Hi Mwendwa, This are indeed good questions. On 7/15/11 10:01 PM, lordmwesh wrote:

Would you be kind to indicate that this data has grown to such levels since google launched a local google global caching server locally, hence most traffic is not going outside our beloved country, and since then, the traffic to the IXP has grown ten fold?

Indeed majority of the traffic is Google. As you know according to Arbor Networks Google accounts for 6% of all Internet traffic. So you can imagine that it accounts to majority of the traffic at most IXPs considering they are the only CDN at KIXP. As more CDNs show up at KIXP then we can see the impact even more.

Does this mean our local data usage has increased?

Its a sign that our local data consumption is growing and broadband is improving since thats the largest use of the google cache. Regards, Michuki.

Thank Michuki. This is great. I wish we can develop more local youtubes and googles, and yahoos, and facebooks the way most Asian companies have done. This way, bandwidth will be cheaper since there will be no capital flight in payments for international carries. Regards -- ______________________ Mwendwa Kivuva For Business Development Transworld Computer Channels Cel: 0722402248 twitter.com/lordmwesh transworldAfrica.com | Fluent in computing kenya.or.ke | The Kenya we know

Mich, I like ;-)  But as Francis says, plse put it in perspective by comparing with the previous years (or give us the url for the graphs we do the comparisons ourselves).  Also, throw in the ratio between Local vs International traffic over the years since 1G local traffic is good but compared to 20G International traffic (CCK May2011 report?) may imply we might still have some time to go. In layman terms this means that we are Net IMPORTERS of content and EXPORT very little content. Put differently very few chaps out there are interested in our content down here (coz it doesnt exist - even our very own trace route to nation.co.ke hosts abroad...) ...a good target would be to work towards 50:50 ratio of local to international traffic or 20G local and 20G international...all the said and done.  Keep it up KIXP. walu. --- On Sat, 7/16/11, Francis Hook <francis.hook@gmail.com> wrote: From: Francis Hook <francis.hook@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [kictanet] KIXP reaches 1Gbps of traffic To: jwalu@yahoo.com Cc: "KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions" <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Saturday, July 16, 2011, 9:36 AM Hi Michuki,Is it possible to know what growth this represents over the period of last 12-24 months.   Given its an indicator of greater consumption, it would be good to correlate this over a period of time to single out factors may have contributed to this (better capacity, more content, more users, etc) Rgds F On 15 July 2011 20:59, Michuki Mwangi <michuki.mwangi@gmail.com> wrote: Dear Listers, This afternoon the KIXP reached its highest peak of 1Gbps for local traffic exchanged. A sincere appreciation and congratulations to all those behind this achievement, Fiona, her team and the partners KDN, Google and others. Well done. Its indeed a significant achievement and the next ceiling is 10Gbps. Regards, Michuki. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/francis.hook%40gmail.co... The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications. -- Francis Hook +254 733 504561 -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/jwalu%40yahoo.com The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and development. KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.

Hi Walu, On 7/16/11 7:07 PM, McTim wrote:

But as Francis says, plse put it in perspective by comparing with the previous years (or give us the url for the graphs we do the comparisons ourselves).

I have some slides i can share, i would probably want to pull them together. However in general KIXP has been growing at an average of 100% every year for the past 7 years and higher (150 - 300%) in the last 3 years. Prior to Google Cache KIXP had an average of (95th percentile) of 120Mbps of local traffic.

Also, throw in the ratio between Local vs International traffic over the years since 1G local traffic is good but compared to 20G International traffic (CCK May2011 report?) may imply we might still have some time to go.

Well then your ratio is 20:1, no?

KIXP probably doesn't collect data on international traffic, as that doesn't go over their switch.

As McTim put it, its difficult to measure. Since the traffic is going through different carriers (Cable and satellite). Also its worth mentioning that what we quote at KIXP is actual traffic against what is purchased capacity. For instance a growing number ISPs at KIXP have 1Gbps circuits. We are measure the actual traffic passing and not the ISP Capacity to the facility.

In layman terms this means that we are Net IMPORTERS of content and EXPORT very little content.

As are most countries.

This is exacerbated by reimportation of content (content created here and hosted abroad).

Put differently very few chaps out there are interested in our content down here (coz it doesnt exist - even our very own trace route to nation.co.ke <http://nation.co.ke> hosts abroad...)

The hard realities that we face today are as follows; 1) We have almost no hosting facilities locally. 2) The hosting market in Europe, Asia and US is mature and very competitive 3) As an English speaking community - most of the content already exists in one way or another. Therefore the unique and binding language theory for growing local content such as what enabled Korea, Japan, China, France and Brazil grow their local content will be less successful here even with Swahili. But am glad to be proven wrong. 4) The media influence on what we consume on the Internet has left us more consumers than contributors on the Internet. As a result, unless by some ingenuity we are able to develop the next killer application (i fear that even if we do its going to be hosted abroad). For instance the last time there was an outage on MPESA communication that came from Safaricom indicated that their servers are not in Kenya. For the above reasons, a change in strategy is necessary if we are to access content at peering rates and not transit rates. IMHO i believe Africa has the largest unexplored eyeball network in the world. Fortunately this large eyeball network speaks the two main languages of the world (English and French) that makes up majority of the available Internet content. Therefore the only way we can change the position we are in is by aggregating our many eyeball networks (in significantly larger eyeball networks) in such a way that no content provider/Distributor will fail to recognize and find ways of tapping into it. The way to aggregate the eyeball networks is having as many of the connect to strategic Internet Exchange Points. Asia and Europe have strategically managed to do so and all content providers/Distributors have already built infrastructure in these regions in order to have a direct access to their target markets (eyeball networks). If we take a similar approach, and thus far its working (i.e with the likes of Google building infrastructure into the region as they have into Nigeria and South Africa). We can get the remaining ones to follow suit i.e Facebook, yahoo, amazon, akamai, limelight, Microsoft, etc. But this has to be a conscious choice for everyone. As this process is taking place, repatriate the relevant local content - Kenya-airways, nation, standard, open-gov, etc. Then maybe we can start looking at different challenges at that time such as net neutrality issues.

...a good target would be to work towards 50:50 ratio of local to international traffic or 20G local and 20G international...all the said and done.

Did you just pull these numbers out of your hat? Why would we want to keep int'l traffic at current levels?

Probably what McTim is trying to say is that if you manage to make a shift in what traffic is accessed through local peering (free locally) vs transit (paid and reachable via other networks), you will find that the percentage of peered traffic is likely to get to above 50%. For instance any ISP in Kenya peering at the London Internet Exchange Point today will peer (for free) at least 60% of their traffic and only look to buy transit for about 40% of the traffic. If we managed to get all the networks that are peering (that own the 60% we need) in Kenya, that means we would only require to find someone to carry the 40% to Europe. Of that 40% is traffic to other African countries (since most African ISPs dont peer in Europe either). So assuming that Intra Africa traffic is about 10% because of the intra trading block business communications,etc. Then essentially if we interconnect within the region we are looking for transit of less than 30%. This is what we should be aiming for. So for us at KIXP - Google is halfway in the bag not just yet. Until we have them peering fully in Kenya. We have afew more on target list. They are hard to sell to since they buy numbers just like most businesses :). So if you are able to assist, we would be happy to partner and strategize with you. HTH. Michuki.

Congratulations Mich and Tespok for this fete!