SEACOM reveals bandwidth usage on cable

My 2c

It's weird what Mr Ramdhani says. I had a meeting with him to buy seacom bandwidth, and he told me in so many words 'I'm too expensive; go buy seacom bandwidth from your tier 0 provider'. He told he'd rather do '100-million dollar deals with the Telkoms of the world' rather than a million dollar deal with me. Also, he'd rather do business with the big guys than compete with them.

Now he says he's concerned about less than 10% lit. Well if they had offered wholesale prices to small ISPs, perhaps they wouldn't be in this situation now. When WACS comes, they will have to reduce their prices and maybe Mr Ramdhani will remember our conversation and guess who will be doing the begging then?

Hmmmph.

Finally, I'm not so sure he works for seacom. He's a consultant who works for the Ramaphosa consortium that owns a share of seacom. Mr Ramdhani brokers beeeeg deals for the consortium.

If anyone there is reading this - give us smaller guys a chance! We want to buy seacom for cheap and pass it on to the consumer for cheap! R20/gig is still too expensive!
 
Shred said:
We should plug that Seacom cable in the WUG in Durban and get it up here in Jhb, then you will see the fat cats get up off their chairs.
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I like that :D

The concern from Seacom reagarding WACS is something I never really considered.
With the likes of the current Telco operators bringing in their own capacity, I'm kind of concerned about there being more collusion to keep prices high.

Fact remains - with all of the undersea cables coming in; it's not going to help us or the rest of this country one bit, until LLU is achieved.

Goverment throws around MTR's and lack of broadband connectivity.
Lack of connectivity is largely also due to the tedious and slow nature of how the unbundling of the local loop is being handled.

While Telkom still has control of the loop, lots of players that want to make a difference in the market are held hostage, as are we.
 
Keeper said:
This is why I still say SEACOM should start their own ISP in SA. the cable is there, so why not use it.

Charge a low price for Uncapped, and stimulate the market - make people used to fast uncapped, make it the norm, and watch as the other ISPs buy bandwidth like crazy to compete.

Seacom - if you are not going to do something like this, our ISP's will keep raping us, and they won't need to buy bandwidth from you.


YOU, SEACOM, need to get data flolwing through your pipes. that's what you do. if there is no data flowing, you are gonna have problems.

So Start an ISP or make a deal with one ISP (like, charge them a lot less for bandwitdh, than what you usually charge) and STIMULATE the Market yourself.


Yes, i know it sounds weird to charge 1 ISP almost nothing for Bandwidth - but it will bring you 20x the amount of ISP's back to you, that NEED to buy from you to compete in the market.
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+1.

They spent so much on their cable and now it's basically idling with the mermaids. Why not set up some infrastructure and sell directly to ME.
 
Kaufies said:
+1.

They spent so much on their cable and now it's basically idling with the mermaids. Why not set up some infrastructure and sell directly to ME.
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I think both of you should take into consideration that they've also got plenty of business up along the East Coast of Africa. ;)

It's likely hurting their ROI slightly, but nothing that is going to concern them in the long run.
 
MadMailMan said:
Because then they will exhaust their capacity before they can make their money back.

It's like having a 10 lane highway that cost R1000 to build, and charging each car R1 to use it but they only open 1 lane. You want them to open 7 lanes and only charge say 10c. But at 10c those 7 lanes will fill up really fast and become congested long before they would have made back there R1000.

Or do you want them to open 7 lanes at R1 a car but they only have 3 cars using all 7 lanes? Remembering all 3 cars could run perfectly fine on just 1 lane.

I like explaning things using cars but sometimes it just confuses things more. Hope this makes sense tho. :D
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Appreciate the explanation ... but its not entirely accurate I think ... Add to the example that there is actually another freeway also charging R1.20 a car .. and is the same route youve always used .. why bother changing routes for 20c ..

As Seacom, they have a trickle of cars .. while another highway has much more cars ..so in order to better utilise their massive capacity .. they should sell off the entry for 40c till they reach 70% capacity .. as a limited offer .. poaching half the other highways revenue and traffic .. and forcing the other highway to reduce prices to 40c as well ..

Then by the same logic, people are unlikely to switch back to the old highway without significant cost savings .. WRT the capacity being used up .. im not aware that the cable would degrade any slower using 70% capacity .. so why not utilise 70% .. its not its going to damage the cable .. and the remaining 30% should be more than enough for extra provisioning in the short term till the 70% contracts come to expiry ..

Correct me anywhere you please .. im no expert ;)
 
eltherza said:
"600-million dollars back in 5 years"

120 million dollars a year,
Or 328K dollars a day
Or about 2.5 million Rand a day

Thats a big ask.

But lets take it one step more:

R2.5mil a day for a 1.28TBps
R2.5mil a day for 1310Gbps
R2.5mil a day for 1341440Mbps


Or R1.8 for 1Mbps per day

So anyone want to pay R54 a month for a 1Mbps line?
Oh wait, "fair profit", lets x2 for backhaul, and x2 for ISP
so even then about R219 for a 1Mbps uncapped line anyone?
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yes please :D
 
AndrewAlston said:
Been reading these posts with some interest, and figured I'd add a coupla points.

Firstly, on the calculations of cost and the recoup of investment, keep in mind that no cable system ever bargains on selling the whole cable right off the bat, so they up the price per segment to the ISPs in order to make sure that even if they sell fractional capacity they can still make their money back (which is a perfectly fair and legitimate business practice). As such, the published price of a 10G on seacom is nowhere near as low as you guys are making out (real cost using commercial list price calculated over 20 years is around $13.5k US per day excluding operations and maintenance, which works out at around R315 a month per megabit) . However, keep in mind that no ISP anywhere sells 1:1 ratios to the home consumer market, and if you calculate even at a ratio of 10:1 you end up with a pretty decent price, and a 1:20 oversell on DSL bandwidth would be almost invisible to the end user. However, you then have to multiply that price by 4 because lets be realistic, at the rate of telecomms advance you want any long term circuit to have paid for itself in 5 years maximum. Still, you're looking at around R130 / mbit input cost at a 1:20 oversell on 10gig (obviously these numbers are totally hypothetical and based on a lot of mumbo jumbo that would need to be more carefully calculated).

Now, lets add in the other costs, DSL IPC bandwidth, even if you are buying LOTS of it and manage some how to get it down to say R1200 / mbit. Lets work on an oversell here of 20:1 as well, thats another R60 a megabit in IPC cost. So we're up to R190 odd on uncapped 1mbit input cost. Now double that to cover running expenses, staff and equipment (and thats conservative) for a raw input cost of R380 per 1mbit uncapped dsl per month.

Now, keep in mind that these figures only work if you have a 1:20 complete oversell of a complete 10gig circuit, that means to make that number work, you need *200 THOUSAND* dsl customers, and it gets a LOT more expensive if you are buying in lower quantities. It's simply not as cheap as it looks on the surface.

(Someone can check my maths, and like I say, these figures are totally hypothetical and based on a bunch of assumptions which are probably far from realistic, so please don't think that I claim this is an accurate summary, it is just meant to give a more holistic viewpoint on what it costs to provide these services)

At the same time, as I've said on here many times, Seacom is an amazing project, they have done wonders for certain segments of the market and the pricing impacts are already starting to be seen (look at the drops in price on dsl packages lately), but it also takes time.

Just keep in mind when looking at figures, that you have to take it all into account, taking one element and not working out the rest provides a very inaccurate picture.

NOTE: Everything said above is said in my personal capacity, and contains my own numbers, theories and assumptions and is in not representative of anything in my official capacity as TENET CTO
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With an estimated 1.2 million broadband users *considering ADSL only* I'll be the first to say that a decently priced uncapped/unshaped offering at a 20:1 contention ratio would definitely get 200k users easy.

On a more broader scale, excluding ADSL usage, you have to consider the mobile operators (wireless etc) as well, having a far wider reach than any landline could have and a far higher penetration.

Switching their users over and then selling a service like that for maybe 3x the price now, I'd definitely go with a 3G uncapped option and not have to pay stupid prices that's way more expensive than the ADSL counterpart.

Seacom can make a bigger splash so to speak, unfortunately it appears that profiteering is the name of the game, and let's all be honest here, you don't want the cable to pay for itself in 5 years, you want the shareholders to start making money with the cables in 5 years so that they don't get irate.

Especially if you're looking at the cables lifespan, the earlier the better, and thus, you won't (not because you can't) open up the flood gates and drown us in bandwidth, because you'd rather make back the money now, and in 5 years time be able to laugh all the way to the bank all the while "increasing" the amount of bandwidth ability on your cable as demand grows, profiting even more.

Why not let the cable pay for itself over 20 years and work a profit margin on top of that to give the share holders some money back like that? Open the entire cable. Boom, Day 1. Profit.
 
AcidRaZor said:
With an estimated 1.2 million broadband users *considering ADSL only* I'll be the first to say that a decently priced uncapped/unshaped offering at a 20:1 contention ratio would definitely get 200k users easy.
.
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No need to estimate active ADSL lines (DSLAM ports), Telkom publishes the actual number as a KPI in their interim/annual results. Last ones were on Mar 2009 and the number was 548 015. Probably about 600-650K by now (next interims come out end of this month).

If fact there is only one (end user) provider with more than 200 000 subscribers, that being Telkom itself. The rest is speard across the other ADSL providers in the market.
 
eltherza said:
Or R1.8 for 1Mbps per day

So anyone want to pay R54 a month for a 1Mbps line?
Oh wait, "fair profit", lets x2 for backhaul, and x2 for ISP
so even then about R219 for a 1Mbps uncapped line anyone?
Click to expand...

I think the locals are saying that they need to build or upgrade local infrustructure. With lousy international connectivity and tiny caps as well as speeds - 4Mb/sec vs 20Mb/sec to 1Gb/sec in industrialised countries,
what can you expect? With only a few people allowed to drive cars on the road
and only for a few km's at a time there was no need to build wide international freeways. Now that we 10 lane freeways, we find that the regional roads and streets are single lane - so who care's what's upstream, ne?

The locals now want 500% profit at the bare minimum to recoup the costs of future investments - they'll consider building an extra lane in your street if you continue to cough up the high prices.

Yes, we've been fed lies about the lack of international connectivity in a way, that and the fact that local providers have been sitting on their butts because investing money in 4 lane streets in your neighbourhood was not worth the returns - as only 1 out of 20 people had a car.
 
Why do we still compare ADSL/Bandwidth to cars? I'm pretty sure most people participating on these forums has some idea WTF everything entails without it being drilled down to grade 1 level for everyone.

That being said. Local infrastructure getting the blame for the slow release of the cable is just another ploy to keep the working man (us) at bay. Now what. Seacom was suppose to be this huge thing... now we wait for who?

"LLU is still a few years before it happens" how so? It can be done now in fact... and has been in talks since as early as 2005...

Oh wait, I forgot. The greed of companies that love to ride on the backs of people, corrupt as they are, just in it for the money and not what it brings to us as a society.

Norway (AFAIK) made it a human right (broadband... a human right)

Now I'd imagine a country that deems itself the leader in human rights and civil liberties would have made headway with this already.

People in this country moan about the employment rate and foreign investments. We hear for a few months that government and the private sector is trying to persuade the bank to devalue the rand because exports are suffering.

How about making telecommunications cheap. We're perfect for all those call centers, yet India gets most of those jobs... even Ireland. Job creation. Then we don't need to hang our hopes on exports. We can then use those quality items we export for our local people. Imagine that.

But no. Greedy companies insists on making money while others suffer. We will forever be a 3rd world country, even though by now we should have had 1st world status.
 
my Seacom Experience

Hi.

Just so you guys out there can know how companies in South Africa function, this is my Seacom expereince.

So, interested at the prospect of cheaper bandwith and lower latencies for VoIP, I apply to Seacom for a quotation for bandwidth and hosting in Durban.

The next thing that happens is the Internet Solutions gives me a call, and says they are the sales agents for Seacom, and that they wanted to know my requirements, which is hosting and bandwidth in Durban for VoIP.

The final thing that happens is that I receive an email from IS saying that they cannot even quote me because they see my little VoIP business as a threat to their own VoIS product, and basically said goodbye.

So, ... even though the quote from IS would have probably been very expensive knowing IS, I was left feeling really dissapointed that the promise of good Seacom bandwith has in reality dwindled into nothing. What was also anoying is that IS do supply bandwidth to many VoIP companies, and chose not to supply me.

Maybe I should take that as a compliment?.:)

anyway, so if anyone gets cheap Seacom bandwidth, please post it on here, as I am would be really interested if this thing comes to fruition.

cheers
 
New Dawn

Sandman30s said:
Finally, I'm not so sure he works for seacom.
He's a consultant who works for the Ramaphosa consortium that owns a share of seacom.
Mr Ramdhani brokers beeeeg deals for the consortium.
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SHANDUKA / NEW DAWN

DO a bit of research on the ( Telecommunications ) companies / consotiums etc etc that Mr Ramaphosa is / has been involved in.

Marriage of the ANC and *certain* BIG business in SA -- do we see a pattern emerging ???? ( It is a ONE horse show in a ONE horse town )

WHAT about New Dawn -- WHAT is this Satellite going to be used for ???

I have always maintained that the only way to bypass LOCAL backhaul
( AND cover the whole of Southern Africa -- YES -- right to EVERY Desktop )
is via Satellite.

SEACOM -- > A "spaceport" at Mtunzini ???

IS 300msec latency really THAT bad for general Internet useage ????
IS Satellite capacity REALLY that expensive ???


Question:
Why did SEACOM not just trench a cable to JHBG

Answer:
Regulations -- they had to use an already established LICENSED LOCAL operator --
NEOTEL -- a company with an existing relationship with TATA -- the really BIG undersea cable player.


Question:
Is there a cable from the Landing Station to JHBG

Answer:
Yes -- run by NEOTEL to their data centre in MIDRAND
SEACOM bandwidth is charged FOB MIDRAND.


Please correct me if I am wrong.

MW
 
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"The operator consortium of Telkom, Vodacom, Broadband Infraco, Neotel and MTN are in the process of implementing their own undersea cable"

Collusion anyone?
 
I may be missing something here but is the problem not Telkom as usual? Paying R400 for a 4mb line leaves little room for buying bandwidth for most people. No matter how much the price of bandwidth drops that stumbling block remains.
 
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