Bandwidth Price (1)

This first "Bandwith Price" thread will cover only the case in African market. It it based on the talk given by Michael Ruddy / Terabit.

The current, second "boom" in submarine cable market is not only happened in Asia and Transpacific segments, but also in Africa. One of the most prominent drivers for investment in fiber infrastructure is the currently-quite-high "bandwidth price" in the regions. According to Michael:

• Satellite connections cost approx. USD 5,000 / Mbps
  
• Fiber connections (using existing SAT-3 cable) cost varied: USD 12,000 / Mbps from Telkom South Africa, USD 6,000 / Mbps from Mauritius Telecom or EUR 1,550 / Mbps from France Telecom at Reunion Islands
  

There are currently two cable systems under supply contracts: East African Marine System (TEAMS - what is "T"??) and EASSy (East African Submarine-cable System). One of notable goals of these systems is to achieve "USD 500 / Mbps" :

• "Kenyan gov’t. says $500/Mbps. is achievable on TEAMS, and any operator who charges more than $700 all-inclusive will just be serving the cause of greed. - Bitange Ndemo, Kenyan information permanent secretary"
• "UUNet disagrees: $500 does not include interconnection to the Internet - Geoffrey Shimanyula, UUNet Kenya managing director, Nov. 2007"
  

BRCS (2)

Several days ago, I was unintentionally delivered to pak/bu yudhi's blog, where I found an official route map for BRCS. The following picture shows BRCS cable compared to its competitor (or friend ? :-D) : MIC-1 cable. This is also intended as a revision of my old-post where I mentioned BRCS.

Telkom's Batam Singapore Cable (BSCS?)

This post is to continue and formalize this conversation, since it would be easier to update this as more information regarding this system is available.

As of now, the only official information can be found for this system is as follows:

• Contractor: NEC Corp.
• Contract signed on March 2008
• CAPEX: USD 13.1 mn
  

Inofficial, according to pak Meneer, Telkom will use this cable to connect to the new AAG cable.

From these information we could speculate :-D that : (Achtung --> spoiler!!)

• The system should be ready at most Q3/2009, highly possible Q2/2009
• NEC could do this ? Yes, currently they also install Jakabare for Indosat; RFS schedule June 2009
• Which capacity ? for sure >= 20 Gbps; highly possible >= 40 Gbps
• How long ? it could be 50 -70 km; Telkom might utilize their existing CLS currently used for TIS cable
• Which landing point in SG ? No idea; could be Changi or Tuas; actually Tuas or Katong is better for Telkom's side but it is not necessarily permitted
• The system could more-or-less similar to DMCS
  

SJC Plan

Southeast-asia Japan Cable (SJC) is currently in the planning stage. This second Google-led cable initiative will extend Unity cable to Southeast Asia.

• RFS: earliest 2011 (Alan Mauldin's estimate)
• Corsortium members: Google, Bharti, SingTel, KDDI, Global Transit (all these companies are also member of Unity Japan-US)
• Consortium members (SJC only): Globe Telecom Philippines, TOT Thailand
• Contractors/suppliers: ??? the same as Unity ???
• Current status: planning stage; preparation of supply contract
• CAPEX ???
  

Southeast-asia Japan Cable (SJC) Plan (Source/Courtesy Telegeography)

Several things are for me questionable:

• Why shall the cable land in Tuas ? This is usually used for cable coming from the west; as a preparation to extend to South Asia or just a Telegeography's typo ?
• Global Transit's HQ is in KL, but there is no Malaysian leg of the cable??
  

Additionally, Commsday said:

• "Google is reportedly looking for partners for the construction of a new subsea cable connecting to Africa"; (link eastwards to Asia or northwards to Europe is unclear but CAPEX estimate is revealed i.e. approx. USD 80 mn)
• "The SCJ will link to PPC-1"; "The cable would allow Pipe to provide direct capacity from Australia to Japan and the US at a substantial discount given likely pricing trends and presents new competition for AJC and a number of other emerging east asian systems planned by the likes of Pacnet, Reliance and Tata"
  

Google's Africa cable would be a hint; I guess extending the cable from SG to Africa would be a bit cheaper while covering traffic to/from South Asia and Middle East. Second, it was for me a surprise that Pipe which closely cooperates with Tata will also indirectly involve in this Google project :-). You might want to see this Tata's cable.

PPC-1 (Pipe Pacific Cable-1)

PPC-1 is owned (via its subsidiaries) by PIPE Networks, which is claimed itself as "Australia's largest peering provider and operates 16 IX points in 6 cities with over 130 active connections". PIPE has a close partnership with VSNL(Tata), in particular as the company intends to expand its business to the international wholesale market.

• Contractors: Tyco (contract on January 2008)
• Landing points: Collaroy beach, Cromer Sydney (Aus), Madang (PNG) near SEACOM, Tata Piti TGNP Guam (US)
• Capacity: 2 FP (4 in segment Cromer CLS - BU Sydney??); 1 FP for Australia-Guam trunk, 1 FP for Australia-PNG-Guam, 1.92 Tbps design, 140 Gbps initial for Australia-Guam, 10 Gbps for the other trunk; 96 Lambdas @ 10 Gbps
  
• Length: Approx. 6,900 km
• Others: 4 BU (1 Passive off Sydney; 3 Active/OADM)
• Products: 2.5 Gbps unprotected wavelengths; 10 Gbps unprotected wavelengths; SDH; dark fiber
• Cable burial: 1.5m burial to 2km off Sydney; 1m burial to 1km off Madang
• CAPEX:
• RFS: July 2009
  

• "PPC-1 is the first 'new' cable to land in PNG since 1960's"
• Connections from Guam to other destination are facilitated by Tata
• PPC-2 will extend PPC-1 to the North Island of NZ (partnership with Kordia)

PPC-1 (Source/Courtesy: Brett Worrall/PIPE Intl. taken from Subtel)

Telkom's Backbone

Several times ago, I mentioned Telkom's national backbone in this post. According to records published by KOMINFO, as of Q4/2005 Telkom owns 10,816 km fiber optic cable. The backbone network is distributed as follows:

• Surabaya-Banjarmasin-Makassar : 2,088 km (constructed in 2000)
• Trans-Java : 2,605 km (2000)
• Jakarta-Medan-Batam: 2,990 km (2004)
• Batam-Singapore-Bangkok: 1,043 km (2004)
• Dumai-Melaka: 161 km (2005)
• Banjarmasin-Balikpapan : 955 km (2005)
• Makassar-Palu: 974 km (2005)

This information can be compared with that I have mentioned in other posts. This and those information can be complement to each other. For instance, for "Batam-Singapore-Bangkok" entry mentioned above, I would guess that it refers to TIS cable, which shall actually be excluded in the calculation since it is a consortium cable.

Palapa Ring (6)

Below are some updates for the Palapa Ring project as of September 2008. It seems that there are some route adjustments; and that now the project schedule is more realistic, taking into account current market situations.

• 2 FP for repeatered system
• 12 FP for inland and repeaterless system
• Construction begin on April 2009;
  
• RFS final (all segments) on September 2011
• Section 1 Mataram - Parigi
  
• Section 2 Palu-Sorong
  
• Section 3 Makassar-Sorong
  
• Section 4 Makassar-Mataram/Kupang
  
• Section 5 Sorong-Jayapura
  
• Section 6 Fakfak-Merauke
  

Palapa Ring Map & Status as of Q3M/2008 (Source/Courtesy: KOMINFO)

Intra-Asia & Transpacific Cables

According to Byron Clatterbuck (Tata), current supply for transpacific connection is as follows:

TGN-Pacific

• Capacity: 8 FP; 96 channels at 10 Gbps each; 1.4 Tbps lit; 7.8 Tbps design
• Owner: Tata/TGN

JUSCN

• Capacity: 4 FP; 1.28 Tbps lit & design (full occupied) ??
• Owner: Consortium

PC-1

• Capacity: 4 FP; 320 Gbps lit; 1.28 Tbps design
• Owner: (same owner as Southern Cross??)

How about intra-Asia segments? There are also many alternatives. This includes EAC-C2C (Pacnet), IAC, TIC, Flag (FNAL). There might be also several other systems.

Tata currently expands their intra-Asia presences by constructing TGN-Intra Asia (TGN-IA):

• Length: approx. 6,800 km
• Capacity: 4 FP; 320 Gbps lit; 3.84 Tbps design
• Services: STM1/4/16/64 - GbE?
• RFS: Q3/2008
• Contractors: Tyco ?

TGN IA (Intra Asia) and TGN Pacific - Source/Courtesy: Tata

Jakarta (IP) Bandwidth Price

I followed some traces left by Pak Meneer and was delivered to his records at Opisboy. This is claimed to be an "Informal ISP Technical ( dir-pji-like :p )" forum. Comments ? :-D Well, for non-local readers, "dir-pji" could be understood as "indonesian ISP Executives/VIPs" or as the forum of ISPs' owners/high-rank officials. It is "dir-pji-like" ? Personally, I would say "better-than-dir-pji" :-D Reasons? he..he..he. Don't take it seriously or even start thinking about that!! :-D

Back to bandwidth. According to Pak Meneer, the condition is as follows:

• Jakarta - Singapore connection costs around USD 150 th./month (STM-1 closed circuit, clear channel); or
• Jakarta - Singapore connection costs USD 1.5 mn/10 years (STM-1 closed circuit, clear channel, IRU scheme)
• IP transit in SG costs around USD 60 - 100 /Mbps/month

From this numbers, he estimates that the cost of (budget necessary for) IP transit at Jakarta would be approx. USD 1,068/Mbps/month for normal scheme, or approx. USD 181/Mbps/month for IRU scheme.

This is more-or-less justified by several recent media reports (quoted information given by Indosat/Fadzri Santosa, APJII/Sylvia or others) which give the figure of around USD 1,000 /Mbps/month. Sylvia and Fadzri might talk on different contexts e.g. Fadzri mentioned closed-circuit leasing bandwidth and Sylvia talked about IP transit. But nevertheless, if we look at the numbers given by Meneer Tutut, cost component for transit doesn't contribute significantly. If Indosat plays in this price level, then I guess, Matrix and Moratel/XL would offer a bit cheaper price.

Regarding IRU scheme, I know that Matrix offers this scheme. But I doubt that Indosat does (will do)?? So, the information above may specific to Matrix. Right pak ?? :-D Some friends of mine have told me that Matrix has done a very good "marketing move". They may soon increase their currently-almost-full-booked 60 Gbps capacity. :-D However this might a spoiler, not official!

Last issue, many people use USD/Mbps metric for bandwidth price. I would personally prefer USD/X-port metric e.g. USD 2,000/E1-port rather than USD 1,000/Mbps. Why? Simply, because not all line bandwidth are useable for user data. If we are talking about STM-1 line for instance, if it is channelized, its useable bandwidth is only 126 Mbps. If it is unchannelized, by using PoS for instance, its useable bandwidth might be in the range of 130 - 140+ Mbps.

That's all. Sorry this time without pics. :-D

A (Possibly) New Competitor for Matrix and Jakabare

A competitor or a friend ? :-) It could actually be a potential partner if you want to connect to Western Australia!

I don't remember precisely how, but yesterday my Firefox browser took me to Ochre's website. Honestly, I've never heard Ochre before, so I was a bit surprised; similar to the moment where I read about the MCS project for the first time.

Facts, Plans & Quotes (Brett O’Riley, Subtelforum):

• It will connect Singapore (possibly Changi), Jakarta and Perth
• "The proposed multi-terabit network would link Perth to Jakarta and Singapore, with initial branches to oil and gas facilities at Geraldton and Dampier"
  
• RFS : Q2/2010
• Capacity : 2 FP; channels ? design ? lit ?
• CAPEX : approx. USD 150 mn
• The project is "modelled on an earlier project mooted by Nava Networks that was abandoned following the 2002 market collapse"
• "It was confirmed that Asia Netcom had agreed to provide landing stations in Singapore" (ANC --> PACNET)
• "While only 10% of Australia’s international traffic originates on the west coast, service providers have become increasingly concerned about the lack of diversity and the high prices available on the current SEA-ME-WE-3 link"
  

Ochre's SIA (Singapore Indonesia Australia) Cable Plan; Courtesy of Ochre Services