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Voice Routes 1997 | Voice Routes 2007 | World Cables 2007 | Africa Cables 2006-2008 Plans | (c) manypossibilities.net - current |
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Satellite vs Fibre
Satellite is extremely effective in reaching places where the volume of traffic would not justify a fibre connection. Satellite providers are reluctant to talk about prices (except directly with their customers) because it is often difficult to explain to new customers that the lowest prices are only available to large customers with long contracts. However, if pressed satellite operators will say that below US$1800-2000 per mbps per month is not likely to be commercially feasible for them. (See Fibre for Africa).
Satellite networks are often severely bandwidth-constrained and possess high latency. Links may be as narrow as 64K and possess latencies of 250, 500, 750 milliseconds or more. This combination of conditions often leads to congested satellite connections and performance so poor that applications frequently time out. One can attempt to address the delays by improving TCP by increasing buffer sizes to acocmodate the long delays), modifying its congestion algorithm. One can also compress data or use
Regional Comparisons
Inter Regional Traffic | Price Variation | Subscribers | Growth by Region | Utilization of Available Bandwidth |
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Trends
World Regions |
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Routing to and within Sub-Saharan Africa
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MinRTT, AvgRTT, Packet Loss, | Derived Throughput (Kbps) |
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The statement can be downloaded at http://www.euroafrica-ict.org/downloads/EU-AU_Joint_Statement_Final_EN_EU.pdf.
Fibre project finished in Botswana
30/10/2008 The multi-million Pula Trans-Kalahari fibre-optic project was recently completed in Botswana. Covering approximately 2000km, the project is expected to act as a catalyst to the growing ICT industry in the country.
Africa's first communications satellite fails (Science and Development Network (November 17, 2008)
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