Seacom Consortium

I'm in the progress of setting up a consortium of ISP's to purchase
bandwidth from SeaCom. The target is to purchase an STM-1 (150Mb of
useable bandwidth). I'm up to 90Mb of interest so far.

You need to put down R12,000 per Mb purchased as a startup fee. This
will pay for the 5% deposit that SeaCom require.

You then need to pay R24,000 every three month per Mb (or R8,000 per Mb
per month). This needs to be paid in advance.

These costs include purchasing transit in London and feeding it to
Neotel in Midrand (44 Old Pretoria Rd, close to the Allensdale turnoff).

Costs not calculated are taking that bandwidth back to Rosebank, I'm
talking with DFA (Dark Fibre Africa).
Unfortunately - this deal is most useable by Gauteng ISP's. Then again -
if you are feeding your own ADSL customers - bandwidth could be injected
anywhere. Yet again - if people strike up good deals with the like of
DFA perhaps a group of ISP's (Durban?) could join together and get a
line up to Rosebank?

If you feel locked in - I'm also the Southern African AfriNIC
representative from July 1st (won the election in Cairo) - maybe I can
help you acquire your own IP address space?

If we (consortium members) can group together to purchase 150Mb - then
this is a done deal. After three years - the cable will be paid for -
the costs of International should then drop to about R2000 perMb per
month.

IS / MTN peering

Since monday morning, we've been observing, uh, "issues". IS -> MTN
Business is traceroute is looking like this for me:

 5. mi-za-rba-br3-gi0-3-950.ip.isnet.net
 6. 196.26.94.210
 7. core1b-rba-gi1-0-5.ip.isnet.net
 8. mi-za-rba-p5-gi2-0-0-301.ip.isnet.net
 9. mi-us-25b-p1-po1-1-3.ip.isnet.net
10. core1a-ny-gi1-0-0-301.ip.isnet.net
11. core1b-ny-gi1-2-8.ip.isnet.net
12. 12.86.139.193
13. cr2.n54ny.ip.att.net
14. ggr4.n54ny.ip.att.net
15. 192.205.36.58
16. 0.xe-5-0-0.xl4.nyc4.alter.net
17. 0.so-4-2-0.xt2.dca6.alter.net
18. so1-0-0.ir1.lnd19.alter.net
19. ge7-0-1.cr1.lnd19.za.mtnbusiness.net
20. s6-0-1.cr5.jnb6.za.mtnbusiness.net
21. ge11-0-0.gw2.jnb6.za.mtnbusiness.net
22. vlan9.hr3.jnb6.za.mtnbusiness.net

The return path (MTN Business -> IS) seems to be fine, though:

 5. ge4-0-0.gw1.jnb6.za.mtnbusiness.net
 6. 196.30.1.7
 7. ge0-3.cr1.jnb7.za.mtnbusiness.net
    ge0-2.cr1.jnb7.za.mtnbusiness.net
 8. ge0-2.br1.jnb7.za.mtnbusiness.net
 9. ???

Re: Seacom Consortium

Cheap and risky. I'm rather bearish on the viability.

How do you propose to deal with the issue of reaching capacity and 
dealing with the financial step function.
IE one's granularity in purchasing is in 150mb blocks.What happens if 
you need 170mb for a significant period of time?

Not to mention political and credit risks etc? Is the consortium a legal 
entity etc?

There are so many more risks (unforseen) in playing in the submarine 
cable space. The wrong strategic move can be very costly. You would be a 
completely green operator etc.

Mark Elkins wrote:
> I'm in the progress of setting up a consortium of ISP's to purchase
> bandwidth from SeaCom. The target is to purchase an STM-1 (150Mb of
> useable bandwidth). I'm up to 90Mb of interest so far.
>
> You need to put down R12,000 per Mb purchased as a startup fee. This
> will pay for the 5% deposit that SeaCom require.
>
> You then need to pay R24,000 every three month per Mb (or R8,000 per Mb
> per month). This needs to be paid in advance.
>
> These costs include purchasing transit in London and feeding it to
> Neotel in Midrand (44 Old Pretoria Rd, close to the Allensdale turnoff).
>
> Costs not calculated are taking that bandwidth back to Rosebank, I'm
> talking with DFA (Dark Fibre Africa).

Re: Seacom Consortium

Matthew Tagg said..
> Cheap and risky. I'm rather bearish on the viability.

Matthew, why so negative?

Farmers have been doing co-ops for years.....

IF it's put together well  (technically, finacially and legally),  it is 
surely the most affordable way for small to medium ISPs to get decent 
bandwidth into the country?

Regards,
Keith

_______________________________________________
IOZ mailing list
IOZ@...
http://lists.internet.org.za/mailman/listinfo/ioz

Re: IS / MTN peering

Tristan Seligmann wrote:
> Since monday morning, we've been observing, uh, "issues". IS -> MTN
<snip>
> Anyone know what's up?

Last week Wednesday I noticed IS was getting Hetzner's routes from MTN 
Business with a private AS (65419) as the origin.

I blogged about MTN Business' BGP misconfiguration and wondered how long 
it would take them to notice the problem. Nothing had changed when I 
looked again on Friday.

Today 65419 is gone from route-server.is.co.za, but so are two of the 
Hetzner routes. Checking the same routes on lg1.za.mtnbusiness.net shows 
they are still getting them from Hetzner.

So, the routes are still there, but they're being filtered (possibly by 
IS, but more likely by MTN Business).

_______________________________________________
IOZ mailing list
IOZ@...
http://lists.internet.org.za/mailman/listinfo/ioz

Re: Seacom Consortium

keith@... wrote:
> Matthew Tagg said..
>   
>> Cheap and risky. I'm rather bearish on the viability.
>>     
>
> Matthew, why so negative?
>   
As an ISP one is in the risk management business. Its very healthy and 
positive if an idea can stand up to scrutiny.

Quite honestly I'd like nothing more than cheap good quality bandwidth. 
It would be great for our GP's but one has to balance that with the 
reputational risk of choosing a path that ends in degraded service to 
end customers down the line.

_______________________________________________
IOZ mailing list
IOZ@...
http://lists.internet.org.za/mailman/listinfo/ioz

Re: Seacom Consortium

Matthew Tagg wrote:

> Cheap and risky. I'm rather bearish on the viability.
> 
> 
> Matthew, why so negative?
> 
> 
>    As an ISP one is in the risk management business. Its very healthy and
>    positive if an idea can stand up to scrutiny.
>    Quite honestly I'd like nothing more than cheap good quality
>    bandwidth. It would be great for our GP's but one has to balance that
>    with the reputational risk of choosing a path that ends in degraded
>    service to end customers down the line.

It is standard practise for ISPs internationally to run multiple paths,
each of which can act as a backup to the others during the inevitable
network failures that happen from time to time. IP has built in
mechanisms for coping with the risk of failure.

I would imagine members of the consortium would be using this link for
part of their bandwidth needs, not all of it.

Regards,
Graham
--

_______________________________________________

Re: Seacom Consortium

> I would imagine members of the consortium would be using this 
> link for part of their bandwidth needs, not all of it.

Interesting. To date, almost every ISP in SA uses SAT-3 for their
international connectivity. One or two have some satellite capacity as well
- not because of redundancy, but because once-upon-a-time it was cheaper.

Strange that we heard nothing then about alternative paths and redundancy.
Why the sudden interest? Is SEACOM perceived as being less reliable than
SAT-3?

I might point out that SEACOM uses a pair of self-healing SDH rings, with
redundant paths (different fibre pairs in the same cable) with a cross link
(third pair) between Tanzania & Kenya, up until it splits towards Europe &
India. Can one say the same for SAT-3? Yes, SAT-3 now offers an alternative
path/cable via SAFE, but that wasn't always the case.

Wait a year, and TEAMS will probably arrive. That's a completely separate
cable, which will provide redundancy. TEAMS has comparable costs to SEACOM.
SAT-3 doesn't.

Kind regards,

William Stucke
--
William@...
Cell:   083-308-0700
After Hours: 074-333-0109

_______________________________________________

Re: Seacom Consortium

On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, William Stucke wrote:

> Wait a year, and TEAMS will probably arrive. That's a completely separate
> cable, which will provide redundancy. TEAMS has comparable costs to SEACOM.
> SAT-3 doesn't.

hello william

what is the current cost comparison for SEACOM vs SAT-3, say for STM-1 
capacity?

steve

_______________________________________________
IOZ mailing list
IOZ@...
http://lists.internet.org.za/mailman/listinfo/ioz

Re: Seacom Consortium

About 80% less
Rob

On 2 Jun 2009, at 22:25, Steven G. Huter wrote:

> On Tue, 2 Jun 2009, William Stucke wrote:
>
>> Wait a year, and TEAMS will probably arrive. That's a completely  
>> separate
>> cable, which will provide redundancy. TEAMS has comparable costs to  
>> SEACOM.
>> SAT-3 doesn't.
>
> hello william
>
> what is the current cost comparison for SEACOM vs SAT-3, say for STM-1
> capacity?
>
> steve
>
> _______________________________________________
> IOZ mailing list
> IOZ@...
> http://lists.internet.org.za/mailman/listinfo/ioz

_______________________________________________
IOZ mailing list
IOZ@...
http://lists.internet.org.za/mailman/listinfo/ioz