A recent news report once again laments that internet access is only available to 3.3% of the countries population. An insightful comment on Slashdot on why internet access is so restricted in developing countries:
It’s inadequate infrastructure as a result of the political climate. At every level.
The single largest impediment to mass consumer broadband in the West is irresponsible corporate monopolies or borg-like incumbent telecoms making life hell for consumers.
In developing nations, it is often more a case of the aforementioned telecoms making life hell for entire nations e.g. if you are a landlocked African country you have no direct access to undersea cable, so even your national incumbent telecom is screwed. And the hell of it is that various borgcoms owns so much of said undersea cable (and especially the access rights to the landing stations) that even if you are a country with access to the cable, you are still only slightly less screwed. This is why in most places in sub-Saharan Africa, it is still cheaper to send data 72000km through space via a low-bandwidth geostationary satellite link than use the optical undersea cable: there is global competition in the sat bandwidth market.
Even in the case of carrier-carrier interconnects (the “inter” part of the internet), sustained scalability relies upon the mutual goodwill of carriers to upgrade their common interconnects. If one feels the other is taking advantage of the situation, then it’s no soup for the other guy. This is only fair in business of course, but it leads to congestion which impacts performance. Video hosting has recently exacerbated this issue significantly.
At least Pakistan is a bit ahead of Sub-Saharan Africa in the respect that satellite bandwidth is now more expensive than undersea optical fibre. The interconnect problem remains though, and in many cases local bandwidth from the Pakistani borgcom (PTCL) is more expensive than international satellite bandwidth.
Times are a changing though. The urban centers of Pakistan are soon to be awash in Wimax and wifi signals from a number of companies, so internet availability will suddenly multiply from 3.3% to 33% and more. Karachi is already awash with Wimax signals, and while no one can access it, at least we can “feel” the radio signals permeate through the ether.
There is question asked on Slashdot all the time, and here in Pakistan a number of companies are staring it in the face:
1. Build it! There are multiple wimax networks up and running or being implemented
2. ?????
3. Profit! Mucho Profit!!!
The second stage is what has stumped them completely. They have to be given credit for completing step 1, but like the kid stepping into the pool for the first time, they’re standing there on the edge, barely dipping their toes into the waters. Given that the investors are Arabs, they’d rather not run it at all if there isn’t Mucho Profits in the running.
Edit: An earlier report indicated a larger figure for internet connectivity.
There is nothing happening in Pakistan right now to work towards allow the now-quite-sizable diverse networks (PIE, TW and Independent bandwidths on SMW4) to clear their traffic locally. This is going to,for the first time, allow the true concept of local and transit bandwidth. In their quest for higher profits in the shorter time range, each of the major player has either resisted this basic BCP (best current practice) or have shown ignorance to this idea which is central to the development of any Internetwork.
Unless this local Interconnect happens in a neutral environment open for all to access, the entire Pakistani nation will be paying thru their nose for what I prefer to call the ‘imported Internet’.
The regulator, the industry and the technocrats all are equally responsible for this gross collective negligence.
Without B/W at less price forget the profits rather trying to for survival will be the focus. From the last 1 -2 years the buzz of Wimax is flying and getting away nonthing is cooked by any operator yet and just Marketing Gimmicks.. I wonder how Triple Play via Wimax will come as the more users in a targeted signal area enters the lesser the B/W and speed. Plus the big question what will be the price of the WIMAX services and what would be the quality of the Video services? (Imagine getting a video at 512K or 768K which Wimax is claiming to meet the normal cable or fiber TV.)
I don’t think Wimax can support triple play… even on a 1mbps wimax connection it barely manages to stream youtube, let only multiple tv channels.
3.2 people in Pakistan uses the 56k dial-up con.
The future of mobile broadband has arrived — in Korea
On the theme of internet access, Korea’s WiMax-like system provides faster, cheaper wireless broadband
Article reads as follows, “The next time you’re on the road and either can’t find a Wi-Fi hot spot or it seems to take forever to download an important file via 3G, imagine you’re in Seoul, South Korea. That’s because Seoul’s wireless WiBro network is nirvana for traveling professionals.
WiBro is a branded version of the same 802.16e-2005 WiMax standard that is coming to the U.S. In Korea, it delivers data three times faster than 3G networks, with typical download speeds as high as 6Mbit/sec.” – article continues at this link – http://broadbandmobile.blogspot.com/2008/04/future-of-mobile-broadband-has-arrived.html