The much anticipated SEACOM cable was switched on yesterday. Backhauls linking Johannesburg, Nairobi and Kampala with the coastal landing stations have been established. SEACOM is also working with its national partners to commission the final links to Kigali and Addis Ababa shortly.
While the reaction on the web has generally been very good, some bloggers have raised a few concerns. The most interesting one is Kachwanya, who says Seacom is here but don’t be surprised if nothing changes. The first part of his post is mainly about the Internet pricing and frequency hoarding problems in Kenya. In the second part, which caught my attention, he says he asked Seacom to reveal the ISPs which have bought bandwidth from them. To which, the folks at Seacom responded by saying that revealing the names of their clients (ISPs) will jeopardize their relationship with others which are not yet on board. The actual twitter exchange between the two is as follows:
kachwanya @SeacomLive i know my isp has not purchased the bandwidth with#seacom, so which ISPs have purchased bandwidth with you?
SeacomLive @kachwanya to maintain #Seacom‘s open accessibility as a cable to all ISPs, this kind of info cannot be supplied at present.
Just like Kachwanya, I wonder how the end-users will benefit from SEACOM if they do not know the ISPs which are offering SEACOM’s high bandwidth. Secondly, the reason put forward by SEACOM does not make sense to me. If SEACOM really champions open accessibility, why are they not disclosing the ISPs that have bought bandwidth from them? End users deserve open access to this kind of information. SEACOM should not care about ISPs that are not yet their clients. Some folks, who have become suspicious of SEACOM, are now saying that perhaps only a handful ISPs have bought bandwidth from them such that they are scared of being embarrased should they reveal their names. Having spent a lot of money on the cable, SEACOM is possibly thinking that the number of ISPs that will buy bandwidth from them will increase with time. Maybe, they are planning to announce their names when the number goes beyond a certain threshold.
Seacom cable route
In a followup to Kachwanya‘s exchange with Seacomlive, I tweeted the following:
Which ISPs have bought bandwidth from #Seacom? @kachwanya says @SeacomLive doesn’t want to disclose their names.
To which, Seacomlive responded by saying
@nyirendac You’re right the ISPs need to speak up about their BW purchases from #Seacom and let YOU know how they plan to release it
So where are the ISPs that have bought SEACOM bandwidth hiding?
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9 users commented in " SEACOM is live, but which ISPs have bought their bandwidth? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback[...] one Seacom won’t disclose the ISPs which are currently using the cable, a person in Malawi nthambazal raised the [...]
Very interesting. Another thought occurs to me. Why do not the ISP providers publish their association?
.-= Nicole Price´s last blog ..Discounted Perfumes and Fragrances =-.
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Clement Nyirenda says:
July 25th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
@Nicole: Good observation. The fact that ISPs are not publishing their association with SEACOM at a time when SEACOM is hitting the headlines all over the world makes us think that perhaps noone has bought their bandwidth.
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Hi Nthambazale.
First let me say it would be a violation of the confidentiality clause to reveal the names of the ISP’s. Secondly it is already known that Safaricom and KDN have purchaesd bandwidth which is instructive in itself because Safaricom is a shareholder of TEAMS. If Kenya didn’t have TEAMS then we would be concerned. Actually the real reason why SEACOM is afraid to reveal it’s ISP’s is because of the TEAMS factor. There will be no cartels in Kenya and prices will come down even if it takes a year.
People need to understand that SEACOM is a wholesaler of bandwidth and it is upto the ISP’s who purchase bandwidth from them to advertise themselves. Most ISP’s will start doing so once TEAMS commences bandwidth transmission. Let it be known that the govt ministries will all be on TEAMS and the prices will be equally cheap perhaps even lower than SEACOM’s. That fact alone will ensure that prices will no be sustained at a high level for long.
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Clement Nyirenda says:
July 26th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
@Jellyfishcoolman: Thanks for the good explanation. Good to hear that Safaricom and KDN have purchased bandwidth with SEACOM. Now the interested end-users in Kenya know which ISPs to contact should they need SEACOM’s high bandwidth. My take is that the TEAMS factor is the real reason behind SEACOM’s inability to disclose the ISPs. I am of the view that there is agreement between SEACOM and the ISPs, at least in the Kenyan market, to keep mum until TEAMS goes live. But then if they can agree to do such a thing, how sure are we that they will not create a cartel when TEAMS comes on the scene?
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Hi Clement.
To respond to your question SEACOM is an open access cable meaning any ISP which wishes to buy bandwidth is welcome to do so. Secondly SEACOM has already published it’s prices to the ISP’s which range from $200 to $100 and to universities $75 with schools at $25.
Now KDN has put alot of money into it’s terrestrial network but it has already announced it will charge $400/MB. Some of the other ISP’s like Safaricom havent invested alot though they have bought Jamii who have a fibre network. This is why I think prices have to come down. If previously bandwidth was in the region of $7000/MB then prices will have to come down.
If U read my blogpost you will see the concept of less is more in telecomms. With a margin of $200 KDN is confident of recovering it’s investment if the uptake lives upto expectations which can only happen if prices drop to at most $500. In Kenya there are quite a large number of ISP’s and it would be impossible to talk all of them into a cartel. I have also established that Access Kenya has bought 2500MB from SEACOM and a similar amount from TEAMS.
.-= Jellyfish´s last blog ..SEACOM goes Live. =-.
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How do these investors plan on getting back their money? I guess it will be a while before the low-level / non-corporate user is able to feel the advantages that come with the cable.
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In Kenya the ISPs have started coming out in the open and trying to tie down their existing clients. Safaricom had a full page advert on the newspapers promising true broadband bandwidth. There is word out there that AccessKenya want to double their clients bandwidth at the same price. UUnet talked of providing bandwidth from Seacom. I guess the answer which most bloggers having asking on which ISPs have broadband is slowly being answered at least here in Kenya.
.-= kachwanya´s last blog ..Hackers and Kenyan banks..security threats =-.
[Reply]
Clement says:
August 25th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
One month after the launch of the SEACOM cable, it looks like people in Kenya are not happy. Rebecca Wanjiku’s article makes an interesting read.
.-= Clement´s last blog ..African Universities have similar problems =-.
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