On Tuesday 21 April 2009 06:30:17 am McTim wrote: > * It’s pricing, stupid: Brian Herlihy, CEO of Seacom > spoke about offering prices of between US$50-300 an mbps > per month...
Be mindful that this price only relates to SEACOM. The cable still has to interconnect to other systems depending on where you're landing the capacity. The cost of leasing capacity on those systems isn't necessarily taken into account in the figure above. > and whilst IRUs might add as much as 20% in > interest payments, this is still much sunnier that the > US$4-6,000 per mbps currently being charged for > satellite. Agree. IRU also turns the cable into capex, which can be amortized over a period of time, rather than opex, which hits you forever. > Better still, Seacom is promising this price > wherever the capacity lands, whether in a coastal country > or one inland. On which side? The African side or the EU/Middle East side? Either way, this is doubtful. If I want capacity from Kampala to Telehouse, UK, I don't think this price includes the backhaul between .ug and .ke, as well as backhaul from the UK cable landing station to Telehouse. Keep this in mind - ask whether the price is city PoP to city PoP, or whether it's CLS (cable landing station) to CLS. And remember, this is just the cost of the Layer 1 capacity itself. It does not include the IP port(s). That, you'd have to worry about on your own once the cable lands where you need it to (although I'm sure SEACOM have a product bundle where they can include an IP port as well). > Paul Edwards, Chair of Nigeria’s largest > CDMA operator Starcomms said he had been offered US$100 > per mbps on one of the west coast fibres. Again, the factors mentioned above need to be double checked. > In addition, > O3B’s pricing is pitched fairly close to these numbers. > The traditional satellite operators are stuck: they > either have to take what’s left over or come up with > something innovative technically which will improve their > price offer. Well, fibre is the speed of light :-). It doesn't get any faster. > So it sounds like small ISPs CAN buy from SEACOM,... I'd imagine this would have been the case from the beginning. You just need to figure out who, in the local country, can provide connectivity to SEACOM. From what I can tell, both MTN and UTL will, on the .ug side. How much they'll do this for, is the question - there's a lot of sections to pay for for the capacity before you even start thinking about IP. > and > pick it up inland!! w00t! Technically, yes, you can pick it up inland as long as there's a local operator that can interconnect with SEACOM. But the SEACOM cable, itself, is only at the cable landing station in Mombasa. Cheers, Mark.
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