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This is tremendous news, I've been waiting for this kind of investment in Africa from big tech for years. I remember talking to an engineer from AWS that helps

by nujabe 6y ago

This is tremendous news, I've been waiting for this kind of investment in Africa from big tech for years. I remember talking to an engineer from AWS that helps builds their data centers about the challenges of building data centers in Africa and why none of the big tech companies have barely made any investments inside the continent outside of SA. He mentioned that a much bigger problem than the lack of energy infrastructure that everyone assumes is the biggest hurdle is the lack of connectivity, both to Africa and between countries. I hope this project paves the way for next phase which is interconnectivity between countries, which could finally lead to the digital economic revolution really take place in the continent. You can't have a 'digital economy' with no data centers.

kitteh 6y ago
There are several challenges with building a cloud type service in such locations. Connecting it to the rest of the world is one (backbone links, etc.). The other is a very local problem: incumbent telcos who generally have the support of the government. These entities know you are playing in their territory and they will make you pay more when you're in their backyard. They'll be happy to peer with you out of their market, but they want you to pay up locally. It helps when there is competition for broadband and enterprise connectivity and those players work well, but it's the incumbents who want to get their beaks wet that result in having to pass a high cost to customers. This is super common in South America, Middle East and Asia. South Africa is a bit better now but before it used to be worse. Also this can extend to getting local/metro fiber if you want to launch multiple datacenters. Several countries won't even permit you to contract out building dark fiber in the metropolitan environment - they'll force you to buy much more expensive lit/wavelength transport so that you have to pay them to scale up at every 10G or 100G increment.
estsauver 6y ago
It's an incredibly large problem. From NBO, pings to any AWS DC were about 200ms as of 2017. I think Azure and GCP were also worse at the time. They now have a pop in Nairobi so if you're using accelerator it might be a lot better now, but still a huge challenge. There's also in part a trust issue. So many suppliers are unreliable, the biggest firms end up doing a ton in house.

by nujabe 6y ago

kitteh 6y ago

There are several challenges with building a cloud type service in such locations. Connecting it to the rest of the world is one (backbone links, etc.). The other is a very local problem: incumbent telcos who generally have the support of the government. These entities know you are playing in their territory and they will make you pay more when you're in their backyard. They'll be happy to peer with you out of their market, but they want you to pay up locally. It helps when there is competition for broadband and enterprise connectivity and those players work well, but it's the incumbents who want to get their beaks wet that result in having to pass a high cost to customers. This is super common in South America, Middle East and Asia. South Africa is a bit better now but before it used to be worse. Also this can extend to getting local/metro fiber if you want to launch multiple datacenters. Several countries won't even permit you to contract out building dark fiber in the metropolitan environment - they'll force you to buy much more expensive lit/wavelength transport so that you have to pay them to scale up at every 10G or 100G increment.

estsauver 6y ago

It's an incredibly large problem. From NBO, pings to any AWS DC were about 200ms as of 2017. I think Azure and GCP were also worse at the time. They now have a pop in Nairobi so if you're using accelerator it might be a lot better now, but still a huge challenge. There's also in part a trust issue. So many suppliers are unreliable, the biggest firms end up doing a ton in house.