The whole continent of Africa has connectivity dependant on a point 250km off Cote d’Ivoire and no causation about why this was deployed in this manner or how it’s been rectified. The immediate causation of rock falls doesn’t correlate to the terrain or repairs conducted.
The canyon at Cote d’Ivoire is 20km across the continental shelf. The repair ships never entered this area. From the drop off on the shelf it has an offset starting 20km west that has been covered over by sedimentation flows during the past million years. Basically, from the continental shelf outwards the terrain is flat.
The repair ships operated a further 20km east, from 100km out going as far out as 250km in a relatively straight line. Thus, about 40km east of the ancient remnants of the canyon.
Although there are no route maps for the cables it seems SAT3 runs 100km parallel off the coast and WACS is at about 250km parallel off the coast.
The Equiano cable is still further out but at what distance is unknown.
This area has no similar flooding as the Congo where the river causes up to 1000km of high velocity flows off the coast.
So why did this happen and why won’t it happen again?
On 6/4/24 15:55, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:
So why did this happen and why won’t it happen again?
It has happened before a couple of times before between 2020 and now, all related to subsea landslides.
I am not a marine geologist and have no interest in the profession, so I cannot speak to your questions re: the state of the continental shelf and all. But what I can say is that the repair vessels have no reason to provide incorrect information for the cable failures, as that does nobody any good, and would hurt their credibility. While submarine cable operators are generally secretive, they are quite open about what caused an outage.
It is my understanding that the last WACS repair was completed by moving the repaired section farther out from the fault location to avoid a similar issue in the past.
We shall just have to wait and see if that helps, or not.
Mark.
On 4 Jun 2024, at 17:26, Mark Tinka via zanog-discuss wrote:
On 6/4/24 15:55, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:
But what I can say is that the repair vessels have no reason to provide incorrect information for the cable failures, as that does nobody any good, and would hurt their credibility. While submarine cable operators are generally secretive, they are quite open about what caused an outage.
I’m not one for conspiracies but….. would they really want to share RFOs if it was sabotage and risk losing business?
I had (admittedly at a braai) a conversation with a marine professional that feels it would be hard for vessels involved with sabotage to not be flagged as suspicious activity and get away with it but we do live in the James bond era so…
It is my understanding that the last WACS repair was completed by moving the repaired section farther out from the fault location to avoid a similar issue in the past.
We shall just have to wait and see if that helps, or not.
Submarines are the new vessel of choice so next round of drinks is on you when it happens :)
On 6/4/24 23:53, donald@nog.net.za wrote:
I’m not one for conspiracies but….. would they really want to share RFOs if it was sabotage and risk losing business?
Yes.
The most famous one prior to the Rubymar attack that cut off AAE-1, EIG and SEACOM, was this incident in the Med:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21963100
That was 11 years ago.
I had (admittedly at a braai) a conversation with a marine professional that feels it would be hard for vessels involved with sabotage to not be flagged as suspicious activity and get away with it but we do live in the James bond era so…
Locating subsea cables at depth is not like taking the dog for a walk. It takes expertise, equipment, money, bespoke vessels, time and the risk of death of bad weather to do that.
So not entirely impossible, but not a cake-walk either.
Mark.
On 5. Jun 2024, at 05:13, Mark Tinka via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za wrote:
On 6/4/24 23:53, donald@nog.net.za mailto:donald@nog.net.za wrote:
I’m not one for conspiracies but….. would they really want to share RFOs if it was sabotage and risk losing business?
On point Donald.
And if memory serves me right - WACS used to issue RFOs to their consortium members on a timely and transparent manner.
Yes.
The most famous one prior to the Rubymar attack that cut off AAE-1, EIG and SEACOM, was this incident in the Med:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21963100That was 11 years ago.
I had (admittedly at a braai) a conversation with a marine professional that feels it would be hard for vessels involved with sabotage to not be flagged as suspicious activity and get away with it but we do live in the James bond era so…
Locating subsea cables at depth is not like taking the dog for a walk. It takes expertise, equipment, money, bespoke vessels, time and the risk of death of bad weather to do that.
So not entirely impossible, but not a cake-walk either.
Mark. _______________________________________________ zanog-discuss mailing list -- zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za To unsubscribe send an email to zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.za
*From:* Darwin Da Costa via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za
And if memory serves me right - WACS used to issue RFOs to their
consortium members on a timely and transparent manner.
I also remember those especially the 6th October City ones.
W.r.t. the Cote d’Ivoire outage I’m too low on the food chain to receive any RFOs now but I haven’t heard anyone having sight of one either, never mind a causation analysis that aggregates multiple RFOs across multiple cables.
I’ve seen pics of the cable damage off Mtunzini which points to a probable case of a fishing trawler causing the outage by steaming over both cables while bottom trawling. In Oz, they track these ships and prosecute them, but I don’t know if there are similar operations like that on this side of the pond.
On 6/5/24 13:28, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:
W.r.t. the Cote d’Ivoire outage I’m too low on the food chain to receive any RFOs now but I haven’t heard anyone having sight of one either, never mind a causation analysis that aggregates multiple RFOs across multiple cables.
For a consortium cable, RFO's are provided to each consortium member.
For a private cable, that goes to the owner of the system.
Generally, a consortium member or private cable owner "can" make that RFO available to some or all of their subsea customers. I use "can" because in some cases, it may be deemed fit to provide it to a handful of customers gratuitously, or just a subset of customers, or none at all, or those that ask.
Each case can either be treated separately or guided by the consortium member's/cable owner's general policy on PR management for system outages. In other words, there are no industry rules here.
What you cannot expect is to receive an RFO as a member of the public. Yes, a cable outage may have affected an end-user unknown to even the cable operator, but cable operators have no obligation to share any RFO information with the general public. If they do, that is just out of the goodness of their heart. If they don't, you have the benefit of reliable sources not part of the cable operator or a consortium member that have good relationships to the cable operator or a consortium willing to share some or all information about the outage.
You may find this frustrating, but if you want to be in the direct know about outages and what caused them, buy capacity on the system, or buy a service from an ISP that buys capacity from the system and press them to obtain an RFO. Moreover, public accountability is easier for private cables than it is consortium ones, but not guaranteed in either case.
I’ve seen pics of the cable damage off Mtunzini which points to a probable case of a fishing trawler causing the outage by steaming over both cables while bottom trawling. In Oz, they track these ships and prosecute them, but I don’t know if there are similar operations like that on this side of the pond.
No one country has legal jurisdiction over international waters. So there is that to consider.
Secondly, are Australia prosecuting the illegal fishing trawlers for invading sovereign waters, or for disrupting telecommunications systems? If the latter, how, since subsea cables are generally private property?
Mark.
*From:* Mark Tinka via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za
Secondly, are Australia prosecuting the illegal fishing trawlers for
invading sovereign waters, or for disrupting
telecommunications systems? If the latter, how, since subsea cables are
generally private property? From about 22:30 these guys from Telstra talk about it.
https://packetpushers.net/podcasts/heavy-networking/hn588-exploring-the-hidd...
A very good listen for generic submarine cable information.
When I was in Oz it was confirmed that incidents within territorial waters are prosecuted using a telecommunications law that they have. I’m not aware of something similar here or how its handled.
On 6/5/24 20:49, Ron B wrote:
From about 22:30 these guys from Telstra talk about it.
https://packetpushers.net/podcasts/heavy-networking/hn588-exploring-the-hidd...
A very good listen for generic submarine cable information.
I know Andy quite well; we worked on building Unity (Chikura - Los Angeles, 2010) together when I lived in KL back in the day, and he was with Pacnet.
He has since left Telstra and joined Google around March of this year.
When I was in Oz it was confirmed that incidents within territorial waters are prosecuted using a telecommunications law that they have. I’m not aware of something similar here or how its handled.
So I've listened to what Andy was saying about this, and nowhere does he claim that law enforcement gratuitously polices, protects and prosecutes for subsea cable damage. What he said is fishing activity in those territorial waters is highly policed, because it can be an avenue for drug and human trafficking, illegal immigration, e.t.c. It is up to cable system owners (like Telstra) to keep an eye on the proximity of (fishing) vessels around their cables using AIS (Automatic Identification Systems) data, and proactively reach out to vessels that may be putting cables at risk with their activities. Besides, not only does the ship need to switch its transponder on to allow it to be tracked by AIS data, but fishing vessels of a certain size do not typically install transponders. And even if they could be seen on AIS, reaching out to some of them over radio and getting them to respond is not always successful.
As Andy added, if a vessel knowingly causes damage to a cable after they had been warned to avoid it, the cable owner can take them to court and seek damages, but the success rate for this is very very low, it generally hardly happens, if at all. But this only applies to large cargo vessels that can be easily identified and are owned by a reputable firm you can go after. Trying to prosecute a small fishing vessel is not the best use of one's time.
But what does not happen is the police actively protecting subsea cables, because that is private property and not their focus. The police may be called in to support protection of a cable or prosecution for its damage, but only after the cable owner has engaged them on a case-by-case basis, depending on the threat and/or impact. And since it is private property (whereas the police's time is compensated for by tax payers), you can imagine how often that happens.
Mark.
On a happy note.. TEAMS ltd in Kenya successfully sued the owner of a tugboat that damaged our Kenya to UAE cable in Mombasa harbour. It was a long battle but a nice payout at the end of the day.
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Internal All Employees
________________________________ From: Mark Tinka via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za Sent: Thursday, June 6, 2024 5:27:28 AM To: Ron B ronald@amastelek.com; zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za Cc: Mark Tinka mark@tinka.africa Subject: [zanog-discuss] Re: Submarine cable root causation
On 6/5/24 20:49, Ron B wrote:
From about 22:30 these guys from Telstra talk about it.
https://packetpushers.net/podcasts/heavy-networking/hn588-exploring-the-hidd...
A very good listen for generic submarine cable information.
I know Andy quite well; we worked on building Unity (Chikura - Los Angeles, 2010) together when I lived in KL back in the day, and he was with Pacnet.
He has since left Telstra and joined Google around March of this year.
When I was in Oz it was confirmed that incidents within territorial waters are prosecuted using a telecommunications law that they have. I’m not aware of something similar here or how its handled.
So I've listened to what Andy was saying about this, and nowhere does he claim that law enforcement gratuitously polices, protects and prosecutes for subsea cable damage. What he said is fishing activity in those territorial waters is highly policed, because it can be an avenue for drug and human trafficking, illegal immigration, e.t.c. It is up to cable system owners (like Telstra) to keep an eye on the proximity of (fishing) vessels around their cables using AIS (Automatic Identification Systems) data, and proactively reach out to vessels that may be putting cables at risk with their activities. Besides, not only does the ship need to switch its transponder on to allow it to be tracked by AIS data, but fishing vessels of a certain size do not typically install transponders. And even if they could be seen on AIS, reaching out to some of them over radio and getting them to respond is not always successful.
As Andy added, if a vessel knowingly causes damage to a cable after they had been warned to avoid it, the cable owner can take them to court and seek damages, but the success rate for this is very very low, it generally hardly happens, if at all. But this only applies to large cargo vessels that can be easily identified and are owned by a reputable firm you can go after. Trying to prosecute a small fishing vessel is not the best use of one's time.
But what does not happen is the police actively protecting subsea cables, because that is private property and not their focus. The police may be called in to support protection of a cable or prosecution for its damage, but only after the cable owner has engaged them on a case-by-case basis, depending on the threat and/or impact. And since it is private property (whereas the police's time is compensated for by tax payers), you can imagine how often that happens.
Mark.
The incident was 2012 I think, payout took about 6 or 7 years.
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________________________________ From: Mark Tinka mark@tinka.africa Sent: Friday, June 7, 2024 12:18:42 AM To: Ben Roberts Ben.Roberts@liquid.tech; zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za; Ron B ronald@amastelek.com Subject: Re: [zanog-discuss] Re: Submarine cable root causation
On 6/6/24 06:18, Ben Roberts wrote:
On a happy note.. TEAMS ltd in Kenya successfully sued the owner of a tugboat that damaged our Kenya to UAE cable in Mombasa harbour. It was a long battle but a nice payout at the end of the day.
Which year was this?
Mark.
Mark, We fixed it a lot quicker than that then chased for damages. And boats have insurance and insurance companies are usually too big to run away... :-)
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________________________________ From: Mark Tinka mark@tinka.africa Sent: Saturday, June 8, 2024 10:51:51 AM To: Ben Roberts Ben.Roberts@liquid.tech; zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za; Ron B ronald@amastelek.com Subject: Re: [zanog-discuss] Re: Submarine cable root causation
On 6/7/24 04:29, Ben Roberts wrote:
The incident was 2012 I think, payout took about 6 or 7 years.
One could build a new system within that time; but a fishing trawler is not likely to still be in business then :-).
Mark.
On 6/8/24 10:12, Ben Roberts wrote:
Mark, We fixed it a lot quicker than that then chased for damages.
Yes, I was referring to the time it took to get compensated, not the cable repair time.
And boats have insurance and insurance companies are usually too big to run away... :-)
Of course, but what I meant was this is more likely for well established cargo vessels and such.
For small fishing trawlers who fortunes are as bumpy as the tides they sail, probably less so.
Mark.
*From:* Mark Tinka mark@tinka.africa
But what does not happen is the police actively protecting subsea cables,
because that is private property and not
their focus. The police may be called in to support protection of a cable
or prosecution for its damage, but only after
the cable owner has engaged them on a case-by-case basis, depending on
the threat and/or impact. And since it is
private property (whereas the police's time is compensated for by tax
payers), you can imagine how often that
happens.
My opinion is that as an industry we need to engage via bodies like ISPA and others with government to declare landing stations, submarine cables and data centres as national keypoints under the relevant Act. That provides the ability to call in the military, escalating it to being more than a police matter.
Most energy producing and fuel processing plants have that designation even though its private property. Many keypoint buildings are private property. Heck, even the police does not own its own building. The Internet going dark has a dramatic and negative economic impact and should be provided the same coverage.
On 06 Jun 2024, at 08:02, Ron B via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za wrote: to declare landing stations, submarine cables and data centres as national keypoints under the relevant Act. That provides the ability to call in the military, escalating it to being more than a police matter.
There is a XKCD for that: https://m.xkcd.com/705/
the alt text is the relevant part: Devotion to Duty(alt-text) The weird sense of duty really good sysadmins have can border on the sociopathic, but it's nice to know that it stands between the forces of darkness and your cat blog's servers.
On 6/6/24 08:49, hvjunk via zanog-discuss wrote:
There is a XKCD for that: https://m.xkcd.com/705/
I thought they were talking about John McClane :-).
Mark.
There are certain disadvantages to have your kit declared critical or keypoint infrastructure. Depending on the particular legislation, of course.
--Calvin
On 2024/06/06 08:02, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:
*From:*Mark Tinka mark@tinka.africa
But what does not happen is the police actively protecting subsea
cables, because that is private property and not
their focus. The police may be called in to support protection of a
cable or prosecution for its damage, but only after
the cable owner has engaged them on a case-by-case basis, depending
on the threat and/or impact. And since it is
private property (whereas the police's time is compensated for by tax
payers), you can imagine how often that
happens.
My opinion is that as an industry we need to engage via bodies like ISPA and others with government to declare landing stations, submarine cables and data centres as national keypoints under the relevant Act. That provides the ability to call in the military, escalating it to being more than a police matter.
Most energy producing and fuel processing plants have that designation even though its private property. Many keypoint buildings are private property. Heck, even the police does not own its own building. The Internet going dark has a dramatic and negative economic impact and should be provided the same coverage.
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On 6/6/24 13:30, Calvin Browne via zanog-discuss wrote:
There are certain disadvantages to have your kit declared critical or keypoint infrastructure. Depending on the particular legislation, of course.
There is a reason data centres and CLS's (cable landing stations), bless their hearts, try to stay off the grid. But Google Maps is a nightmare like that :-).
Mark.
On 6/6/24 08:02, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:
My opinion is that as an industry we need to engage via bodies like ISPA and others with government to declare landing stations, submarine cables and data centres as national keypoints under the relevant Act. That provides the ability to call in the military, escalating it to being more than a police matter.
The oxygen in this kind of room is above my pay grade :-).
On a serious note, it is safe to assume that there are some undocumented subsea cables that are in use by governments for military and intelligence purposes. I have no doubt that those would be actively policed and protected as a matter of course.
For the rest of the commercial subsea cables, considering the decentralized nature of the Internet and its infrastructure, especially as it pertains to non-national networks and international waters, I'd be hard-pressed to see how most governments (let alone South Africa) deals with this as a key priority.
Most energy producing and fuel processing plants have that designation even though its private property.
IPP's (Independent Power Producers) or NUG's (Non-Utility Generators) are not the majority in the world. Most countries maintain central control of energy generation and management. And even when IPP's and NUG's do exist, they are highly regulated, and thus, highly policed.
While I think that the Internet has become as basic a need for humanity as has been water, power, shelter and food, it is not apparent to me that individual governments, in and of themselves, have elevated it to that status quite yet.
Many keypoint buildings are private property. Heck, even the police does not own its own building. The Internet going dark has a dramatic and negative economic impact and should be provided the same coverage.
From a common sense standpoint, I don't disagree.
But governments tend to have different priorities from private enterprise when it comes to the basic requirements to sustain life. You're right, a loss of Internet connectivity may mean a company cannot pay salaries because it can't gain access to its crypto fund, let's say... but if food and water infrastructure were to fail due to a lack of protection by the state, people could lose their lives.
So yes, a lack of connectivity would be terribly debilitating for a modern economy. However, hunger and thirst would take people a lot sooner than broken wi-fi :-).
Mark.
On 06 Jun 2024, at 23:32, Mark Tinka via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za wrote:
While I think that the Internet has become as basic a need for humanity as has been water, power, shelter and food,
I’m hard pressed to use the word “need”, more like “self inflicted harm and destruction”.. refer to the story about an Amazon tribe that got introduced to “theInternet”, and the damage that was inflicted on that tribe through porn and social media… the 2 big things on the internet ;(
The Internet going dark has a dramatic and negative economic impact and should be provided the same coverage.
From a common sense standpoint, I don't disagree.
But governments tend to have different priorities from private enterprise when it comes to the basic requirements to sustain life.
I’d use the term “to stay in power”, rather than “life”
So yes, a lack of connectivity would be terribly debilitating for a modern economy.
The problem is not “TheInternet(c)(TM)” connectivity losses, but the reliance on others that you don’t have direct control over to get “Service delivery”… how many here, has any direct sway to operators on the other side of the NAP/INX they connect to? and there in lies the main issue to understand w.r.t. TheInternet: it’s a loose set of connected networks that has no rights nor obligations to any connected party. Just look at the recent Tier1 depeering exercises
I keep telling people (since the 90s) that the S in SMTP stands for Simple, not secure, nor secret and definitely not guaranteed, as if they want that, they should get X.400 from Telkom.
And thus, the debilitating effect, is ‘cause we blindly trust and rely on “the internet” not realising it’s nothing to rely on, but to use, and be happy for the stuff that does work as even though you pay for that line to the ISP, the ISP doesn’t have a way to force anybody to accept nor allow your connection(s) if its’ not on their network(s) other than asking nicely for a resolution.
On 6/7/24 10:20, hvjunk wrote:
I’m hard pressed to use the word “need”, more like “self inflicted harm and destruction”.. refer to the story about an Amazon tribe that got introduced to “theInternet”, and the damage that was inflicted on that tribe through porn and social media… the 2 big things on the internet ;(
Politicizing the Internet does not make it any less useful to people. We have seen wars politicize access to food - we still need it.
I’d use the term “to stay in power”, rather than “life”
My point is, you will get a rise out of them when the water is brown vs. when the Internet is down.
The problem is not “TheInternet(c)(TM)” connectivity losses, but the reliance on others that you don’t have direct control over to get “Service delivery”… how many here, has any direct sway to operators on the other side of the NAP/INX they connect to? and there in lies the main issue to understand w.r.t. TheInternet: it’s a loose set of connected networks that has no rights nor obligations to any connected party. Just look at the recent Tier1 depeering exercises
I keep telling people (since the 90s) that the S in SMTP stands for Simple, not secure, nor secret and definitely not guaranteed, as if they want that, they should get X.400 from Telkom.
And thus, the debilitating effect, is ‘cause we blindly trust and rely on “the internet” not realising it’s nothing to rely on, but to use, and be happy for the stuff that does work as even though you pay for that line to the ISP, the ISP doesn’t have a way to force anybody to accept nor allow your connection(s) if its’ not on their network(s) other than asking nicely for a resolution.
How is this any different than making an international phone call that needs to be carried by a bunch of PTT's between here and the North Pole, in practice?
Mark.
I'm not one for conspiracies but... would they really want to share RFOs
if it was sabotage and risk losing business?
Historically on SAT3 Telkom used to transparently share the RFOs. It was always a loss of power to the cable mostly related to a fault on the branching unit.
Please lets respect Mark's very expert advice on this and set aside the conspiracy theories of the person we met at a Brai.
Internal All Employees -----Original Message----- From: Ron B via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za Sent: Wednesday, June 5, 2024 9:50 AM To: zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za Cc: Ron B ronald@amastelek.com Subject: [zanog-discuss] Re: Submarine cable root causation
I'm not one for conspiracies but... would they really want to share RFOs
if it was sabotage and risk losing business?
Historically on SAT3 Telkom used to transparently share the RFOs. It was always a loss of power to the cable mostly related to a fault on the branching unit. _______________________________________________ zanog-discuss mailing list -- zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za To unsubscribe send an email to zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.za
From: Ben Roberts +AD4- Please lets respect Mark's very expert advice on this and set aside the +AD4- conspiracy theories of the person we met at a Brai. Is that meant for the previous message? I was just mentioning that Telkom used to have good RFOs on the SAT3 cable that were useful.
Was not meant as a specific response to your message no...
Internal All Employees -----Original Message----- From: Ron B via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za Sent: Wednesday, June 5, 2024 2:32 PM To: zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za Cc: Ron B ronald@amastelek.com Subject: [zanog-discuss] Re: +AFs-zanog-discuss+AF0- Re: Submarine cable root causation
From: Ben Roberts +AD4- Please lets respect Mark's very expert advice on this and set +aside the +AD4- conspiracy theories of the person we met at a Brai. Is that meant for the previous message? I was just mentioning that Telkom used to have good RFOs on the SAT3 cable that were useful. _______________________________________________ zanog-discuss mailing list -- zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za To unsubscribe send an email to zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.za
On 4 Jun 2024, at 15:55, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:
The whole continent of Africa has connectivity dependant on a point 250km off Cote d’Ivoire
No there are other cables on the west coast as well as the east coast of Africa that continue to connect Southern Africa. We just talking context of ZA here, there are the same and different cables that connect other african countries.
and no causation about why this was deployed in this manner or how it’s been rectified. The immediate causation of rock falls doesn’t correlate to the terrain or repairs conducted.
Please share references for this statement
The canyon at Cote d’Ivoire is 20km across the continental shelf.
I’m not going to look this up, but ok.
The repair ships never entered this area.
Please share the data
From the drop off on the shelf it has an offset starting 20km west that has been covered over by sedimentation flows during the past million years. Basically, from the continental shelf outwards the terrain is flat.
references?
The repair ships operated a further 20km east, from 100km out going as far out as 250km in a relatively straight line. Thus, about 40km east of the ancient remnants of the canyon.
Have to admit im not an archaeologist or nautical surveyor (if that is a term) expert, so please can you help educate us a little and explain this.
Although there are no route maps for the cables it seems SAT3 runs 100km parallel off the coast and WACS is at about 250km parallel off the coast.
Right, so no maps but you seem to know where they are
The Equiano cable is still further out but at what distance is unknown.
But it seems there is a lot of data about all the other cable systems from the above statements and the geological events that may or may not have caused issues.
This area has no similar flooding as the Congo where the river causes up to 1000km of high velocity flows off the coast.
Eish, Im just an internet plumber so cannot comment on ocean topography and sea conditions and hydro…. whatever the term is for the movement of water and earth, but i know a little about maps and know the congo is not in a similar area to the area is question so probably doesnt have similar flooding.
So why did this happen and why won’t it happen again?
I say it happened because of climate change and it will happen again because there very well, may be forces out there that want to cut the internet cables that feed Africa to keep it a dark continent…. that might not be far from some truths when it comes to sabotage of subsea infrastructure.
my 2 cents
Commenting on the last portion of your email Donald
I heard rumors that this is one of many following attempts to Market Low Orbit Sat solutions while many countries in Africa have not provided licenses (yet).
Also heard it was due to a sea attack (but news captured that in a different continent) on the same day.
IMHO the root cause of such outages should be inspected as we deserve to stay connected, we as ISP’s and our clients continue to suffer from such outages while it comes to the benefit of the Satellite Services.
*Amin Dayekh* *CTO*
*MegaMore Wireless Broadband* 9 Zango Road, Gate B Dakata, Kano State. www.megamorebroadband.com m: +2347065525271 t: +2348152525222 *customer Care*: 08077770470 e: admin@megamorebroadband.com [image: facebook icon] https://www.facebook.com/MegaMoreBroadband [image: linkedin icon] https://www.linkedin.com/company/megamore-broadband [image: instagram icon] https://www.instagram.com/megamorewireless/ [image: banner] https://www.megamorebroadband.com/
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On Tue, Jun 4, 2024 at 10:42 PM donald--- via zanog-discuss < zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za> wrote:
On 4 Jun 2024, at 15:55, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:
The whole continent of Africa has connectivity dependant on a point 250km off Cote d’Ivoire
No there are other cables on the west coast as well as the east coast of Africa that continue to connect Southern Africa. We just talking context of ZA here, there are the same and different cables that connect other african countries.
and no causation about why this was deployed in this manner or how it’s been rectified. The immediate causation of rock falls doesn’t correlate to the terrain or repairs conducted.
Please share references for this statement
The canyon at Cote d’Ivoire is 20km across the continental shelf.
I’m not going to look this up, but ok.
The repair ships never entered this area.
Please share the data
From the drop off on the shelf it has an offset starting 20km west that has been covered over by sedimentation flows during the past million years. Basically, from the continental shelf outwards the terrain is flat.
references?
The repair ships operated a further 20km east, from 100km out going as
far
out as 250km in a relatively straight line. Thus, about 40km east of the ancient remnants of the canyon.
Have to admit im not an archaeologist or nautical surveyor (if that is a term) expert, so please can you help educate us a little and explain this.
Although there are no route maps for the cables it seems SAT3 runs 100km parallel off the coast and WACS is at about 250km parallel off the coast.
Right, so no maps but you seem to know where they are
The Equiano cable is still further out but at what distance is unknown.
But it seems there is a lot of data about all the other cable systems from the above statements and the geological events that may or may not have caused issues.
This area has no similar flooding as the Congo where the river causes up
to
1000km of high velocity flows off the coast.
Eish, Im just an internet plumber so cannot comment on ocean topography and sea conditions and hydro…. whatever the term is for the movement of water and earth, but i know a little about maps and know the congo is not in a similar area to the area is question so probably doesnt have similar flooding.
So why did this happen and why won’t it happen again?
I say it happened because of climate change and it will happen again because there very well, may be forces out there that want to cut the internet cables that feed Africa to keep it a dark continent…. that might not be far from some truths when it comes to sabotage of subsea infrastructure.
my 2 cents
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On 6/6/24 23:39, Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss wrote:
IMHO the root cause of such outages should be inspected as we deserve to stay connected, we as ISP’s and our clients continue to suffer from such outages while it comes to the benefit of the Satellite Services.
Fibre carries significant orders of magnitude more capacity than satellite ever will per unit time. Subsea cable failures are not necessarily a benefit to satellite providers. They simply do not have the capacity to be a 1:1 replacement. It is like comparing cows and humans, even though we are both mammals.
It is important to understand that the Internet (and all the infrastructure that goes along with it) is largely privately held and decentralized.
I hear you about making demands for more central protection, but are you sure you want what could potentially come with it in the form of more central control also?
As the judge (Fred Gwynne) in the Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei 1992 movie "My Cousin Vinny" so eloquently said:
"Win some, lose some"
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f89c5b33-1e86-4bd9-830a-e7e28bd57ed4
Mark.
I agree with you and i never implied that the satellite can carry (as it is now) the capacity of the fiber. Future might unfold new technologies to the contrary. In the 90’s the speeds were in kbps and now i am preparing for Gigabit connectivity for residences.
On the other-hand, hypothetically, if the 1:1 solutions are provided to the end market, there is no need for a huge and very costly infrastructure under the sea.
I have seen a great decline in demand for fiber and broadband connectivity from local Telcos who have hugely invested over decades for resilient networks in many areas where the satellite services deployed, some ISPs are about to go bankrupt due to low client base and high operational costs, and of-course stability. In the Market where I am operating, many large scale organization, universities, to sme’s and residences have disconnected from isp’s and connected to Low Orbit Satellites, despite the Pros and Cons and any logical or Technical explanations that we might Provide, key point in the Market here is Price and Stability. A fiber cut in Lagos will impact my Network in Abuja or Portharcort!
In countries where Public services are degraded such as Power Supply, roads, and etc… operational costs (despite economical hardships, Forex policies and tax) would impose a major increase on final costs of the services.
In the Northern Part of Nigeria for instance 1 STM is priced at 1,290,000Naira per Month, 1USD=1490 today. Satellite is priced at 38000 Naira and Provides speeds up to 180MbPS. Many sme’s are who are neighbors are becoming wisps, they buy a single sat and subscribe to a residential package then share it among themselves.
The 65000 clients reported by the same entity to be their clients (if i recall the figure well) have been lost from Various Wisps, ISPs and Telcos. Despite the fact that the service is unstable on weather conditions, the low Latency plays a major role in this competition. National Long-hauls are costly and overly priced, Latency to CNN can be 110 to 90. More people will disconnect from the conventional ISP and connect to the Satellite, for many reasons, call it fantasy of new Products , affordability etc. more ISPs will shutdown, the capacity utilized by end users will drop and eventually, Telcos will get to R&D for new solutions other than 5G that proved failure on stability here, and with time and further development of Low Orbit technologies, building more ground-stations etc, the Submarine cables will become a secondary infrastructure to connect with. I might be wrong.
If things continue this way, we won’t be far from a centralized internet over few key major players globally who can afford space low orbit Satellites.
I tend to think of it (sometimes) as a game of thrones, publicly and government funded projects vs privately held entities.
Time will tell.
*Amin Dayekh* *CTO*
*MegaMore Wireless Broadband* 9 Zango Road, Gate B Dakata, Kano State. www.megamorebroadband.com m: +2347065525271 t: +2348152525222 *customer Care*: 08077770470 e: admin@megamorebroadband.com [image: facebook icon] https://www.facebook.com/MegaMoreBroadband [image: linkedin icon] https://www.linkedin.com/company/megamore-broadband [image: instagram icon] https://www.instagram.com/megamorewireless/ [image: banner] https://www.megamorebroadband.com/
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On Thu, Jun 6, 2024 at 11:08 PM Mark Tinka via zanog-discuss < zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za> wrote:
On 6/6/24 23:39, Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss wrote:
IMHO the root cause of such outages should be inspected as we deserve to stay connected, we as ISP’s and our clients continue to suffer from such outages while it comes to the benefit of the Satellite Services.
Fibre carries significant orders of magnitude more capacity than satellite ever will per unit time. Subsea cable failures are not necessarily a benefit to satellite providers. They simply do not have the capacity to be a 1:1 replacement. It is like comparing cows and humans, even though we are both mammals.
It is important to understand that the Internet (and all the infrastructure that goes along with it) is largely privately held and decentralized.
I hear you about making demands for more central protection, but are you sure you want what could potentially come with it in the form of more central control also?
As the judge (Fred Gwynne) in the Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei 1992 movie "My Cousin Vinny" so eloquently said:
"Win some, lose some"https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f89c5b33-1e86-4bd9-830a-e7e28bd57ed4
Mark. _______________________________________________ zanog-discuss mailing list -- zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za To unsubscribe send an email to zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.za
*From:* Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za
I agree with you and i never implied that the satellite can carry (as it is now) the capacity of the fiber. Future might unfold new technologies to the contrary. In the 90’s the speeds were in kbps and now i am preparing for Gigabit connectivity for residences.
Your post is very good and you should convert it into a blog post. It has all the justification of why organization need resilience and where Starlink can meet the requirement.
But mark my words, Starlink will one day go TITSUP and have an outage which will be as long as if not longer that a submarine cable outage and an organization that solely relies on it will be crying it its own bowl of soup.
PS: I have yet to see a business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is probably far less. I have a guy who has 1gbs and uses only 40mbs. Ask him why? Its faster. Its not, his RDP session are as fast as they will ever be even at 50mbs. A separate problem with which many people muddy the waters is that there is an underlying network kit problem where the kit is unable to sustain low latencies for sessions at high bit rates on a link.
Thank you Ron
But mark my words, Starlink will one day go TITSUP and have an outage which
will be as long as if not longer that a submarine cable outage and an organization that solely relies on it will be crying it its own bowl of soup.
I think the Constellation of LOS gives it the upper hand here with the number of Satellites orbiting, yes the services might be degraded at "lower speeds" but not similar to what we experience when there is major fiber cut. Last Month it survived a solar storm.
business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is
probably far less.
As I said, it is a fantasy only, people want to brag about internet speeds regardless of what they actually need, but for Businesses, I have seen some that di saturate their link's capacity. Some assume higher bandwidth means faster internet, it is a selling point because it all depends on the ISP policies and Contention Ratios.
I have seen some Starlink Speeds here around 10 and 20 Mbps. People find it hard sometimes to admit that you were honest in your opinion, and they they did the wrong decision but at the end, it is a fast-selling sexy packaging product that really might affect, with its similar competitors, the internet worldwide, the governance, data privacy, and much more.
On Fri, Jun 7, 2024 at 6:27 AM Ron B via zanog-discuss < zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za> wrote:
*From:* Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za
I agree with you and i never implied that the satellite can carry (as it is now) the capacity of the fiber. Future might unfold new technologies to the contrary. In the 90’s the speeds were in kbps and now i am preparing for Gigabit connectivity for residences.
Your post is very good and you should convert it into a blog post. It has all the justification of why organization need resilience and where Starlink can meet the requirement.
But mark my words, Starlink will one day go TITSUP and have an outage which will be as long as if not longer that a submarine cable outage and an organization that solely relies on it will be crying it its own bowl of soup.
PS: I have yet to see a business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is probably far less. I have a guy who has 1gbs and uses only 40mbs. Ask him why? Its faster. Its not, his RDP session are as fast as they will ever be even at 50mbs. A separate problem with which many people muddy the waters is that there is an underlying network kit problem where the kit is unable to sustain low latencies for sessions at high bit rates on a link. _______________________________________________ zanog-discuss mailing list -- zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za To unsubscribe send an email to zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.za
On 6/7/24 09:16, Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss wrote:
I think the Constellation of LOS gives it the upper hand here with the number of Satellites orbiting, yes the services might be degraded at "lower speeds" but not similar to what we experience when there is major fiber cut. Last Month it survived a solar storm.
Remember that Starlink satellites have a 5-year lifespan before they fall out of the sky and need to get replaced. This is assuming the business model still works at that point in time.
Submarine cables are built to last 25 years, and have an average annual failure rate of 1 - 2 incidents. I'd take those odds.
Also, don't forget that building, launching, commissioning and operating satellites is not necessarily any cheaper than building a submarine network by the time you have built out a constellation.
I have seen some Starlink Speeds here around 10 and 20 Mbps. People find it hard sometimes to admit that you were honest in your opinion, and they they did the wrong decision but at the end, it is a fast-selling sexy packaging product that really might affect, with its similar competitors, the internet worldwide, the governance, data privacy, and much more.
Again, the exception does not make the rule.
Mark.
Hi Mark, My emails here are based on my experience in the market where I reside and operate.
in 5 years, more companies would have shut down their operations or reduced their coverage due to operational costs vs client base. I have witnessed this here too whereby a Pan-African company that rebranded the name, has recently closed its office, and the operations in the state here, and if they still have clients, i assume it will be through a third party. This was due to a serious decline in their clients (Business clients moved to Low Orbit Sattelite) and the usual reliability of fiber between Lagos and the North.
There is a gap between what the solution is designed for and what people will actually use it for. in the absence of any regulations "which takes years", and strict enforcement of Compliance Terms from the Provider, things go off road.
This is the new norm, not an exception, and will remain the new norm until it is properly regulated and compliance enforced.
On Sat, Jun 8, 2024 at 9:05 AM Mark Tinka via zanog-discuss < zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za> wrote:
On 6/7/24 09:16, Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss wrote:
I think the Constellation of LOS gives it the upper hand here with the number of Satellites orbiting, yes the services might be degraded at "lower speeds" but not similar to what we experience when there is major fiber cut. Last Month it survived a solar storm.
Remember that Starlink satellites have a 5-year lifespan before they fall out of the sky and need to get replaced. This is assuming the business model still works at that point in time.
Submarine cables are built to last 25 years, and have an average annual failure rate of 1 - 2 incidents. I'd take those odds.
Also, don't forget that building, launching, commissioning and operating satellites is not necessarily any cheaper than building a submarine network by the time you have built out a constellation.
I have seen some Starlink Speeds here around 10 and 20 Mbps. People find it hard sometimes to admit that you were honest in your opinion, and they they did the wrong decision but at the end, it is a fast-selling sexy packaging product that really might affect, with its similar competitors, the internet worldwide, the governance, data privacy, and much more.
Again, the exception does not make the rule.
Mark. _______________________________________________ zanog-discuss mailing list -- zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za To unsubscribe send an email to zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.za
On 6/8/24 16:21, Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss wrote:
Hi Mark, My emails here are based on my experience in the market where I reside and operate.
in 5 years, more companies would have shut down their operations or reduced their coverage due to operational costs vs client base. I have witnessed this here too whereby a Pan-African company that rebranded the name, has recently closed its office, and the operations in the state here, and if they still have clients, i assume it will be through a third party. This was due to a serious decline in their clients (Business clients moved to Low Orbit Sattelite) and the usual reliability of fiber between Lagos and the North.
There is a gap between what the solution is designed for and what people will actually use it for. in the absence of any regulations "which takes years", and strict enforcement of Compliance Terms from the Provider, things go off road.
This is the new norm, not an exception, and will remain the new norm until it is properly regulated and compliance enforced.
I hear what you are saying, but to be fair, you work for a WISP, so I understand where you are coming from.
2Africa, OADC, ADC, Equinix, Digital Realty, e.t.c., would not be investing in Nigeria if they thought satellite was its future.
Mark.
Amin, Satellites have to talk back down to the ground. And how do you think those ground stations talk to the rest of the internet. Sub sea and terrestrial cables maybe?
Sent from Outlook for Androidhttps://aka.ms/AAb9ysg
Internal All Employees
________________________________ From: Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za Sent: Friday, June 7, 2024 10:16:47 AM To: zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za Cc: Amin Dayekh admin@megamore.ng Subject: [zanog-discuss] Re: Submarine cable root causation
Thank you Ron
But mark my words, Starlink will one day go TITSUP and have an outage which will be as long as if not longer that a submarine cable outage and an organization that solely relies on it will be crying it its own bowl of soup.
I think the Constellation of LOS gives it the upper hand here with the number of Satellites orbiting, yes the services might be degraded at "lower speeds" but not similar to what we experience when there is major fiber cut. Last Month it survived a solar storm.
business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is probably far less.
As I said, it is a fantasy only, people want to brag about internet speeds regardless of what they actually need, but for Businesses, I have seen some that di saturate their link's capacity. Some assume higher bandwidth means faster internet, it is a selling point because it all depends on the ISP policies and Contention Ratios.
I have seen some Starlink Speeds here around 10 and 20 Mbps. People find it hard sometimes to admit that you were honest in your opinion, and they they did the wrong decision but at the end, it is a fast-selling sexy packaging product that really might affect, with its similar competitors, the internet worldwide, the governance, data privacy, and much more.
On Fri, Jun 7, 2024 at 6:27 AM Ron B via zanog-discuss <zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.zamailto:zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za> wrote:
From: Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss <zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.zamailto:zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za>
I agree with you and i never implied that the satellite can carry (as it is now) the capacity of the fiber. Future might unfold new technologies to the contrary. In the 90’s the speeds were in kbps and now i am preparing for Gigabit connectivity for residences.
Your post is very good and you should convert it into a blog post. It has all the justification of why organization need resilience and where Starlink can meet the requirement.
But mark my words, Starlink will one day go TITSUP and have an outage which will be as long as if not longer that a submarine cable outage and an organization that solely relies on it will be crying it its own bowl of soup.
PS: I have yet to see a business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is probably far less. I have a guy who has 1gbs and uses only 40mbs. Ask him why? Its faster. Its not, his RDP session are as fast as they will ever be even at 50mbs. A separate problem with which many people muddy the waters is that there is an underlying network kit problem where the kit is unable to sustain low latencies for sessions at high bit rates on a link.
_______________________________________________ zanog-discuss mailing list -- zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.zamailto:zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za To unsubscribe send an email to zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.zamailto:zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.za
Ben, Subsea and terrestrial fiber must have a good business outcome to operate, Earth stations being built by low orbit satellites and operated by same are isolating conventional companies who rely on ISPs to resell, private consumers and organizations. There is only one station in AFRICA, all traffic is routed through it as per the last time I CHECKED. One dominator in the Market isolates others and probably they will be forced to shut down, reduce operations, come up with a good competitive product or diversify, etc...
wait until the market saturates well. Some users are subscribing to roaming services and then actually using the service in countries where the product is not yet licensed.
this user, and his likes, business or residential, disconnected from another provider.
there is a bunch of ISPs here considering seriously to shut down
On Sat, Jun 8, 2024 at 9:14 AM Ben Roberts Ben.Roberts@liquid.tech wrote:
Amin, Satellites have to talk back down to the ground. And how do you think those ground stations talk to the rest of the internet. Sub sea and terrestrial cables maybe?
Sent from Outlook for Android https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg
Internal All Employees
*From:* Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za *Sent:* Friday, June 7, 2024 10:16:47 AM *To:* zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za *Cc:* Amin Dayekh admin@megamore.ng *Subject:* [zanog-discuss] Re: Submarine cable root causation
Thank you Ron
But mark my words, Starlink will one day go TITSUP and have an outage which will be as long as if not longer that a submarine cable outage and an organization that solely relies on it will be crying it its own bowl of soup.
I think the Constellation of LOS gives it the upper hand here with the number of Satellites orbiting, yes the services might be degraded at "lower speeds" but not similar to what we experience when there is major fiber cut. Last Month it survived a solar storm.
business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is probably far less.
As I said, it is a fantasy only, people want to brag about internet speeds regardless of what they actually need, but for Businesses, I have seen some that di saturate their link's capacity. Some assume higher bandwidth means faster internet, it is a selling point because it all depends on the ISP policies and Contention Ratios.
I have seen some Starlink Speeds here around 10 and 20 Mbps. People find it hard sometimes to admit that you were honest in your opinion, and they they did the wrong decision but at the end, it is a fast-selling sexy packaging product that really might affect, with its similar competitors, the internet worldwide, the governance, data privacy, and much more.
On Fri, Jun 7, 2024 at 6:27 AM Ron B via zanog-discuss < zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za> wrote:
*From:* Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za
I agree with you and i never implied that the satellite can carry (as it is now) the capacity of the fiber. Future might unfold new technologies to the contrary. In the 90’s the speeds were in kbps and now i am preparing for Gigabit connectivity for residences.
Your post is very good and you should convert it into a blog post. It has all the justification of why organization need resilience and where Starlink can meet the requirement.
But mark my words, Starlink will one day go TITSUP and have an outage which will be as long as if not longer that a submarine cable outage and an organization that solely relies on it will be crying it its own bowl of soup.
PS: I have yet to see a business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is probably far less. I have a guy who has 1gbs and uses only 40mbs. Ask him why? Its faster. Its not, his RDP session are as fast as they will ever be even at 50mbs. A separate problem with which many people muddy the waters is that there is an underlying network kit problem where the kit is unable to sustain low latencies for sessions at high bit rates on a link. _______________________________________________ zanog-discuss mailing list -- zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za To unsubscribe send an email to zanog-discuss-leave@lists.nog.net.za
On 6/8/24 16:42, Amin Dayekh via zanog-discuss wrote:
Ben, Subsea and terrestrial fiber must have a good business outcome to operate, Earth stations being built by low orbit satellites and operated by same are isolating conventional companies who rely on ISPs to resell, private consumers and organizations. There is only one station in AFRICA, all traffic is routed through it as per the last time I CHECKED. One dominator in the Market isolates others and probably they will be forced to shut down, reduce operations, come up with a good competitive product or diversify, etc...
wait until the market saturates well. Some users are subscribing to roaming services and then actually using the service in countries where the product is not yet licensed.
this user, and his likes, business or residential, disconnected from another provider.
there is a bunch of ISPs here considering seriously to shut down
IP Transit is a very low-margin business right now, especially if you are green-fielding.
This has nothing to do with fibre vs. satellite. It is all to do with legacy or access to funding.
Mark.
On 07 Jun 2024, at 07:25, Ron B via zanog-discuss zanog-discuss@lists.nog.net.za wrote:
PS: I have yet to see a business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is probably far less. I have a guy who has 1gbs and uses only 40mbs. Ask him why? Its faster. Its not, his RDP session are as fast as they will ever be even at 50mbs.
but when I do need the download (which happens too frequently) ISOs, and VM images, it’s taking me a fraction of the time to boil the kettle for tea… previously I needed to go out for lunch
On 6/7/24 07:25, Ron B via zanog-discuss wrote:
But mark my words, Starlink will one day go TITSUP and have an outage which will be as long as if not longer that a submarine cable outage and an organization that solely relies on it will be crying it its own bowl of soup.
Even if Starlink does not go out of business, it should really only be seen by businesses as a backup solution. And if that is your goal, then you are probably better off with traditional GEO providers such as Intelsat and the lot, because they are more likely to guarantee they will be around for a long time, and can offer a more stable solution, albeit not as cheaply as Starlink could.
You just have to pick what you care about most... uptime, latency, consistency or cost.
PS: I have yet to see a business location saturate any link at > 300mbs on average and a home is probably far less. I have a guy who has 1gbs and uses only 40mbs. Ask him why? Its faster. Its not, his RDP session are as fast as they will ever be even at 50mbs. A separate problem with which many people muddy the waters is that there is an underlying network kit problem where the kit is unable to sustain low latencies for sessions at high bit rates on a link.
All bandwidth does is guarantee that latency remains consistent as usage goes up, by eliminating packet loss. The more bandwidth, the less likely there is packet loss, the more likely latency remains stable, the more perception of good speed.
Mark.
On 6/7/24 00:46, Amin Dayekh wrote:
I agree with you and i never implied that the satellite can carry (as it is now) the capacity of the fiber. Future might unfold new technologies to the contrary.
I'm not sure how. Satellite uses RF technology for transmission. RF is prone to interference from weather and other electromagnetic sources. And compared to fibre, satellite spectrum in the Ka and Ku bands is very limited.
In the 90’s the speeds were in kbps and now i am preparing for Gigabit connectivity for residences.
I understand Starlink are going to be selling 1Gbps for US$75,000/month, with a setup cost of US$1.25 million. Not exactly in the reach for most people, unless you are using that to create a community ISP. Of course, how consistently one will be able to achieve 1Gbps or higher on satellite (never mind 100Mbps) as more customers sign up is yet to be seen.
Remember that Starlink are offering a faster alternative to other satellite providers and services. Their model is not to compete with fibre, because that is a fool's errand.
Think of Starlink as more of a neigbourhood DOCSIS or DSL access network... faster than dial-up (other traditional LEO and GEO satellite services), but slower and less consistent than fibre.
On the other-hand, hypothetically, if the 1:1 solutions are provided to the end market, there is no need for a huge and very costly infrastructure under the sea.
With current 5nm and 3nm DSP technology, we are able to carry between 15T and 25T per fibre pair undersea, over a distance of 7,000km - 11,000km. There is no evidence to suggest satellite will ever get there, especially considering that CMOS process node production is looking to get to 0.7nm by 2034.
I have seen a great decline in demand for fiber and broadband connectivity from local Telcos who have hugely invested over decades for resilient networks in many areas where the satellite services deployed, some ISPs are about to go bankrupt due to low client base and high operational costs, and of-course stability.
You are describing last mile fibre into homes and businesses. That is very different from building submarine fibre networks.
In the Market where I am operating, many large scale organization, universities, to sme’s and residences have disconnected from isp’s and connected to Low Orbit Satellites, despite the Pros and Cons and any logical or Technical explanations that we might Provide, key point in the Market here is Price and Stability. A fiber cut in Lagos will impact my Network in Abuja or Portharcort!
That is not a failing of optical technology. That is just a failing of the local market to advance the technical and commercial benefits of fibre.
Again, you are comparing apples to oranges. Submarine cables carry national traffic; often times the traffic of multiple nations at the same time. It is an aggregation-based model, which justifies the huge upfront and ongoing maintenance costs. The businesses and homes you describe that switch from fibre to satellite are doing so on an individual basis. The two cannot be compared from a scalability and cost-per-bit-per-person standpoint.
Moreover, how do you think the satellite traffic is carried to its destination once it gets to the earth station?
In countries where Public services are degraded such as Power Supply, roads, and etc… operational costs (despite economical hardships, Forex policies and tax) would impose a major increase on final costs of the services.
This is true - but as useful as the Internet is, it's hard to call it a public service. Nevertheless, all manner of enterprise suffer from improperly managed national infrastructure and services. This is not unique to Internet access over fibre.
In the Northern Part of Nigeria for instance 1 STM is priced at 1,290,000Naira per Month, 1USD=1490 today. Satellite is priced at 38000 Naira and Provides speeds up to 180MbPS. Many sme’s are who are neighbors are becoming wisps, they buy a single sat and subscribe to a residential package then share it among themselves.
This is completely acceptable, but like I said, it cannot scale as more customers join the service because of the limited amount of spectrum on satellite, the susceptibility Ka and Ku bands have to weather, and electromagnetic interference. So your 180Mbps at 5AM can easily become 128Kbps at 5:15AM, and you are still paying NGN38,000/month.
The 65000 clients reported by the same entity to be their clients (if i recall the figure well) have been lost from Various Wisps, ISPs and Telcos. Despite the fact that the service is unstable on weather conditions,
Instability due to weather is not a small matter. If you are a business seeking 24/7 uptime, that will matter to you.
the low Latency plays a major role in this competition.
Right - and pound-for-pound, fibre offers lower latency than satellite, which matters at scale, because that low latency can be guaranteed through all manner of weather and electromagnetic conditions.
National Long-hauls are costly and overly priced,
This is not a failing of the optical technology.
Latency to CNN can be 110 to 90. More people will disconnect from the conventional ISP and connect to the Satellite, for many reasons, call it fantasy of new Products , affordability etc. more ISPs will shutdown, the capacity utilized by end users will drop and eventually, Telcos will get to R&D for new solutions other than 5G that proved failure on stability here, and with time and further development of Low Orbit technologies, building more ground-stations etc, the Submarine cables will become a secondary infrastructure to connect with. I might be wrong.
You are wrong.
Telco's will shutdown for other reasons than optical technology "not being fit for purpose". Our own hubris, over the years, will be our downfall - not fibre. But I digress.
Anecdotally, there will be some traffic shifting from terrestrial infrastructure to satellite. But in general, the majority of traffic will be carried over fibre, and over subsea systems. Hanging your business plan on the death of fibre and submarine networks would be what I'd wish on you if you were my competitor.
If things continue this way, we won’t be far from a centralized internet over few key major players globally who can afford space low orbit Satellites.
The Internet has already been partitioned in many ways, between large states like China, and large operators like the content folk. And this is all happening on fibre.
But, partitioning is not quite centralization.
I tend to think of it (sometimes) as a game of thrones, publicly and government funded projects vs privately held entities.
The market will change, there is no doubt. But as it pertains to transport medium, there is no evidence to suggest that satellite is going to take over fibre as a general rule.
Mark.
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