ihy ethiopia nov07

Internet View of the Digital Divide, especially for Sub-Saharan Africa: 

Internet View of the Digital Divide, especially for Sub-Saharan Africa Prepared by: Les CottrellSLAC, Shahryar KhanNIIT/SLAC, Jared GreenoSLAC 2nd IHY-Africa Workshop 11-16 November 2007, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia www.slac.stanford.edu/grp/scs/net/talk07/ihy-ethiopia-nov07.ppt

Summary: 

Summary Why do we Measure? Methodology of measuring Internet performance Overall Internet performance of the world today Africa Performance, Routing, Difficulties IHY & PingER Examples of Impacts of poor performance Conclusions & further information

Why?: 

Why? In the Information Age Information Technology (IT) is the major productivity and development driver. 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”) Enables “Internet Kiosk” can make big difference So we need to understand and set expectations on the accessibility, performance, costs etc. of the Internet

Methodology: 

Methodology Use PingER: Arguably the world’s most extensive Active E2E Internet Monitoring project

PingER Methodology: 

PingER Methodology 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

PingER Deployment: 

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 ICFA/SCIC: http://icfa-scic.web.cern.ch/ICFA-SCIC/ Monitor (40 in 14 countries) Beacons ~ 90 Remote sites (~700) >150 countries (99% world’s connected population) 40 in Africa

World Status: 

World Status

World Measurements: Min RTT from US: 

World Measurements: Min RTT from US Maps show increased coverage Min RTT indicates best possible, i.e. no queuing >600ms 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 2006 2007

Other World Views: 

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

Thru vs Int. BW: 

Thru vs Int. BW Hard to get to countries (E. Africa, C Asia) Last mile not good (China) ’07 vs ’05 (Aus & NZ) Emphasize Internet deploy (Estonia) Host choice (Congo, Libya) Derived thru ~ 8 * 1460 /(RTT * sqrt(loss)) Mathis et. al Good Correlation

Last Decade Trends: 

Last Decade Trends

Trends:Losses: 

Trends:Losses N. America, Europe, E. Asia, Oceania < 0.1% Underdeveloped 0.3- 2% loss, Africa worst. Mainly distance independent Big impact on performance, time outs etc. Losses > 2.5 % have big impact on interactivity, VoIP etc.

Jitter: 

~ Distance independent Calculated as Inter Packet Delay Variation (IPDV) IPDV = Dri = Ri – Ri-1 Measures congestion Little impact on web, email Decides length of VoIP codec buffers, impacts streaming Impacts (with RTT and loss) the quality of VoIP Trendlines for IPDV from SLAC to World Regions N. America E. Asia Europe Australasia S. Asia Africa Russia L. America SE Asia C Asia M East Usual division into Developed vs Developing Jitter

World throughput: 

World throughput Behind Europe 6 Yrs: Russia, Latin America 7 Yrs: Mid-East, SE Asia 10 Yrs: South Asia 11 Yrs: Cent. Asia 12 Yrs: Africa South Asia, Central Asia, and Africa are in Danger of Falling Even Farther Behind Derived throughput ~ 8 * 1460 /(RTT * sqrt(loss)) Mathis et. al

Development Classification: 

Development Classification Many indices from ITU, UNDP, CIA, World Bank try to classify countries by their development Difficult: what can be measured, how useful is it, how well defined, how changes with time, does it change country to country, cost of measuring, takes time to gather & often out of date, subjective Typically use GDP, life expectancy, literacy, education, phone lines, Internet penetration etc. E.g. HDI, DOI, DAI, NRI, TAI, OI .. In general agree with one another (R2~0.8) Given importance of Internet in enabling development in the Information age some metrics we can measure: International bandwidth Number of hosts, ASNs PingER Internet performance See if agree with development indices. If not may point to bad PingER data or illuminate reasons for differences If agree quicker, cheaper to get, continuous, not as subjective

Mediterranean. & Africa vs HDI: 

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.

Digital Opportunity Index (ITU 2006): 

Digital Opportunity Index (ITU 2006) 180 countries, recent (data 2005, announce 2006), full coverage 2004-2005, 40 leaders have 2001-2005 11 indicators: (Coverage by mobile telephony, Internet tariffs, #computers, fixed line phones, mobile subscribers, Internet users)/population Working with ITU to see if PingER can help. Add countries 130>150 Increase coverage

Correlation Loss vs DOI: 

Correlation Loss vs DOI Good correlation, Africa worst off

African Situation: 

African Situation

Africa: 

http://www.internetworldstats.com/ Huge growth ~ 3x lower penetration than any other region huge potential market Many systemic factors: Electricity, import duties, skills, disease, protectionist policies, corruption. 915M people 14% world population, 3.6% of world internet users, mainly in cities Africa

Satellites vs Terrestrial: 

Satellites vs Terrestrial Terrestrial links via SAT3 & SEAMEW (Mediterranean, Red Sea) Terrestrial not available to all within countries PingER min-RTT measurements from S. African TENET monitoring station EASSy fibre for E. Africa Will it share sorry experience of SAT3 for W. Africa? Mike Jensen, Paul Hamilton TENET, S. Africa Satellite $/Mbps 300-1000x fibre costs

Fibre Links Future: 

Fibre Links Future SAT-3 shareholders such as Telecom Namibia, which has no landing point of its own find it cheaper to use satellite Will EASSy follow suit? Another option to EASSy: since Sudan and Egypt are now connected via fibre, and the link will shortly extend to Ethiopia, there are good options for both Kenya and Uganda/Rwanda and Tanzania to quickly link to the backbones via this route SAT3 connects eight countries on the W coast of the continent to Europe and the Far East. Operating as a cartel of monopoly state-owned telecommunication providers, prices have barely come down since it began operating in 2002 Mike Jensen

Divide within Divide: Africa Throughput: 

Divide within Divide: Africa Throughput Overall Loss performance is poor to bad Factor of 10 difference between Angola & Libya N Africa best, E Africa worst Big differences within regions In 2002, BW/capita ranged from 0.02 to over 40bps - a factor of over 1000 99 hosts 45 Countries

Routing from S Africa: 

Routing from S Africa 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

IXPs a Major Issue for African Internet: 

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 IXP Américo Muchanga americo@uem.mz, 25 September 2005

But there are Obstacles: 

But there are Obstacles 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) Regulatory regimes on the whole closed and resistant to change Sometimes ISPs themselves are unwilling to co-operate

Costs compared to West: 

Costs compared to West Sites in many countries have bandwidth< US residence “10 Meg is Here”, www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=104415 Africa: $5460/Mbps/m W Africa $8K/Mbps/m N Africa $520/Mbps/m (IDRC study Jan 2005) 1 yr of Internet access > average annual income of most Africans, Survey by Paul Budde Communications Bandwidth Initiative: Coalition of 11 African Universities (MZ, TZ, UG, GH, NG, KY) + four major US Foundations to provide satellite thru Intelsat at 1/3 cost ($7.3K/Mbps/m => $2.23K)

IHY Sites & PingER: 

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

Slide29: 

Automate uploading etc. via Internet

Conclusions: 

Conclusions Poor performance affects data transfer, multi-media, VoIP, IT development & country performance / development DD exists between regions, within regions, within countries, between age groups… Decreasing use of satellites, expensive, but still needed for many remote countries in Africa and C. Asia Last mile problems, and network fragility International Exchange Points (IXPs) needed Internet performance (non subjective, relatively easy/quick to measure) correlate strongly with economic/technical/development indices Increase coverage of monitoring to understand Internet performance

More Information: 

More Information Thanks: Incentive: ICFA/SCIC, Monique Petitdidier, ICTP, ITU Funding: SLAC/HEP, Pakistan HEC Effort: SLAC, ICTP (Trieste), FNAL, Georgia Tech, administrators at over 40 monitoring sites Need your help to improve African coverage ITU/WIS Report 2006 & 2007 (or Google: “WSIS Report 2007”) www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/worldinformationsociety/2006/report.html PingER www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/pinger, sdu.ictp.it/pinger/africa.html Case Studies (in progress): confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/South+Asia+Case+Study confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Latin+America+Case+Study confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Sub-Sahara+Case+Study confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Palestine+Case+Study

Extra Slides: 

Extra Slides

Africa PingER Sites: 

Africa PingER Sites

Scenario Cases: 

Scenario Cases 4. Sep 05, international fibre to Pakistan fails for 12 days, satellite backup can only handle 25% traffic, call centres given priority. Research & Education sites cut off from Internet for 12 days Heloise Emdon, Acacia Southern Africa UNDP Global Meeting for ICT for Development, Ottawa 10-13 July 3. Primary health care giver, somewhere in Africa, with sonar machine, digital camera and arrangement with national academic hospital and/or international health institute to assist in diagnostics. After 10 dial-up attempts, she abandons attempts to connect 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 2. Telecentre in a country with fairly good connectivity has no connectivity The telecentre resorts to generating revenue from photocopies, PC training, CD Roms for content.

Unreachability: 

Unreachability All pings of a set fail ≡ unreachable Shows fragility, ~ distance independent Developed regions US, Canada, Europe, Oceania, E Asia lead Factor of 10 improvement in 8 years Africa, S. Asia followed by M East & L. America worst off Africa NOT improving US & Canada Europe E Asia C Asia SE Europe SE Asia S Asia Oceania Africa L America M East Russia Developed Regions Developing Regions

Throughput: 

Throughput Derive from: Thru ~ 8 * 1460 _____________ (RTT * sqrt(loss))

Norm Thruput: 

Note step changes Africa v. poor S. Asia improving N. America, Europe, E Asia, Oceania lead Norm_thru = thru * min_rtt(remote_region)/min_rtt(monitoring_region) Thru = 1460 / (RTT*sqrt(loss)) Mathis et. al Norm Thruput

World thruput vs ITU-OI: 

World thruput vs ITU-OI Behind Europe 6 Yrs: Russia, Latin America 7 Yrs: Mid-East, SE Asia 10 Yrs: South Asia 11 Yrs: Cent. Asia 12 Yrs: Africa South Asia, Central Asia, and Africa are in Danger of Falling Even Farther Behind

Overall (Aug 06): 

Overall (Aug 06) ~ Sorted by Average throughput Within region performance better (black ellipses) Europe, N. America, E. Asia generally good M. East, Oceania, S.E. Asia, L. America acceptable C. Asia, S. Asia poor, Africa bad (>100 times worse) Monitored Country

VoIP & MOS: 

VoIP & MOS Telecom uses Mean Opinion Score (MOS) for quality 1=bad, 2=poor, 3=fair, 4=good, 5=excellent With VoIP codecs best can get is 4.2 to 4.4 Typical usable range 3.5 to 4.2 Calc. MOS from PingER: RTT, Loss, Jitter (www.nessoft.com/kb/50) MOS of Various Regions from SLAC Improvements very clear, often due to move from satellite to land line. Similar results from CERN (less coverage) Usable

Bandwidth & Internet use: 

Bandwidth & Internet use Note Log scale for BW India region leader Pakistan leads bw/pop Nepal very poor Pakistan leads % users Sri Lanka leads hosts%% Pakistan leads bw/pop Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan very poor Bit/s

DAI vs. Thru & S. Asia: 

DAI vs. Thru & S. Asia More details, also show populations Compare S. Asia with developed countries, C. Asia

S. Asia Coverage: 

S. Asia Coverage Monitor 44 hosts in region. 6 Monitoring hosts Loss from CERN Min-RTT from CERN

S Asia MOS & thruput: 

S Asia MOS & thruput Mean Opinion Score to S Asia from US Daily throughputs from US to S Asia Last mile problems Divides into 2 India, Maldives, Pakistan, Sri Lanka Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan Usable RTT ms RTT NIIT to QAU Pak (1 week) Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su weekend vs. w’day, day vs night = heavy congestion Pakistan

Americas: 

Americas Cuba poor throughput due to satellite RTTs and high losses US & Canada lead