Transcript Why isn’t the South African Internet liberalised yet?

Why isn’t the South African
Internet liberalised yet?
William Stucke
SAFNOG 2
Swaziland
7th – 8th April 2015
Focus Areas
• ISP Association
• Licences
• Local Peering
• International Connectivity
• National backbone network
• Metro networks
• Last Mile networks
• A glimpse at Africa
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ISP Association
• Why is this important?
• Gives ISPs a single coherent voice when speaking to Government or
Regulator
• Lends power to your arguments
• Avoids single ISPs from being “punished” for speaking out.
• ISPA formed in 1996 in South Africa
• Now has some 160 members, and represents the majority of active
licensees.
• As a more mature market, also has:
• WAPA
• SACF
• Wi-Fi Forum
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Licensing Regime
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RSA had a very centralised market
Only 11 “previously advantaged licensees”
Vertically integrated
Government owned a share in 8 out of 11 operators
Others were all VANS – Value Added Network Services
Telecommunications Act gave the Minister of Communications the right to make
seven “Declarations”
• In August 2004, she announced five of these, which were properly gazetted and
came into effect early in 2005
• In late January 2005, days before they were due to take effect, she published a
Press Release saying, paraphrased: “In order to clarify, I didn’t mean it.”
• Although not legally binding, she obstructed ICASA until they withdrew “Self
Provision” for VANS from the new regulations.
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Licensing Regime 2
• New Electronic Communications Act took effect in 2006
• Diametrically opposed to the previous Act. Instead of protecting Telkom’s
monopoly, it fosters competition.
• She instructed ICASA to determine if “a few, if any” VANS should get new
licences under the new Act.
• August 2008 – Altech won court case against this. Appeals failed
• ICASA issued 451 VANS with licences on 19th January 2009
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Both iECS and iECNS licenses
All (unless specifically requested otherwise) with full national scope
Identical to the licences held by Telkom and other previously advantaged operators
Except no spectrum
• Today, some 713 licences, including class and broadcasting licences.
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Local Peering
• JINX operational in 1996
• Today, ISPA and NAPAfrica operate six IXPs: Joburg, Cape Town and Durban
• GINX (Grahamstown) closed in 2012
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International Connectivity
• SAT3 /SAFE 2001
800 Gbps
• Managed by Telkom
• Expensive. High Cost, Low Volume model
• SEACOM 2009
1280 Gbps
• ZA, MZ, KE, TZ and UG
• High Volume, Low Cost model.
• 35% immediate price improvement for Medium ISPs, growing dramatically after 3 years,
when capital purchase paid off.
• Cheaper to peer in London than buy local transit!
Followed by
• EASSy 2010
4720 Gbps
• WACS 2011
5120 Gbps
• Resulted in dramatic reductions in National costs
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National Backbone Networks
• Now the fun starts!
• 2009:
R10,000 / Mbps / month for national transit
• 2014:
~R1,000 / Mbps / month for national transit
• Multiple operators building competing networks
• Huge bureaucratic obstacles: Way Leaves, EIAs, etc.
• FibreCo took 2 years to get 19,000 permits for 1,600 km of cable – Joburg to
Cape Town
• Solution?
• Rapid Deployment Guidelines
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Rapid Deployment Guidelines
• Electronic Communications Act, effective in 2006, obliged the Minister of
Communications to liaise with the Minister of Provincial and Local
Government, the Minister of Land Affairs and the Minister of Environmental
Affairs to draft these.
• Nothing happened
• Draft produced by others, but not yet finalised
• Now the Department of Communications has been split, and we have two
Ministers arguing about who’s responsible for what
• 2014 Amendment of the Act changed the names of the Ministers, and
reduced their role to drafting a Policy
• Made it ICASA’s problem to draft the actual Regulations
• Still no Policy
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National Backbone Networks - 2
• Some 19,000 km of fibre required to link all towns in SA with a population
>10,000, as per the 2001 census.
• Only Telkom has this, with 104,000 km of backbone fibre
• Despite the fibre being laid, we haven’t yet reached the “tipping point” where
connectivity suddenly becomes cheap: The High Volume / Low Cost Model.
• Lack of courage?
• National networks being built by
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Neotel
FibreCo (Cell C, Convergence Partners and Dimension Data)
Broadband Infraco – doing nothing. 100% Government owned
JV (Vodacom, MTN, Neotel)
DFA Long-haul
SANRAL
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National Backbone Networks - 3
• Telkom
• Neotel
• FibreCo
• Broadband Infraco
• JV
• DFA Longhaul
• Liquid Telecom
104,000 km
21,000 km
12,000 km
13,000 km
5,000 km
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Telkom – February 2012
Neotel - 2011
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FibreCo 2015
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Broadband
Infraco
2012 / 2015
Liquid Telecom
Metro Networks
• A bigger problem than national networks – more fibre needed.
• Joburg Metro has >9,000 km of tarred roads
• Roads being dug up multiple times
• Some of those rolling out metro networks include:
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The Metros themselves
Telkom
Neotel
DFA
MTN
Vodacom
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DFA
Gauteng
Metro
Fibre
Last Mile Networks
• Only Telkom has a substantial fixed line Access Network
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~70,000 km of copper
3.6m out of 8m lines active – and dropping every year
Most lines provisioned for ADSL
927,000 ADSL subscribers or 25%
• LLU?
• My most significant failure of my time at ICASA
• FTTH
• Wireless
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High Demand Spectrum
• ICASA has tried several times to assigned “High Demand” spectrum,
via a competitive process, over the last decade.
• Obstructed by Government
• Spectrum is “High Demand” because:
• It’s allocated for PtMP in national plans,
• Harmonised with other countries in ITU Region
• User equipment manufactured
• More spectrum essential to:
• Facilitate higher throughput on mobile networks, e.g. LTE
• Provide cost-effective broadband in rural areas
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What High Demand Spectrum could be assigned?
• 310 MHz Nationally
• 28 MHz x 50 Districts
Freq
FDD/TDD
DL
UL
700 MHz
FDD
758-788
703-733
700 MHz
TDD
733 - 758
800 MHz
FDD
791-821
832-862
800 MHz
TDD
822 - 831
2.1 GHz
TDD
2010-2015
2.3 GHz
TDD
2300-2400
2.6 GHz
FDD 2620-2690 2500-2570
2.6 GHz
TDD
2570-2620
3.5 GHz
Total FDD Bandwidth
130
Total TDD Bandwidth
150
Avail BW
MHz
Package Package Package Package 4
Package Package Package Package 8
1
2
3
Wholesale
5 Open 6 Open 7 Open
Open
Reserved Reserved Reserved Only - Open
2 x 30 MHz*
1 x 25 MHz
2 x 30 MHz
2x10 MHz 2x10 MHz
1 x 11 MHz
1 x 5 MHz
1 x 100 MHz
2 x 70 MHz 2x20 MHz 2x20 MHz 2x10 MHz
1 x 50 MHz
260
191
20
30
20
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No
Package
Yet
2x10 MHz 2x10 MHz 2x10 MHz
25
2x10 MHz
11
5
100
1 x 20 MHz
2x20 MHz
30
10
10
1 x 30 MHz
20
30
161
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Progress so far?
• ISP Association
• Licences
• Local Peering
• International Connectivity
• National backbone network
• Rapid Deployment Policy and Regulations
• Metro networks
• Last Mile networks
• LLU
• Spectrum
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African Situation
• Same issues apply: •
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ISP Associations
Licences
Local Peering
International Connectivity
National backbone network
Metro networks
Last Mile networks
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ISP Associations
• AfrISPA
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2001 – 2010
Provided training in ~20 countries
Helped increase ISPAs in Africa from ~ 5 to ~20
Died after Brian, Eric and I left
Do we still need it?
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Liberalisation
• About half African countries have a liberalised telecommunications,
with multiple ISPs operating
• Cross-boarder connectivity still a problem
• No consistent mechanism in place to arrange access to “No Man’s Land” and
cross-border licensing
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Local Peering
• AfrISPA, KTH, ISOC and NSRC all supported the formation of IXPs
• During the AfrISPA CATIA project, African IXP countries increased from
5 to 22
• Some countries punt the concept of Regional Peering
• Preconditions:
• Adequate, cheap national fibre
• Cross-border connections
• An operating and significant IXP in the host country
• See 2006 paper:
http://www.afrispa.org/dpages/PositionPapers/RegionalExchanges.pdf
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IXPs in Africa
2001
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IXPs in Africa
2002
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IXPs in Africa
2006
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IXPs in Africa
2011
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IXPs in Africa
2015
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Why connect to another Country?
• Local traffic delivered more directly
• Peering
• Quality of Service
• Redundancy
Talk to me about …
Updating ISPA data in Africa
Updating IXP data in Africa
Restarting AfrISPA?
Consulting opportunities
Becoming Country Representative for BoardPAC
Drinking whiskey
[email protected]
+27 79 501 0850
+268 78 713 733
(During conference)
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