Michael Mangala is a don specialist in nuclear techniques, Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (INST), University of Nairobi. With the arrival of the fiber cable at Mombasa later at Nairobi and to other major towns in the country his expectations were high that the internet speed will be so high to save him from the long moments consumed in downloading teaching materials and accessing revered journals, will be a click of the mouse.
But this seems to be a dream yet to be fully realized. Internet disconnection are often, Mangala says. He concurs with some of his students that the cost of internet has come down but not really to the expected costs they envisioned with fiber connectivity.
The expected high speed and lower costs of internet accessibility will take time to realized, says Martin Sanne, head of Sales, Seacom Ltd.
Sanne projects it will take about 18 months for this expectation to be realized. “At the moment we are at an investment phase – once networks have been build the cost will go down.”
He articulates that increased local connectivity between countries with corresponding increased need of internet access from Africa to Europe and USA; and Asia's increasing interest in Africa – where Seacom will be connecting the continent to Singapore and Hong Kong will accelerate the realization of lower prizes.
Adds he: Increased use of social media in Africa such as face book, twitter, Skype, and YouTube coupled with Africans interest in on line video content which they will be down loading blended with competition from internet providers locally will lead to the improvement of connectivity and services, as well.
“Internet usage in Kenya has increased by 100 percent within the last 18 month. Each internet user is using ten times more data than before,” says the head of sales,Seacom with a passion of connecting Africa to the world.
Internet users are consuming more megabits than they used to do before, adds Julius Opiyo, head of sales – East Africa, Seacom Ltd, thus higher costs. Opiyo argues Internet prizes have gone down by 80 percent from Seacom perspective.
However, vandalism of the fiber cable is one of the challenge facing connectivity of the information supper high way in cutting down the costs drastically, he says, but the government has stepped in to provide necessary security measures.
African settlement is a challenge to lower costs as 80 percent of the population is residing in rural areas, sparsely scatted. That is why the fiber cable will not fully phase out wireless connectivity in totality.
According to Seacom Kenyan's internet costs are the lowest in East and Central Africa but local connectivity can be inferior due to historical reasons. The number of players in building local network too determines the progressive improvement of the quality of service to the end user.
Distribution of the capacity is a limiting factor at the moment. Since they have to build connections to the end users who take time to decide but it is projected that many people will be connected for the costs to go down. Internet cost is direct proportional to the number of end users when other factors are taken care of.
From the trend that has been witnessed, where, 2 years ago there was no fiber cable capacity in Kenya. 2 years latter Seacom a lone is transporting about 20 gigabit per second data from East Africa and at least 30 gigabit per second from Southern Africa. “We estimate that this will double in a every sort period of time, 6 months to 1 year,” Sanne says: Today we have activated over 110 gigabit per second on Seacom cable - this offers a reason why the demand is going to increase very fast.
Seacom is facilitating e-learning by providing special offer prize model for educational network for universities and schools by offering a quarter of the commercial prize.
Opiyo says with the fiber cable the African content will be accessible. Seacom will facilitate local storage of data in data centers (local computers centers). Previously information was stored in Europe but the fiber has enhanced Africa's capacity for the same.
Yes, local content which used to be stored in local service operators, in the company premises can now be uploaded into the cloud (computer centers across the world) and can be accessed from anywhere in the world.
Fiber cable has accelerated internet connectivity as it does not go via satellite which takes 700 milliseconds to transmit the same data that will take 160 milliseconds via a fiber cable.
The fiber cable indirectly cuts the cost of running business by embracing video conferencing - cutting down accommodation, traveling and food experiences for companies and governments. It is also expected that the cost of schooling will come down via e-learning.
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