African Optical Backbone "Ring of Fire"

evilandi wrote in to send us a nifty bit from BBC Sci/Tech about Africa's Ring of Fire. Essentially its a fiber cable that will circle the continent and provide 40gbs net access all around. The cable will be laid by robotic subs and the article says it will be self healing. All this for a mere $1.2 Billion.

Comments

Link to Africa One, the company running the show

[evilandi]

Africa One are the company running the show. Their site has some reasonably detailed technical and geographical info, but is a bit short on where exactly they are going to get US$1.2bn from.

I think it's a great idea but I have a couple of worries:

• Doesn't Africa have more urgent things to spend the money on? And will the money be lost through backhanders or government mis-spending anyway?
• I really can't believe that an undersea cable is the most cost effective, neither in the short nor long term. And won't inland countries need a connection too? A network of cross-country cable or microwave links would surely be a better plan (feel free to shoot me down here on technical or geographical grounds!)

Having said that, the project could revolutionise Africa in a million and one positive ways.

--

It's a good thing

[WillWare]

A lot of posts are arguing that the Ring of Fire is a bad idea. I think it's a good idea, so here are some counterarguments.

• Africa is technologically backward, and doesn't deserve the technology. We should put it somewhere more progressive, where it will be appreciated, and contribute to progress. But the more developed countries have plenty of bandwidth, and will get more as time passes. The details of financing weren't clear, but there wasn't any clear evidence that this was being done at the expense of progress in the developed countries. Even if it is, on a global scale, this really isn't that much money.
• African countries have corrupt governments, which will skim the money, and the network might never even go on-line. Yes, that's a realistic danger. That risk is assumed by whoever is financing the network, and hopefully they've insured themselves against that risk.
• The problems of hunger and poverty are much more important than giving Africans the opportunity to web-surf. The money should go to organizations like CARE, UNICEF, or the Red Cross. These organizations have a perfectly appropriate short-term role. But Africa can't depend on them forever. In order to thrive, Africa needs a self-sustaining economy. which will depend on the flow of information so that buyers and sellers can find each other (advertising). The free flow of information can also help to expose abuses of human rights. In 1989, the Chinese students' movement depended heavily on fax machines to pass information around.

One thing that concerns me a little is this. On the map in the article, I notice that a lot of the network taps are in one region, around Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon. Here is a map of Africa. These are already some of the wealthier, freer countries. It would be nice if there were more taps in places like Somalia and Ethiopia. Still, it's a lot better than nothing.

Self healing

[Quarnage]

When I was working with broadband fiber self-healing meant the ability to dynamically reroute around a break...almost a necessity if you're going to lay it on the bottom of the ocean. If it meant that the fiber actually spliced itself back together, then that would really be something else.

African FAQ

[rueba]

I have lived in Africa for about 17 years and while this does not make me an expert, I humbly offer my opinions on this issue.

Q: Is it true that Africa has no need for such technology and no computers to take advantage of it?
A: Compared to the US, there are very few computers and little infrastructure. However, most large commercial organisations, universities, NGOs etc in urban areas have lots of computers (mostly for word processing and stuff). The rate of penetration has been increasing rapidly in the last couple of years, and the trend is definately going to continue.

A major obstacle has been lack of infrastructure
esp. bandwidth. This project seems likely to help in that regard so it WILL have an impact on the ordinary citizens because productivity of the economy is likely to go up, leading to a higher GDP.



Q: Are all African countries embroiled in violent civil war and mired in corruption?
A: As far as corruption, to my knowledge this is a problem in much of Africa. As to the violent civil war part this is simply not true. Armed conflict is taking place in much of Africa, but not everywhere. Recent conflicts have focused around Central Africa in Angola and Congo and also in Ethiopia, Liberia, Algeria, Uganda and Sudan. Note that there are more than 50 countries in Africa, and I'd say that the vast majority of these are stable (from a military perspective). Of course you have political turmoil but thats another issue.

In the west we only hear about Africa when conflict occurs, but hey what's so exciting about people living together peacefully year after year?

Just my 0.02$

This is what africa needs

[anticypher]

The plans for this cable have been around for a few years, I wonder if they are hitting the public relations circuit to build up some investor confidence.

If you look at the website (which hasn't been updated in more than 2 years), they were hoping to be mostly done by now. Why has the BBC suddenly picked up on this project?

on a slightly different subject......

I can't believe some of the shameful comments by /.ers about spending the money on other projects before spending on technology. What africa needs is a better telecoms infrastructure, to help developing nations leapfrog from a mostly 19th century poverty to a 21st century stable economy.

This cable is not going to bring 2Gbit/sec web browsing to every hut on the continent. It is going to carry mostly voice circuits, with the intention of bringing the cost of voice calls WAY, WAY down. It will also carry some internet traffic, which will bring cheaper bandwidth and hopefully spawn a bunch of small ISPs in each country. It is an evolution of telecoms in the area, not a renaissance.

The idea that everyone on the continent lives in huts is ridiculous, there is a large middle-class population in every one of the politically stable countries, and oil wealth does get distributed with some glitches. I also take offense that all the problems of the continent have to be fixed before they get internet access. The internet and all the related technologies are possibly the best hopes for getting education into an educationally starved area. Shame on the hypocrites who drool over the latest adsl/cable offerings in their own neighborhoods, but would complain when others have a chance to get the same thing.

The cable is being laid undersea for two reasons, cost and security. The cheapest place to lay a cable is in the seabed, because you don't have to negotiate with hundreds of mostly corrupt entities for right-of-way passage for the cable. And since most of it is hidden under the seabed, disgruntled terrorist factions cannot attack it easily. In a politically unstable climate like some parts of central and eastern africa, this is the only way to get reliable telecoms into the area. There are already dozens of cables around the african coast, some are coax, but this one will have the capacity of all the others together.

The article in the DM&G refers to a different project, from asia to the US via SA and west africa. There was an article in the SA Star a few months ago about this cable as well.

the AC

Re:This is what africa needs

[anticypher]

To start with

>I see your email address is at *.uk.
>One of the main self-justifications
>for British imperialism

Actually, I'm Irish, so if you want comments on british imperialism, that's an entirely different highly flamable topic. But not a /. topic, I don't think /. has the storage space if I were to rant on :-)

>Sorry, but when you say "education,"
>to me it sounds a lot like "western culture."

I don't agree. I think the africans are quite capable of using the technology for their own ends, and education is one of the highest priorities around.

There is also a great desire among the already educated population to end the isolation of africa as a "savage continent". Western culture is not the only one on this planet, india and the middle east are also big influences on africa as well. This is where the internet shines, it eliminates the physical separation, leaving only cultural and educational separation to overcome.


>"perhaps distributing vitamins with folate to
>pregnant African women would be a better way of >spending the money."

Yes, in the short term it would be a better way of spending the money, but in the long term the women would still not be better off. Money needs to be distributed to a wide variety of programs to improve the conditions of humans, in africa and everywhere else on this planet. There is no one simple cause to make miracles, there are thousands of them which make improvements. And this cable is just one of the improvements which will help people all across africa, mostly indirectly.

I was reacting to the kneejerk reactions of "pearls to pigs" and "racist slashdot morons", who don't understand that all of africa is not jungle huts and savages and famines, but is a collection of 50 nations with a wide variety of economic conditions.

I am heartened to see many other slashdotters reacting to the morons in the same way, with careful posts full of information and understanding.

the AC