What can civil society do? Example: submarine connectivity for Bangladesh - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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What can civil society do? Example: submarine connectivity for Bangladesh

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Title: What can civil society do? Example: submarine connectivity for Bangladesh


1
What can civil society do? Example submarine
connectivity for Bangladesh
  • Rohan Samarajiva
  • Association for Progressive Communication
    Seminar, 19 April 2006

2
Agenda
  • Example of a policy intervention by an ICT
    policy-regulation research capacity building
    (uncivil?) organization
  • Do not focus only on the obvious, like
  • More connections
  • Lower prices
  • E.g., better access regime for submarine cable ?
    stronger competition ? better all-around sector
    performance
  • Seize opportunities leverage strengths

3
SEA-ME-WE 4, Bangladeshs 1st submarine cable so
close yet so far
4
Opportunity
  • Cable operational in December 2005
  • Bangladesh not ready
  • With connecting links
  • Access regime
  • Opportunity ? accepted UNDP invitation to address
    ITES forum
  • Hartal day but 250-person room full to capacity
  • Minister BTTB leadership present for entire
    session

5
SAT-3/WASC/SAFE new connectivity for West Africa
from 2002
6
SAT-3 in West Africa SMW4 in Bangladesh compared
  • 28,800 km
  • Initial capacity 120 Gbps
  • USD 670m cost
  • Commissioned May 2002
  • 15 countries 17 landings
  • 1st only submarine cable for W. Africa
  • 20,000 km
  • Initial capacity 160 Gbps (12.5 of design
    capacity)
  • USD 500m cost
  • Commissioning 13 Dec 2005 in Dubai
  • 14 countries 15 landings
  • 1st only submarine cable for Bdesh

7
SAT-3/W Africa SMW4/Bdesh
  • Closed club consortium
  • Only ½ circuit sales now loosening up
  • Closed club consortium, with greater flexibility
  • Full circuit sales allowed
  • Only consortium can sell IRUs for 2 yrs members
    may sell after 2007

8
W. Africa 02 Bangladesh 05
9
SAT-3 cable does not necessarily mean
connectivity
2000 2001 2002 SAT-3 starts 2003
Internet traffic from Africa (Gbps) 0.649 1.230 2.102 3.226
Annual increase 90 71 53
10
What about capacity use?
  • IEEE author estimate 3 at end 2003
  • Already beyond expectation Administrator of
    cable consortium
  • However, he also says
  • In many of these countries . . . backhaul
    network is quite not accessible or may not be
    fully in place or may not have the capacity to
    support international access

11
Case study Nigeria (Dec 2003)
  • Main cable station completed in December 2001
  • Started handling traffic in April 2003 (15 months
    later)
  • 13 STM-1s (155 Mbps) available (3 in reserve)
  • 78 of one STM-1 frame in use (connected to sole
    domestic fiber) by Shell Nigeria

12
Case study Nigeria
  • Socketworks (ITES firm)
  • No fiber no SAT-3
  • Uses satellite connection (64 kbps up/256 kbps
    down) to California server farm
  • USD 13,000 to install, including dish, modem, and
    router
  • Operational costs USD 1,000/mo.
  • "The worst thing that happened to SAT-3/WASC was
    that the Nigerian people were represented by the
    most incompetent and most dysfunctional company
    in the world, NITEL Dr Aloy Chife, CEO,
    Socketworks

13
And price?
  • In monopoly environments only ½ circuits are sold
  • Connectivity½ circuit from, say, Europe ½
    circuit from African country
  • Actual price can be many times the cost of
    international ½ circuit
  • In June 2005, E1 ½ circuit from Europe was USD
    6,000-8,500/mo.
  • ½ circuit from Telkom SA was USD
    15,000-17,500/mo.
  • Total USD 21,000-26,000/mo. (70 to S African
    monopolist)

14
Price, Africa compared to India (ITES leader
regional benchmark)
India, E1 full circuit/mo. (USD), 2004 Q4 Africa, E1 full circuit/mo. (USD)
London-Mumbai 9,638 21,000-26,000
HK-Mumbai 7,611
Mumbai-Singapore 8,065
LA-Mumbai 9,003
Mumbai-NYC 8,614
15
But India is not standing still . . .
  • In 2004, India was in ½ circuit regime
  • VSNL took 85 of revenue from Indian ½ circuits
  • But will move to full circuit regime with new
    capacity coming on stream
  • Tata Indicom 5.12 Tbit cable between India
    Singapore in November 2004
  • SMW4 and FLAG Falcon in December 2005
  • TRAI has ordered cuts of 29 for E-1s, 64 for
    DS-3s, and 59 for STM-1s relative to IN-US
    Atlantic route effective September 2005

16
New regulated prices in India
Ceiling price/month for IPLC half circuits (USD), IN-US Atlantic Route likely full circuit price, assuming identical ½ circuit prices
E-1 2,366 4,732
DS-3 18,928 37,856
STM-1 54,418 108,826
17
Recommendations to Government of Bangladesh
  • Hive off the SMW4 consortium share interface
    (including fiber to Coxs Bazaar) from BTTB now
    make it a stand-alone company
  • Design a management contract with strict
    performance incentives and bid it out
    transparently
  • Contractually mandate management to web-publish
    all capacity contracts
  • Dont wait for three years and waste
    opportunities do it now

18
Recommendations
  • Declare the cable associated facilities
    essential
  • BTRC to be directed to implement open-access
    regime
  • Leave satellites alone, like India
  • Encourage the landing of an additional cable
    (possibly connecting India/Singapore) to provide
    facilities based competition in future
  • Cable redundancy needed in addition to satellite
  • Also analysts expect downward pressure on IPLC
    prices in Pakistan and Sri Lanka where SMW4 will
    be 2nd cable (excluding obsolete SMW2)

19
Follow up
  • Based on responses
  • Confidential memo to Minister at his request
  • Op-ed piece in Daily Star within 3-4 days
  • Seized the opportunity using comparative
    advantages
  • Research media savvy
  • Now up to domestic actors to move process forward
  • Actors not fully lined up because opportunity
    arose suddenly

20
Rohan Samarajiva
  • www.lirneasia.net
  • samarajiva_at_lirne.net
  • 94 11 493 9992 (v)
  • 94 11 494 0290 (f)
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