Listers,
I have
noticed, that while all laudable efforts in speeding up
our broadband connectivity to the
rest of the
world hits top gear, saddeningly regional local
interconnectivity lags behind. Why
is this
so...?
For
instance reaching a branch office located in Tanzania from
their Kenya HQ office,or vice
versa means
traffic transits out from our cyberspace to some international
exchange point
somwhere in
London, hits the return trip back via some other Link to Dar.
This especially
affects VOIP
connectivity and quality, between interconnected offices, and other
services
that rely on
good QOS.
This,
especially while we are working on the economic, Social, and perhaps
Political
intergration
of the Comesa block seems to fly in the face of the major milestones
that have
been
achieved in the Telecommunication sectors of the member countries, and I
strongly
suggest the
industry addresses this urgently. We need a Regional Internet
Exchange point
set up.
Perhaps name it COMESA-IXP or something. But one thing is
clear; the more we
each send
traffic destined locally on a roundtrip to Europe or elsewhere and back,
means
we incur
huge transiting costs in the process, which dollars that we export out
should be
be used to
expand and develop our local & Regional interconnection
capacity..
I think,
this is an issue worth being addressed and I'd be interested to
discuss this more
with
anyone interested to drive this forward.
Anyone..?
Regards,
Harry