Steve Song (NSRC)Next Generation Optical Networks

14 Feb 2017

Fibre To The Continent

Undersea Fibre

The growth of undersea fibre optic capacity has been a catalyst for change.

The impact of technological change often takes years to

manifest

https://afterfibre.nsrc.org

The arrival of undersea capacity to African shores in 2009 triggered a wave of terrestrial fibre build-out in Africa

Available fibre maps lack

detail

Or where

detailed they lack

physical routes

Or they are in

Chinese

Or they may have

been edited once to often

Access to comprehensive fibremaps can prevent duplication, promote investment, identify coverage gaps

Good Practice Exists!

Here in South Africa, Dark Fibre Africa publishes a comprehensive map of their fibre network.

https://afterfibre.nsrc.org

AfTerFibre map represents five years of scrounging data

Open Telecom Data

There is a need for more transparency and openness in telecom data

Fibre As Infrastructure

Treating fibre as infrastructurewill lead us to different decisions about investment.

What Does Open Access Mean?

• Competition in all layers of the IP network allowing a wide variety of physical networks and applications to interact in an open architecture.

• It seeks to build on the characteristics of the IP network to allow devolved local solutions rather than centralised ones.

• It encourages market entry from smaller, local companies and seeks to ensure that no one entity can take a position of dominant market power.

• It requires transparency to ensure fair trading within and between the layers based on clear, comparative information on market prices and services.

State-Owned Infrastructure Paradox

The private sector is better at managing the asset but cannot be relied on to push prices down

Government-run networks tend to be inefficient and less responsive to the market

Diversifying Investment and Ownership

• Could the EASSy/WIOCC model work for state-owned terrestrial networks?

• If governments sold off a percentage of capacity to an SPV with financing support for small investors

Fibre has turned up the pressure on regulators to make more

wireless spectrum available

2006 Digital Switchover Decision

2007

2007

2010

Regulation Struggles to Keep Pace

With wireless in particular there is a need for more

diverse strategies

Unlicensed

Dynamic

Set-asides

Growth of Unlicensed Spectrum Use

WiFi in Africa 2016

New Generation of Rural GSM

The Internet is made of and made by people

NSRC has been building the capacity of Internet engineers in more than 120countries since 1992.

More investment is needed!

Thank you

Steve Song

@stevesong

https://nsrc.org