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AfTerFibre – GitHub, KML, and finally a plan

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The idea for AfTerFibre is simple enough. Distribute the load of gathering information on terrestrial fibre optic cable projects in Africa by creating an online resource that anyone can contribute to. When I conceived of this project, I just assumed there would be an easy way to this. After all, we have Wikipedia, Ushahidi, Fusion Tables, and loads of rapidly growing Open Source GIS initiatives.

But none of them seemed to quite fit the model we were looking for. Lots of GIS tools allow you to add individual points, Ushahidi-style but I could discover none that facilitated the uploading of an entire map in vector format with associated metadata. Initially we hoped that Fusion Tables might serve this perhaps but in the end it seemed we were bending it in ways it was not meant to be bent.

More than that, I wanted AfTerFibre not to just be a map but an historical record of infrastructure development as well. I wanted people to be able to see the map evolve.

Rufus Pollock of the Open Knowledge Foundation has been a real help. He pointed me at the GeoJSON standard which seemed ideal for representing a combination of vector and meta information in a way that could be easily understood by other applications. He also helped explore the potential of storing the data in the CKAN TheDataHub which is evolving as a cloud service for Open Data. Rufus helped develop some code for rendering the AfTerFibre data stored in TheDataHub in Google Maps. This worked and was a great step in the right direction but I was still left with the problem of  how to easily integrate the KML files being traced in Google Earth with meta information about the cables.  This was a step I had to carry out manually prior to uploading data to TheDataHub.

While this was going on, I decided to start uploading KML files for the maps I had traced to GitHub to be able to organise and store the KML files in manner that allowed for their updating individually. GitHub is a popular cloud service for hosting software development projects.  Any serious software project uses some kind of revision control system to manage the evolution of software code in a sensible way.  GitHub was never designed for KML but GitHub can manage revisions for any data really and it has the virtue of being quite easy to use as revision control systems go as well as having some useful social features built-in.  This worked remarkably well. It is my first serious attempt to use GitHub and I really like it.  Have a look.

At this point I was still stuck though. Rufus had set me on the right path but has more than 100% of his time taken up with the Open Knowledge Foundation and I clearly needed help. Happily fate intervened at that point and I had a message from Greg Mahlknecht saying he had a little free time and was happy to help out. In case you don’t know Greg, among other things, he is he author of the excellent global undersea fibre optic cable map known as Greg’s Cable Map.

Greg took a look at GitHub repo and the GeoJSON standard and proposed a simple solution. Store the metadata in Description field of the cables vectors in KML using a simple “fieldname : data” format that separates the fieldname from the data with a colon with each new line being a new field. With the metadata stored in the KML file, it becomes possible to extract the data directly from the GitHub repository. And voila. Thanks to GitHub, we get a history of cable updates along with who updated the cable info as well as all the handy tools that come with GitHub, dynamic tarballs of the whole dataset, RSS feeds for update, fine-grained control for managing updates, etc.  In addition, it means that people need only one tool, Google Earth, to create a cable map.

It seems so simple in retrospect but so do all elegant solutions.

So what does this mean? It means that updating the AfTerFibre map is as simple as submitting a KML file to the GitHub repository. I’ll post instructions in the next week for exactly how to do that including how to trace maps, format the metadata, etc. I am very excited about this because it makes participation so much easier.

Oh, and before I forget. Here’s the map! It isn’t beautiful yet but it will be. Right now the beauty is all inside. Heartfelt thanks to Rufus and Greg for digging me out of the GIS hole I dug.  We’ll continue to update AfTerFibre data on the TheDataHub as well.

 

Monty Python's Mr. Creosote. Perhaps leave some for someone else.

How the ANC is Squandering South Africa’s Digital Future Give us a leader!

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Monty Python's Mr. Creosote. Perhaps leave some for someone else.The release last week of ResearchICTAfrica (RIA)’s report on mobile phone pricing in Africa has provoked a little controversy in South Africa. The facts are quite damning. South Africa has some of the highest mobile costs on the continent. This is odd given South Africa’s comparative wealth and infrastructural advantages. By rights South Africa ought to have the cheapest phone calls and the fastest bandwidth on the continent. We don’t. Why would that be? Well in South Africa we are very good at finger pointing. Industry points to government and the regulator. The regulator points to industry and government. And the government points at the regulator and industry. And so this merry-go-round has gone on since the turn of the century.

So whose fault is it? Where does the blame lie? Lloyd Gedye from the Mail & Guardian interprets the report to mean that ICASA has failed and indeed the reports clearly states that

“The regulation in March 2011 by ICASA of the termination price that operators charge each other to terminate calls on each other’s networks has not had the intended outcome of creating a fairer competitive environment and a reduction in prices for consumers”

But for me this is like blaming a man with a wooden sword for failing to conquer a lion. ICASA is terribly mismatched in terms of its ability to go head to head with the telecoms industry both in terms of independence and resources. So perhaps ICASA has failed but whose fault is that?

Predictably the RIA report provoked a storm of obfuscationese from industry. Vodacom spokesperson, Richard Boorman, says

“Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs) are not an industry-wide cost that the consumer bears — the net cost of MTRs to consumers is and always has been zero,” he said. “MTRs are paid by operators to each other to terminate calls on the other’s network.”

Err what? So it doesn’t matter what mobile operators pay each other, it is always the right price? Holy magical thinking Batman! They also argue that call quality is higher in South Africa and that South Africa’s geography is more expensive to service than countries like Kenya and Tanzania. Having travelled in Kenya and Tanzanian recently, I can say this does not bear out in my experience. And did I ask for higher call quality? Could I please have a cheaper, crappier call option? There is some truth to the argument about geography but not nearly enough truth to explain the call cost disparity revealed in the report. Really this is just the standard litany of excuses that the likes of Vodacom and MTN trot out every time more evidence is presented of market failure in South Africa.

So is industry to blame? Well, yes but it is like blaming the lion for eating the wildebeest.  They are accountable to their shareholders. They employ all the tricks available to them to maximise their advantage, except they don’t have teeth, they have lawyers .  Now when government was a major shareholder in Vodacom, this got to be pretty muddy ground indeed. Happily that is done with. You could wish for industry leaders with a little more vision who see both the social and economic benefits of driving down costs and increasing access but there we would need to blame the shareholders who opt for self-interest.

So, if it isn’t really ICASA’s or industry’s fault, where does the blame lie? The fault lies with government and in South Africa the government of the last eighteen years is the ANC. I hate saying negative things about the ANC. For such a long period in my life, the ANC has represented the spirit of justice, of resilience, of endurance in the face of overwhelming odds that it is hard to bring myself to criticse the ANC openly. But like William Shatner in a corset, sometimes you have to recognise that things have changed.

What have the ANC done wrong? It is quite simple. They have failed to take telecommunications seriously. They have consistently relegated communications as a junior ministry and appointed ministers for reasons other than their competence and vision. The result has been the unhappy, bitter, finger-pointing environment that we have today. And sure, I too am pointing the finger here squarely at the ANC. But the buck has to stop somewhere and I believe that we would be in a very different South Africa had someone with vision and leadership been given the helm of the Department of Communications some years ago.

And things are getting worse. Minister Dina Pule recently announced a full review of South Africa’s ICT policies kicking off with a two-day Colloquium which starts tomorrow in Midrand. On the surface that sounds pretty good and about time. Well, it would be if it had not been outsourced to Deloitte. Outsourcing to large consulting firms is basically an announcement saying I have no idea what to do and will need someone else to blame if things go wrong. Government and industry alike find it hard to resist the siren call of the big-name consulting firm. Pay me. I have the answer you need.

So all of the planning has been handled by Deloitte and some industry insiders. But perhaps that’s not so bad. The incumbents are forever making the point that they are the only one’s deserving of more spectrum because only they really have the capacity to roll out infrastructure nationally. There is a certain simple plausibility to this but really it is like saying money should only be given to the rich because only they know how to manage it properly.

More insight can be found in a new book by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson called Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty. The book is an ambitious, sweeping look at history providing a theory of why some countries have prospered and other haven’t. They divide countries into those with inclusive versus those extractive governments. There is a good review of the book in The Economist and a good interview with Daron Acemoglu on Econtalk. I’ve only just started reading it but one story that has stood out for me is how Venice went from hugely influential city-state to tourist backwater. It is summarised well here:

“Upward mobility drove the city-state’s wealth and power. Its innovative commenda, a partnership in which capital-poor sailors and rich Venetians shared the profits from voyages, allowed those of modest background to rise through the ranks. This fluidity threatened established wealth, however. From the late 13th century the ducal council began restricting political and economic rights, banning the commenda and nationalising trade. By 1500, with a stagnant economy and falling population, Venice’s descent from great power was well under way.”

When a wealthy elite stifle the rise of new players, bad things happen. That is a good description of where the telecommunications industry is in South Africa at the moment. We need to create opportunities for new blood to enter and rise in the telecoms sector. It will be good for everyone in the end. And that’s why the incumbents are NOT best placed to implement South Africa’s broadband future, at least not on their own.

So how can we make this happen? I believe it is simple. The ANC need to appoint new leadership in the Department of Communications and to elevate the ministry to frontline status. It probably needs to be a young minister who understands the potential of the sector and that the digital age is not just a twitter acount managed by a digital consultant.  Stick that in your Colloquium Agenda.

 

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Postscript for ICT4D funders:  If you want to make a difference in Africa, you should be funding RIAs’ work.  Seriously.

African Undersea Cables

African Undersea Cable Map Goes Non-Linear

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I try not to be shocked any more at new announcements of undersea cable projects that are destined for African shores.  But it’s no good.  I am gobstopped again with the announcement of the BRICs cable. I struggle now to find ways to represent all the impending capacity on a single map without it looking like a dog’s breakfast.   What I thought was a clever innovation, using the width of the cable as an indicator of design capacity, has turned out to be a nightmare as cables like the SAEx cable announced a design capacity of 12.8 terabits/s, 10 times that of the Seacom cable which launched in 2009.  Then things got worse with the WASACE cable announcing a planned design capacity of 40 terabits/s.  Trying to implement that in terms of varying width cables made it look like someone had taken big graffiti marker to the map.

It was clearly time to go non-linear.  Now the width of the cables still scale with capacity but they do so logarithmically.  Something else I would never have guessed I would need to do.  The new version of the map now has both WASACE and BRICS.  There is also the new cable announced by Telebras and Angola Cables but I am holding off adding that one until they have a name for the cable or a website or a map.  Click here to view the latest version.

 

 

Race for the South Atlantic - Which cable will be first to connect Africa with Brazil?

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The amount of fibre being deployed around Africa is bananas.One of the less professional sounding quotes from me in the media in the last few months is the one to the right where I introduce the technical terms “bananas” into the undersea cable capacity discussions. For the record a banana is about 10 terabits/s. No, not really… One might be forgiven for thinking that the end of the African undersea cables had come for the time being, that no one in their right mind would announce more undersea cables. I have thought this a number of times in the last couple of years. You would be forgiven but you would be wrong.

The next frontier apparently in the African undersea cables stakes is the race to connect Africa with Brazil.  First out of the blocks in the race was the South Atlantic Express (SAEx) cable which proposes to join Melkbosstrand, South Africa to Fortaleza, Brazil.  The cable is a partnership between eFive Telecoms in South Africa and Globenet in Brazil.  Globenet is the undersea cable subsidiary of Oi, the largest telecom company in Brazil.  Only today, eFive CEO, Rosalind Thomas, announced that eFive was on track and would be live within two years.  One thing that seems a little fuzzy about SAEx is whether the spur to Luanda is part of Phase One of the cable or just a spur.  In the early days of this initiative, eFive were negotiating with the Angolan government but that seems to have gone by the board.  You’ll see why later.

The next cable to be announced was the WASACE cable.  WASACE is a massive project to connect the Americas with Africa and Europe.  The capacity they are proposing is vast as well.  This cable also proposed to connect Melkbosstrand with Fortaleza but via Luanda and Lagos.  So while SAEx takes a more direct and less expensive route directly across the South Atlantic, WASACE follows the route that WACS and ACE plan to take up the West Coast.

While we’re on the subject of the ACE cable, ACE’s partner Baharicom has been conspicuous by their silence in the last year.  Baharicom are responsible for the ACE landings south of Sao Tome.  There has been no news of landings and no announcement of a South African landing partner.  They don’t even have a website.  My guess is that the southern leg of ACE either needs a new partner or is unlikely to materialise.  That’s good news for WASACE and even possibly for MainOne and Seacom who at various times have talked about a cable to connect their cables.

Finally, as if that wasn’t already all you needed for a completely undersea cable soap opera, there was news from Telebras.  Telebras was the Brazilian state-owned monopoly telco that was broken up in 1998.  It has recently been resuscitated by the Brazilian government as the chief implementer of their National Broadband Plan.  In December 2011, they announced the signing of an agreement with Angola Cables, a joint venture between the Angolan government through Angola Telecoms and a number of private operators.  Interesting here that the partners at either end of the cable are different from the SAEx cable.

So there you have it.  Three cable initiatives apparently.  Who will be first?

Already the sense of real demand for even one Brazil-Africa undersea cable seems speculative.  Three seems completely out-of-order.  I can seen the demand from the Brazilian perspective wanting an alternative global route with virtually all of their bandwidth to Europe being forced to go through the United States.  For Africa the case is less clear.   It seems extremely unlikely that all three initiatives will survive.  Perhaps Telebras will get gazumped by the private sector the same way Infraco did here in South Africa.  Perhaps one or more of them will join forces.  Tune in next time fellow cable watchers.

 

A Gentle Plea to Telkom’s CEO

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We recently sent a request to Telkom to send us a map of their terrestrial fibre network in South Africa.  This request was in the context of the AfTerFibre Project, which is attempting to crowdsource a comprehensive map of terrestrial fibre optic cables in Africa.  After some informal back and forth with Telkom staff it seemed that the best way to do this was to submit a PAIA request.  For non-South Africans reading this, PAIA is the Promotion of Access to Information Actwhich was created to:

give effect to the constitutional right of access to any information held by the State and any information that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise or protection of any rights; and to provide for matters connected therewith.

You can view the whole act on the website of the Department of International Affairs and Cooperation.  With Telkom being partly owned by the South African government, this seemed like a likely course of action.  Duly submitted, the response came back several weeks later in which our request was denied on every count.  Telkom’s Deputy Information Officer replied that:

In terms of Section 68, I decline to grant access to the records since they contain financial, commercial, scientific, and/or technical information, other than trade secrets, the disclosure of which is likely to cause harm to the commercial or financial interests of Telkom, and moreover contain information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to put Telkom at a disadvantage in contractual or other negotiations and/or prejudice Telkom in a commercial competition.

Even though we are invited to apply to court if we are “aggrieved by this decision” the terms of the refusal are so vague that we are unlikely to succeed via this route.  In the job application world, this would be called a PFO letter.

Just to be clear, we asked for a map of Telkom’s existing terrestrial fibre network, not even their plans for the future although that would be even better.  This is the kind of information that companies like Dark Fibre Africa and Liquid Telecom post freely on their websites.  In fact there are lots of African telecom companies that publicly post this information.  Evidently they think it is a good idea to communicate the reach of their networks.

But you know, publishing this information is not just a good idea for Telkom.  This is a good idea for South Africa.  If I have learned one thing from publishing a map of African Undersea Cables over the last 4 years, it is that it is possible to tell a different story about Africa, a connected 21st century Africa.  But right now that map still makes it look like all those cables stop at the beach.  There is an opportunity with this terrestrial fibre map for African countries to show off a little, to demonstrate that they are the best connected country on the continent, that they are THE destination when it comes to companies thinking about setting up African points of presence.

Surely, that is what the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of ICTs in Kenya must have been thinking when he replied to our request for information with a directive to his staff to gather and provide information on ALL terrestrial fibre optic cable projects in Kenya for use in the AfTerFibre map.

So this is where you come in Ms. Moholi.  As the comparatively new CEO of Telkom, this would be an easy way to demonstrate the new, more open face of Telkom by sharing that information and, in doing so, telling the world about Telkom, setting an example for other incumbents, and in general trumpeting South Africa’s extensive information infrastructure to the world.  What do you say?  There is a great South African story to tell here.