1. 1 Prepared by: Les Cottrell SLAC, Umar Kalim SEECS,NUST/SLAC International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy, 24 April 2009 www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/scs/net/talk09/ictp-apr09.ppt Internet Performance for Africa and the rest of the World

2. 2 Summary African Infrastructure Why is Internet Measurement Important? Methodology of measuring Internet performance Overall world Internet performance & where does Africa stand Africa directions –Wireless/fibre, Routing, Costs, Difficulties, Conclusions & further information

3. Africa is Huge India 10% area, but > population, hard to get fibre everywhere 3

4. …and diverse (e.g. languages) More than 1,000 indigenous African languages including several spoken by tens of millions such as Igbo, Swahili, Hausa, Amharic, and Yoruba;African languagesIgboSwahiliHausa AmharicYoruba Plus Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Spanish, Indian languages, othersArabicEnglish FrenchPortuguese AfrikaansSpanish Indian languages 4

5. 5 African World Status Internet city connections Fibres Light at night Capacity From Telegeography

6. World Views Cartogram perspective see www.geog.qmw.ac.uk/gbhgis/conference/ cartogram.html www.geog.qmw.ac.uk/gbhgis/conference/ cartogram.html 6 Population Internet Users 2002 Area Tertiary Education from http://www.worldmapper.org/

7. Possible Attractions Large Population (~1 Billion) Youthful population Saturation of developed markets makes emerging markets interesting to business (Vital Wave) Leapfrog technologies (cell phones, wireless …) Mature Emerging Strategic Emerging Niche Emerging Longterm

8. 8 Why Make Internet Measurements? In the Information Age Information Technology (IT) is the major productivity and development driver., particularly science & education Travel & the Internet have made a global viewpoint critical One Laptop Per Child (“$100” computer) –New thin client paradigm, servers do work, requires networking (Google: “Negroponte $100 computer”), driving Intel & AMD cheap net-books –Internet enabled cell phones (e.g. iPhone) –Enables “Internet Kiosk & Cafe” can make big difference Need to understand & set expectations of the Internet accessibility, performance, costs etc.

9. 9 Methodology Use PingER: –Arguably the world’s most extensive Active E2E Internet Monitoring project Partially funded by MoST Pakistan, US State Department –Last six years - a joint development effort of Stanford University (SLAC) & NUST (SEECS) –Many SEECS students cut their teeth on it, several research papers & studies Results ( Highly successful in quantifying E2E performance) –Identified & quantified rates of improvement for regions / countries, last miles, inefficient routing, congestion, fragility –How far behind, catching up, falling behind –Many presentations to funding agencies, politicians, NRENs, recommendations

10. 10 PingER Methodology extremely Simple Internet 10 ping request packets each 30 mins Remote Host (typically a server) Monitoring host > ping remhost Ping response packets Measure Round Trip Time & Loss Data Repository @ SLAC Once a Day Uses ubiquitous ping ICTP

11. 11 PingER Deployment PingER project originally (1995) for measuring network performance for US, Europe and Japanese HEP community - now mainly R&E sites Extended this century to measure Digital Divide: –Collaboration with ICTP Science Dissemination Unit http://sdu.ictp.it http://sdu.ictp.it –ICFA/SCIC: http://icfa-scic.web.cern.ch/ICFA-SCIC/ http://icfa-scic.web.cern.ch/ICFA-SCIC/ –Monitors (>40 in 23 countries – 3 Africa) –Beacons ~ 90 (all monitors monitor beacons) –Remote sites (>700) >165 countries (98% world’s population, >99% world’s connected population)

12. PingER Growth in Time 12 ICFA ICTP & NATO IHY/eGY NUST

13. 13 World Measurements: Min RTT from US Maps show increased coverage Min RTT indicates best possible, i.e. no queuing >400ms probably geo-stationary satellite Between developed regions min-RTT dominated by distance - Little improvement possible Only a few places still using satellite for international access, mainly Africa & Central Asia 2000 2008

14. Loss 14 With TCP (>80% Internet traffic) recovery from loss can take several seconds, such delays make interactive use annoying to impossible. For non TCP multi-media traffic loss causes poor voice/video (VoIP/H323) above 1.5%,loss > 0.5% unacceptable for IPTV http://www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wan-mon/tutorial.html#loss Africa by far worst region, 10-20 times worse than developed regions

15. 15 World Throughput Trends Behind Europe 5 Yrs: Russia, Latin America, Mid East 6 Yrs: SE Asia 9 Yrs: South Asia 12 Yrs: Cent. Asia 16 Yrs: Africa Central Asia, and Africa are in Danger of Falling Even Farther behind In 10 years at the current rate Africa will be 1000 times worse than Europe Derived throughput ~ 8 * 1460 /(RTT * sqrt(loss)) Mathis et. al 1993

16. 16 Similar Results from Europe (CERN) (so for rest use SLAC Results since more coverage) EU, US/CA, Oceania, E. Asia lead SE Europe, Russia catching up S. Asia. Mid East, C. Asia poor Africa poor and falling behind

17. 17 Some Other World Views Voice & video (de-jitter) Network & Host Fragility Data Transfer Capacity

18. ITCP Internet Weather for Africa www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/africa- weather08.movwww-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/africa- weather08.mov 18

19. Demo Shows population=bubble area, y=throughput, x=RTT as a function of time Note –Improved performance & increase of coverage with time –Africa clusters towards long RTT and poor throughput (bottom left) and generally far worse than rest of world –African varies by countries (cf Egypt & Ethiopia) –Big variations year to year Correlate with DOI index (opportunity, infrastructure, usage) by mobile telephony, Internet tariffs, #computers, fixed line phones, mobile subscribers, Internet users)/population http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/pinger-metrics-motion- chart.htmlhttp://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger/pinger-metrics-motion- chart.html 19

20. Google Motion Chart Applet 20

21. 21 Mediterranean. & Africa vs HDI There is a good correlation between the 2 measures N. Africa has 10 times poorer performance than Europe N. Africa several times better than say E. Africa E. Africa poor, limited by satellite access W. Africa big differences, some (Senegal) can afford SAT3 fibre others use satellite Great diversity between & within regions HDI related to GDP, life expectancy, tertiary education etc.

22. 22 African Situation Access to the internet is so desirable to students in Africa that they spend considerable time and money to get it. Many students surveyed, with no internet connection at their universities, resorted to private, fee-charging internet cafes to study and learn. www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Online.html www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Online.html Internet Café in Ghana School in a secondary town in an East Coast country with networked computer lab spends 2/3rds of its annual budget to pay for the dial-up connection. –Disconnects Heloise Emdon, Acacia Southern Africa 1 yr of Internet access > average annual income of most Africans, Survey by Paul Budde Communications Survey (IHY meeting Ethiopia in November ’07) of leading Universities in 17 countries (will repeat with more clarity): –Each had tens of 1000’s of students, 1000 or so staff –Best had 2 Mbits, worst dial up 56kbps –Often access restricted to faculty

23. Sub-Saharan broadband cost off-scale 23 www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2009/index.html Source ITU

24. 24 Opportunities: Routing Seen from TENET Cape Town ZA Only Botswana & Zimbabwe are direct Most go via Europe or USA Wastes costly international bandwidth Need IXPs in Africa

25. 25 IXPs a Major Issue for African Internet International bandwidth prices are biggest contributor to high costs African users effectively subsidise international transit providers! Fibre optic links are few and expensive  reliance on satellite connectivity High satellite latency  slow speed, high prices Growth of Internet businesses is inhibited In 2003 10 out of 53 countries had IXPs, now 16 More IXPs  lower latency, lower costs, more usage Both national and regional IXPs needed Also needed: regional carriers, more fibre optic infrastructure investment Need NRENs country ->region –Then international IXPs Internet A B IXP Américo Muchanga americo@uem.mz, americo@uem.mz 25 September 2005

26. Opportunities: Fibre, satellite, mobiles Satellite is extremely effective in reaching places where the volume of traffic would not justify a fibre connection. GEOS satellite $/Mbps 300-1000 x Fibre, severely bandwidth-constrained and high latency So fibre international and to major cities –Scramble to provide international fibre for World Cup 2010 –then wireless (cell phone, wimax, LEOS…) –cell phone growth leads Internet growth by 4.5 years 16 LEOS (reduce latency) - Sep 2008 Google signed up with Liberty Global and HSBC in a bid to launch 16 LEOS satellites, to bring high-speed internet access to Africa by end 2010 –ABUJA Africa's first communications satellite has suffered an energy failure just 18 months after its launch - Nov. 2008ABUJA 26

27. 27 African International Fibres 2010 Current: SAT-3-WASC run by a consortium of state monopolies that has opted for elite rather than mass market. Prices tend to align to satellite in the absence of competition! “Black” Fibres installed along roads, pylons etc. remain unused because of monopoly regulation!

28. 28 http://www.internetworldstats.com/ Africa Huge growth ~ 3x lower penetration than any other region huge potential market Many systemic factors: Electricity, import duties, skills, disease, protectionist policies, conflict, corruption.

29. PingER: African coverage Host monitored in 50 of 60 countries (98.7% pop) ~130 hosts monitored in Africa Cannot find hosts in Chad, Comoros, Eq. Guinea, Sao Tome, Somalia Yellow only 1 host (so could be anomalous, e.g. Libya) Need help for contacts: (cottrell@slac.stanford.edu) 29 Only 1 host Hosts monitored/beacons

30. 30 Conclusions: The bad Poor performance affects data transfer, multi-media, VoIP, IT development & country performance / development DD exists between regions & countries, rural vs cities, poor vs rich, old vs young… Decreasing use of satellites, expensive, but still needed for many remote countries in Africa and C. Asia Last mile problems, and network fragility Current providers (cable and satellite) have a lot to loose –Many of these have close links to regulators and governments (e.g. over 50% of ISPs in Africa are government controlled) Africa worst by all measures (throughput, loss, jitter, DOI, international bandwidth, users, costs …) and falling further behind.

31. Conclusions: There is Hope World cup: international fibre access + competition LEOS Leapfrog last mile fixed wire with wireless Cheaper end points: OLTP, net computer, smart-phones Banding together of universities => leverage influence & get deals => NRENs => IXPs Users –E.g. Ubuntunet, Bandwidth Initiative Standards: –Harmonization of regulations country to country –Cheaper cell phone, can’t afford multiple technologies & frequencies Regulatory regimes becoming: – more open/transparent, less resistant to change 31 “The way we develop here in Africa will be different from the way the big nations developed. They grew up with computers. We are growing up with mobile phones. - Fritz Ekwoge”

32. Conclusions: PingER Measures Internet performance –non subjective, –relatively easy/quick to measure (c.f. ITU etc methods) So monthly, daily updates –correlates strongly with economic/technical/development indices –Increase coverage of monitoring to understand Internet performance Gives baselines, trends, effect of improvements Relative comparisons countries, regions, sites Lot of granularity: –within countries, monthly, daily Reasonable coverage for Africa (48 of 53 countries) 32

33. 33 IHY Sites & PingER Google maps –Zoom, pan etc. IHY coordinates from Monique Petitdidier (CNRS) SIDs from Deborah Scherrer (Stanford) To come: Barbara Thompson (NASA) www.slac.stanford.edu/comp/net/wan-mon/viper/ihy_googlemap.htm

34. 8:30am 19 Dec PingER monitoring of events Effect of Mediterranean fibre cuts Dec 2008 confluence.slac.stanford.edu/dis play/IEPM/Effects+of+Mediterran ean+Fibre+Cuts+December+200 8confluence.slac.stanford.edu/dis play/IEPM/Effects+of+Mediterran ean+Fibre+Cuts+December+200 8 34 0:00am 22 Dec Kbits/s Contour map of performance Dec 2008 for hosts In countries affected by fibre cut RTT SLAC to Oman Seconds

35. 35 More Information Thanks: –Incentive: ICFA/SCIC, Monique Petitdidier, ICTP, ITU –Funding: DoE/SLAC/HEP, Pakistan HEC –Effort: SLAC, ICTP (Trieste), FNAL, Georgia Tech, administrators at over 40 monitoring sites ITU/WIS Report 2006 & 2007 ( or Google: “WSIS Report 2007”) –www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2007/report.htmlwww.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2007/report.html –www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2009/index.htmlwww.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/publications/idi/2009/index.html Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa –www.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Online.htmlwww.arp.harvard.edu/AfricaHigherEducation/Online.html PingER –www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger, sdu.ictp.it/pinger/africa.htmlwww-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger sdu.ictp.it/pinger/africa.html –www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/icfa/icfa-net-paper-jan09/www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/icfa/icfa-net-paper-jan09/ Global Information watch: www.giswatch.orgwww.giswatch.org Need network contacts in Africa: cottrell@slac.stanford.edu