main Mombasa route
• .

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Ugandas Proposed National Transmission Backbone
Infrastructure (NBI)
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• SOME NATIONAL TARGETS
• It is clear to government that High Speed
  Broadband Infrastructure will spur high speed
  Internet connectivity all over the country and
  thus facilitate the achievement of the
  development objectives interpreted under BPO and
  the telecom policy as
• Positioning Uganda as a regional ICT hub and a
  country of choice for BPO
• Connecting all schools by 2013
• Connecting all health centres by 2013
• Connecting all agricultural extension work and
  research stations by 2013
• Connecting all major towns and business centres
  by 2013

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Quantifications of Ugandas Broadband Ambitions

• Most of the current connectivity for public and
  private institutions is narrow band.
• Governments primary initial focus shall address
  the needs in the public sector, especially
  educational institutions and health facilities.
• The table below illustrates the current situation
  of access to internet services for public and
  private institutions and targets for connectivity
  by 2013.

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Analysis of target for public institutions
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• Estimation of Demand
• Methodology and Assumptions
• After deriving the population or number of users
  in each institution, we assume a percentage of
  population that should be connected to broadband
  at any one time to get the number of units/
  connections per institute.

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II. broadband for Uganda defined to be 256Kb per
connection in 2009, doubling each year as shown
below.
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III. Infrastructure demand Mbps per institution
is derived as shown below

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International connectivity requirement
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• National connectivity requirements
• National connectivity for internet is estimated
  at 1 currently. A number of strategies have been
  recommended to retain local traffic nationally.
  If implemented, national traffic is estimated to
  be 5 in 2009, increase to 15 when the NBI is
  switched on in 2011 and 35 by 2013.

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Last Mile Access requirements

• Final leg of delivering connectivity from a
  communications provider to a customer
• Typically seen as an expensive challenge because
  "fanning out" wires and cables is a considerable
  physical undertaking.
• A number of providers have been using Fixed
  Wireless technology both Licensed (Wimax etc) and
  Unlicensed (802.11 in both the 2.4Ghz and the
  5.8Ghz) to provide services over the last mile.
• Various other solutions are being developed as an
  alternative to the "last mile" . E.g WiMAX and
  BPL (Broadband over Power Line).
• In business, the Last Mile can be used to
  describe the process of getting any deliverable
  to the final customer or consumer.

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Last Mile Costing Estimations
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• International Access
• Public intervention is recommended for
  international access.
• Government should acquire ownership in one of the
  cables.

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International Access Contd

• Link shall connect government national backbone
  network and the private sector.
• Private sector shall be required to pay a premium
  for routing their traffic through whichever pipe
  government may have acquired.
• For example, a 10 link in TEAMS will guarantee
  government ownership and capacity of 12Gbps, at
  an estimated cost of less than USD 14 million.
  10 ownership in SEACOM would guarantee 65Gbps
  capacity at a cost of USD 35 million
• If government buys a 10 stake in any one of the
  links, and assuming the private sector consumes
  40 of the capacity bought for each link paying
  USD 100 for 1Mbps, government shall have
  collected the following revenues after 5 years

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Revenue in USD after 5 years
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Kenya

• Submarine cables
• Kenya government is developing the TEAMs project
  and is also supportive of the EASSy project.
• Has set conditions for any other cable. This
  implies that it is providing an advantage to the
  first two over any other might land there.
• Terrestrial backhaul
• Several telecom and data infrastructure providers
  have either laid or are in the process of laying
  fibre optic backhaul links from Mombasa to the
  Uganda boarder. These include Telecom Kenya,
  Kenya Digital Network (Sameer Group) , Jamii
  Telecom, Access Kenya, Wanainchi Telecom.
• This clearly indicates that there will be stiff
  competition for onward transmission of traffic to
  and from Uganda.
• Competition should be able to enable investors
  coming to the Ugandan market to acquire capacity
  at competitive prices.
• Though MTN and UTL have between them laid fibre
  cable from Malaba to Katuna, Ugandan companies
  should earnestly and quickly start running cables
  to the boarders of further hinterland countries
  such as Southern Sudan, eastern DRC so as to
  enable Uganda become a Regional ICT Hub.

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Tanzania (www.nationmedia.com/eastafrican/23012006
/Business)

• Strategy on National Backbone Infrastructure is
  to consolidate the existing fibre-optic cable
  infrastructure owned by TTCL. The analysis was to
  take into consideration the impact of new
  technology on the current national Strategy for
  Growth and Poverty Reduction.
• Three firms, the Tanzania Zambia Railway
  Authority (Tazara), the Tanzania Railways
  Corporation (TRC) and Songas, own fibre-optic
  cables, and tapping the impeding National project
  into them would save TTCL funds that it would
  have spent on procuring a new system.
• Analysts predicted that by linking the optic
  fibre network of Tanesco, Songas and TRC as well
  as the communications capacity of Tazara,
  Tanzania would be adequately networked, as the
  network could be further linked to countries such
  as DRC, Rwanda and Burundi.
• In 2005, a national Committee started working on
  a project known as the National ICT Backbone for
  Tanzania with a Chinese company called the
  Chinese International Telecommunications
  Contracting Corporation (CITCC) involved in
  developing the network. Zanzibar
  Telecommunications Company (Zantel) was also
  aspiring to be a major participant in
  implementation of the project.
• Zantel was strategizing with companies which had
  excess fibre optic capacity and had invited
  Rwanda telecommunications Company to explore
  possibilities of extending the link to Rwanda so
  that traffic from Rwanda can be routed through
  the network and transmitted through the Zantel
  gateway in Zanzibar.
• The project was to be linked to the EASSy project.

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Rwanda (www.rwandagateway.org/article.php3?id_art
icle8872)

• Government is implementing the Karisimbi
  Integrated Energy and Communications Project.
• located at one of the highest Mountain Summits in
  the country
• Overall objective is to enhance electronic
  communications and broadcasting capabilities both
  in Rwanda and in neighbouring countries.
• Seeks to provide low cost, high-capacity
  communications capability for both rural and
  urban areas, and expand mobile phone coverage,
  Internet and TV and radio broadcasting services.
• Major achievement is to lower cost of
  international bandwidth.
• Intended to connect rural schools and hospitals
  as a proof of concept.
• Once fully connected, it is expected that there
  will be a 50 reduction in cost of communications
  in Rwanda.
• Ultimate intention is to offer e-application
  services as virtual tourism, e-learning,
  e-health, e-commerce, e-government, tracking and
  surveillance of goods in transit, etc.

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Recommendations and Conclusions

• Agreed definition of broadband in Uganda be
  defined as 256kbps and that this figure should
  double annually for the next five years
• WiMAX is the technology of choice at the moment
  for quick rollout of last mile broad band,
  however, doors should be left open for any other
  technology of similar or better capacity in line
  with UCC's policy of technology neutrality in
  licensing.
• Spectrum fees for wireless data access should be
  reviewed to facilitate fast widespread and
  affordable rollout for last mile.
• The broadband targets set posses a big challenge
  for the country and it is clear that private
  sector alone cannot deliver this. It is
  therefore recommended that government intervenes
  by indentifying/ allocating the requisite funds
  to create the necessary infrastructure to meet
  the demand at all levels from international to
  last mile. It could be suggested that RCDF
  funds be used to support this process.
• Very little traffic is local. A five year target
  of 30 of broadband to be local.
• Measures be urgently put in place to ensure that
  all broadband operators route their local traffic
  through the national IXP and that arrangement be
  escalated to the EAC level.
• Creation of Local content is very key in making
  the internet relevant to all Ugandans. A similar
  team to UBIST needs to be formed to asses and
  strategies how this would be achieved. Other
  governmental institutions be involved like
  Education, culture and national Heritage.
• The regional operators have done allot of work
  through the East African Broadband System (EABS)
  project and Uganda should study this report for
  our national broadband infrastructure project.