connectivity outside the US

Sun Jun 1 00:47:06 UTC 1997

Hello Jesse,

> Undersea capacity is expensive for 3 reasons:
>    1) It's under the ocean
>    2) It's under the ocean
>    3) It's under the ocean

Actually, based on first hand experience, the cost of installing a oceanic 
cable is _not_ the driving factor that makes oceanic bandwidth so 
expensive. The key factors involve the relationship between the partners of 
any one of the cable consortiums. Each of the partners are telcos. Telcos 
who compete with each other in the region do not have each other's interest 
at heart. Hence, when they set the prices for the cable capacity, the 
prices get jacked up.

When ever one telco mis-forecasts and runs out of capacity on a cable, the 
other "partners" jack up their prices even further and sell it to the 
unfortunate "partner" who ran out of capacity. These pricing games between 
the telcos over oceanic bandwidth is one of the key factors for the high 
cost end customers experience.

The problem with all of this is there is little information available that 
explains how oceanic bandwidth politics. This is why we've got a couple of 
blocked out sessions during APRICOT that covers oceanic and space segment 
(satellite) technology and politics.

IMHO - Education is the best weapon to lowering the cost of oceanic 
bandwidth.

Barry

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Barry Raveendran Greene             |       ||        ||        |
Senior Consultant                   |       ||        ||        |
Consulting Engineering              |      ||||      ||||       |
tel: +65 738-5535 ext 235           |  ..:||||||:..:||||||:..   |
e-mail: bgreene at cisco.com           |  c i s c o S y s t e m s  |