Dear Mr. Mucheru,

I hear you but we are missing out on a vital point, never go to the negotiating table from a position of weakness. What is the likelihood of getting a mortgage from the bank if you have no savings, no job and no business?

As I have said before, the fiber is going to land whether I like it or not, but that does not stop me from airing my views.

You raise the issue of India have you looked at how much local content they have and their utilisation of local connectivity? If you follow the issue of India closely you will note that they first developed local capacity. India used the so called slow satellite connections to reach the outside world and because of the capacity they had developed the locally Microsoft, Motorola and other large American companies saw the need to increase the speed of connectivity to India.

Safaricom should be a case in point for us, how many minutes of International calls do you think is the contribution to their 17 Billion profit. Imagine if they had setup shop & concentrated their efforts on International calling where would they be today?

Your analogy of a Road from Mwea to Kericho is an interesting one, if you have noticed all roads have led to Nairobi for many years it is only after those satellite locations have grown sufficient traffic through Nairobi that we have developed direct linkages. A case in point is the road connecting from Machakos to Thika, Kitengela to Rongai, and the now being constructed Njambini Road.

Why didn't we develop this roads at independence?

What most of you are suggesting is that we put up a Kes. 500,000/- toilet with jacuzzi for a one roomed iron sheet house in Kibera so that the occupant can enjoy themselves for 20 minutes every day.

Instead of us continuing to discus the pros and cons of landing the fiber in 2009, lets concentrate our efforts, skills and resources in preparing for its arrival. I do not pretend to have all the answers but together I believe we can better prepare this country for the marine cable than the West African countries did.

PS. KAY System designs and implements appropriate local and wide area networks and we are currently working on an online payment system that will make e-commerce a reality to the majority of Kenyans.

Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
KEnya

Tel: +254722511225

----- Original Message ----
From: Joseph Mucheru <jmucheru@google.com>
To: robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>; info@mediacorp.co.ke
Sent: Friday, 30 November, 2007 5:15:20 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Faith in local web hosting

Robert,

I trust this email finds you well. Some important facts I, we are not alone, and neither is Kenya. We need to as a country remain competitive and further more we need to do so efficiently and quickly. Right now our competition in the digital is from all corners of the globe. As we speak bandwidth costs in Kenya are on average US$6,000 per MB while the same bandwidth costs US$ 400 in India, they are able to transact faster and further more hae the ability to have many other services on the same cable compared to our satellite only capacity.

We need a highway to the rest of the world for two reason, one is a significant part of our economy is connected to the outside world, be it tourism, importation of medicines, education etc... We cannot ignore that part of the equation. This does not mean we ignore the local needs, the PS took time to outline the current projects gong on to provide national fiber connectivity and he further outlined the time lines for it's deployment.

I simple way to look at this is even from a local perspective. We have the various towns in the country each with differing comparative advantages. For example, you get tea from Kericho, rice from mwea etc. It would be very unwise to say that Kericho does not need a road to Mwea because it has not completed building it's own local streets, or Mwea does not need a road or communication to other towns or regions.

Kenya has it's own comparative advantages and so do other countries. We need to ensure we have as good if not better linkages the rest of the world not only for the world to access Kenya, but also for Kenya to access the world.

I am very sure none of this new to you and it would be a big shame to pour cold water on a project that will be life changing for all of us. For instance, I will have better access to my sisters abroad, I will be able to do Video conferencing with them at an affordable rate. I will be able to watch the International stock markets and other financial markets in the same way. The fact I can do it today with Analogue (Marram road) does not mean Tarmac is bad and should be ignored.

By the way Robert what is primary business of KAY System Technologies Ltd

Joe Mucheru

On Nov 30, 2007 5:33 AM, robert yawe < robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Kagai,

Like all the rest we are misplacing the importance of the marine cable and it is unfortunate that Dr. Ndemo is also unable to provide us with the logical reason for why we need to land this fiber cable.

Your issue of digital TV has nothing to do with whether we have the marine cable or not as our transmission is local and thus what we need is a fiber network within the country. I have been listening to that story of digital TV being echoed by many a so called IT gurus. All that the fiber will do is create so much competition for our local stations before they have enough time to adopt or recoup their investments which will result in massive layoffs. If we can negotiate for the delay in opening our markets to sugar maybe we need the same team to look at the pros and cons of the fiber cable landing.

Note that the signal sent out by MNet and other satellite channels is digital yet I can watch it on my Greatwall TV which is as analogue as you can get, even come 2010 all that will happen is that set top boxes will be so cheap that there will be no need to replace our TV's. Alternatively look behind your DVD player and tell me how many analogue and digital inputs you have?

Just for information purposes do you know that Telkom Kenya has fiber optic cable laid to most high rise building in the city but only 2 or so locations have actually had the fiber terminated onto equipment? I ask anyone to challenge me on this point this includes Eng. Waweru and Mr. Kirui all of who have been party to this wasteful actions.

We are being totally wasteful with our resources what makes us think that the landing of the fiber optic cable will change our habits.

Kagai, I ask again why do we need to land the fiber optic cable and how will it change your life, leave alone mine?

Have an analogue weekend

Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
KEnya

Tel: +254722511225

----- Original Message ----
From: Bill Kagai <billkagai@gmail.com>
To: robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: info@mediacorp.co.ke; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Thursday, 29 November, 2007 10:19:51 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Faith in local web hosting

On Nov 28, 2007 8:24 AM, robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> End user ---> Telkom ---> ISP ---> KDN --> ISP --> Telkom --> end user
>
> Do the math

Yawe, you probably need to look at this cable beyond internet. The
kind of technology we use today for broadcasting TV is being phased
out in Europe by August 2008. TV is now being broadcast on cable or
ADSL specifically for beyond quality purposes. You need to ensure that
commercial components reach the right people. For instance, that is
why CNBC opted to pull out its channel from DSTV bouquet to local
stations like KBC with a wider reach. 'Measurement of reach' is
capable through adsl/cable connected to the international fibre
network. ADSL via optic fibre reinforces the copper that we are not
about to do away with anyway in the near future. Copper is not
obsolete yet.

Optic fibre allows u freeview channels where internet becomes
secondary to primary data and voice transmission...and most of
all...things we have learned to leave with..such as attenuation
distortion...become an old way of life for us in the Africa north of
the limpopo but south of of the sahara. Another way of looking at
it...when they tell you that computers are down in a bank..most of the
times they mean the link to the server is unsteady since they need to
ensure that you don't withdraw twice or thrice on the same
transaction..satellite does not give you redundancy [read back-up]
channels as cable would. With cable, you are able to re-wind live tv
instead of having a local disk imersed in your decorder...thanks to
the cable.

In essence, if u look at the submarine cable minus the copper
telephone system and electricity grid then u will not see much. If u
look at it in terms of how it adds value to the existing
infrastructure, then you will see...how significant albeit
small....the hole the international link plus the terrestrial cable
needs to fill to sort out our big problems.

Bill...

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Joe Mucheru
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Google Kenya
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