Transit Tactic 8 - Buy into Cheap Transit Internet Region

Excerpts from The Internet Peering Playbook: Connecting to the Core of the Internet

Some Internet Transit markets are expensive. For example, in 2010 the price of Internet Transit in South Africa and Kenya was close to $400/Mbps, when Internet Transit could be purchased in London for $2–$4/Mbps. The question is, can you save enough money to cover the cost of building into London from these places?

This dynamic is generalized in Figure 3-8.

Figure 3-8. Tactic 8 - Buy Internet Transit in a better Internet region.

For an emerging set of ISPs from the newer ecosystems in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, the answer is "Yes!", especially when they have the goal to reduce the dependency on the transit providers in their home Internet region.

A company called SEACOM, for example, has been lighting transoceanic fiber into each country around the perimeter of Africa. This fiber replaces the high cost and complexity of acquiring cross-border circuits between neighboring countries, and also heads up to Europe. The reason I mention this reality is that this oceanic fiber deployment enables this play for many ISPs in Africa.

One European IXP said that this is a popular for ISPs coming to Western Europe from Eastern Europe or the Middle East. Cheap transit ($5–$10/Mbps) is a powerful lure for those who are paying $400/Mbps.