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South Africa is pretty much the only country where this was ever going to be possible. Perhaps Rwanda as well. Uninterrupted power is a major challenge here o
by skc 9y ago
South Africa is pretty much the only country where this was ever going to be possible.
Perhaps Rwanda as well.
Uninterrupted power is a major challenge here on the continent.
- pizzetta 9y agoMaybe Ghana as well or even Egypt.
- Analemma_ 9y agoI think the parent is too pessimistic. You are right, and Nigeria and Kenya would be acceptable choices too.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- yread 9y agoNamibia is supposedly good as well https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/IC.ELC.OUTG/rankings https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/IC.ELC.OUTG/rank...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vezycash 9y ago>Uninterrupted power is a major challenge here on the continent. Power is no biggie - network providers have learned to live on power generators. The main issue is that Cable, Fiber penetration is very low.
- phamilton 9y ago> Power is no biggie - network providers have learned to live on power generators. Equinix datacenters in SV are actually cheaper to run on a generator, but it's not sustainable and against regulations (except obviously in a power outage).
- deno 9y agoWhy is it not sustainable?
- mschuster91 9y ago> Why is it not sustainable? Because oil prices won't stay that low forever, in fact Saudi-Arabia and other OPEC members lowered the production quotas to get higher oil prices. The budgets of many countries with natural resources expect a certain price floor for oil - this especially hits Saudi-Arabia as they don't have much economy except oil and a tiny bit of Mecca tourism, but also Russia which has been hit hard by the drop in oil price and which doesn't have any kind of industry that's comparable to oil in terms of exports.
- deno 9y agoFair enough, I thought it had something to do with the portable aspects of the generator in particular. I am of the opinion that oil should really not be wasted for things that don’t require very high energy density, unlike transportation etc. But setting up a coal plant seems like a project of entirely different magnitude.
- vezycash 9y agoThe margin in the telecom business is crazy high. As far as I know, no network in West Africa provides unlimited phone calls. - mostly prepaid and per second billing. In other words, input (diesel in this case) is directly related to output (profit.)
- John23832 9y agoKenya
- alnitak 9y agoOut of all the African countries, why Rwanda?
- camperman 9y agoIt's criss-crossed with fiber, the ICT policy is very open and the leadership friendly. Also it's a small country.
- Maarten88 9y agoAnd landlocked, no natural resources, just a lot of people, so they need to export something to get foreign currency. IT is ideal so they are educating for that. Also safe and not corrupt. Can't bribe yourself out of a speeding ticket there...
- mrweasel 9y agoI think you could do Morocco as well, but isn't uninterrupted power also a major issue in South Africa. You only have Eskom and they don't seem to be that well run or have enough well maintained power plants.
- greenhatman 9y agoHaving data centers in Morocco probably doesn't give that much of an advantage, seeing as it's so close to Europe.
- douche 9y agoIf you're going to build a huge data center, how much harder is it to throw in a little natural gas or oil power plant on the edge of the campus?
- Lordarminius 9y agoThat may be the solution they end up implementing.