Day 3 of 10: Day 3 - Hierarchy of IGO & ISPs
Thanx Alex for your comments on Day 1, for a moment I was bracing myself for a 10 day Online monologue :-(! as opposed to the planned Online dialogue. Incidentally, belated Comments on previous days themes shall remain welcome - just click on the correct subject line and make your appropriate contributions... Anyway back to today's theme- The Question of Internet Gateway Operators (IGO, the Wholesalers of Internet Bandwidth) vs Internet Service Providers (ISPs, the Retailers of Internet Bandwidth). The report recommends that seperation b/w IGO and ISPs be dissolved. This is because the current structure Internet-> IGO -> ISP -> Consumers is considered unnecessarily too long. Apparently the ISP as we know them today are not adding significant value - instead they are adding cost to the service and probably degraging the quality of the Internet eventually delivered to the Customers. Cutting down the middle-man (ISPs) may offset the costs and while increasing the quality of the internet eventually delivered to the Consumer. Is this assumption true? Does allowing IGO to directly deal with Consumer result in cheaper Internet Services while improving on the quality of the internet? 1 day on this theme, at the least, I do hope to get some reactions at from any IGOs and ISPs. walu. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Walubengo: As the newest kid on the block, and totally biased:-) Here is my pesa nane: I see this discussion in two ways, first I agree that the separation b/w IGO and ISPs be dissolved but not limited to only the IGOs, but this should swing both ways meaning that ISPs are also free to be IGOs without having to apply for the different licenses to build their own backbones if they so desire. Issue would of course be the frequencies how to share this very scarce resource fairly among all without discremination especially knowing what we already know about the spectrum allocation so far, I think this is a tall order indeed. Secondly I doubt expanding the IGOs scope of reach will resolve the issue which is reducing costs for the consumer. The idea sounds great but in reality the IGOs can barely keep up with their current workload and adding more on their plate would be a disaster in my opinion. I would not wish any consumers the pain of dealing directly with the IGOs and leave them to do what they do best -- building infrastructure and I would say we leave them to that until we have fibre available throughout Kenya then perhaps that would be an ideal time to review the situation. Finally, I would leave the ISP/IGO relationship as is, but with freedom for either to move either way simply because market forces can be counted on to dictate the trend, and you can bet right now there are a number of CEOs working over time to counter Alunite's initiative because thats what they are paid to do.. Think about Netzero who offer a free service in the U.S but are still able to survive in that ISP space because they serve a certain clientele. Consumers are well on their way to getting what they deserve and I say Amen to that. LK
Thanx Alex for your comments on Day 1, for a moment I was bracing myself for a 10 day Online monologue :-(! as opposed to the planned Online dialogue. Incidentally, belated Comments on previous days themes shall remain welcome - just click on the correct subject line and make your appropriate contributions...
Anyway back to today's theme- The Question of Internet Gateway Operators (IGO, the Wholesalers of Internet Bandwidth) vs Internet Service Providers (ISPs, the Retailers of Internet Bandwidth).
The report recommends that seperation b/w IGO and ISPs be dissolved. This is because the current structure Internet-> IGO -> ISP -> Consumers is considered unnecessarily too long. Apparently the ISP as we know them today are not adding significant value - instead they are adding cost to the service and probably degraging the quality of the Internet eventually delivered to the Customers.
Cutting down the middle-man (ISPs) may offset the costs and while increasing the quality of the internet eventually delivered to the Consumer. Is this assumption true? Does allowing IGO to directly deal with Consumer result in cheaper Internet Services while improving on the quality of the internet?
1 day on this theme, at the least, I do hope to get some reactions at from any IGOs and ISPs.
walu.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@kictanet.or.ke http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
Please unsubscribe or change your options at http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/lkimani%40comnews.co.ke
----------------------------------------- This email was sent using Communicatons Solutions LTD WebMail. " " http://www.accesskenya.com/
Thanx LK for your views on this theme. I was also quite doubtful about the strategy of eliminating the 'middle-man' (ISP) because the wholesaler (IGO) may not necessarily pass the cost savings downwards - I for one would simply be happy to increase my profit margins following the demise of the ISPs (& why not?).... ...think of TKL who have both IGO and ISP licenses, the Internet Report suprisingly found that their dial-up internet service was actually one of the highest (200% of the Gross national Income) in the Internet Service provision market... Indeed I was scared of 'losing' the Wholesale-Resale relationship b/w IGO and ISPs and this morning (at the KICTANet media forum) the DG (CCK) shed some light on what might actually be the final inter-play when he visualised an Internet Market structure with three players: (network) Infrastructure Developers, Content Developers and Content Providers. I see current IGO becoming Infrastructure Developers while ISPs maturing to become Content/Appilication Providers. Thus both retaining their relevance in a new dispensation... walu. --- Lucy Kimani <lkimani@comnews.co.ke> wrote:
Walubengo:
As the newest kid on the block, and totally biased:-)
Here is my pesa nane:
I see this discussion in two ways, first I agree that the separation b/w IGO and ISPs be dissolved but not limited to only the IGOs, but this should swing both ways meaning that ISPs are also free to be IGOs without having to apply for the different licenses to build their own backbones if they so desire. Issue would of course be the frequencies how to share this very scarce resource fairly among all without discremination especially knowing what we already know about the spectrum allocation so far, I think this is a tall order indeed.
Secondly I doubt expanding the IGOs scope of reach will resolve the issue which is reducing costs for the consumer. The idea sounds great but in reality the IGOs can barely keep up with their current workload and adding more on their plate would be a disaster in my opinion. I would not wish any consumers the pain of dealing directly with the IGOs and leave them to do what they do best -- building infrastructure and I would say we leave them to that until we have fibre available throughout Kenya then perhaps that would be an ideal time to review the situation.
Finally, I would leave the ISP/IGO relationship as is, but with freedom for either to move either way simply because market forces can be counted on to dictate the trend, and you can bet right now there are a number of CEOs working over time to counter Alunite's initiative because thats what they are paid to do.. Think about Netzero who offer a free service in the U.S but are still able to survive in that ISP space because they serve a certain clientele. Consumers are well on their way to getting what they deserve and I say Amen to that.
LK
Thanx Alex for your comments on Day 1, for a moment I was bracing myself for a 10 day Online monologue :-(! as opposed to the planned Online dialogue. Incidentally, belated Comments on previous days themes shall remain welcome - just click on the correct subject line and make your appropriate contributions...
Anyway back to today's theme- The Question of Internet Gateway Operators (IGO, the Wholesalers of Internet Bandwidth) vs Internet Service Providers (ISPs, the Retailers of Internet Bandwidth).
The report recommends that seperation b/w IGO and ISPs be dissolved. This is because the current structure Internet-> IGO -> ISP -> Consumers is considered unnecessarily too long. Apparently the ISP as we know them today are not adding significant value - instead they are adding cost to the service and probably degraging the quality of the Internet eventually delivered to the Customers.
Cutting down the middle-man (ISPs) may offset the costs and while increasing the quality of the internet eventually delivered to the Consumer. Is this assumption true? Does allowing IGO to directly deal with Consumer result in cheaper Internet Services while improving on the quality of the internet?
1 day on this theme, at the least, I do hope to get some reactions at from any IGOs and ISPs.
walu.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@kictanet.or.ke http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
Please unsubscribe or change your options at
http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/lkimani%40comnews.co.ke
----------------------------------------- This email was sent using Communicatons Solutions LTD WebMail. " " http://www.accesskenya.com/
_______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@kictanet.or.ke http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet
Please unsubscribe or change your options at
http://kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.com
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
participants (2)
-
John Walubengo -
Lucy Kimani