INTERNET AND TELECOM HUB

Executive Summary

IFRAnet International is providing Global Internet Transit (high-speed Internet from a country to the rest of the world) and International Calls by extensive cooperation with suitable telecom carriers like British Telecom, Telenor and TeliaSonera etc. Locals telcos and ISPs (Internet Service Providers) shall have the option of a large international capacity, much cheaper than today, for both Internet and Telephony.

IFRAnet will together with partners create the MEA Internet Hub, which would switch all the International Internet and Telephony traffic of the MEA region (the Middle East and Africa). This is a project for developing the whole of the MEA region and not only for a single country, and all MEA countries would benefit on this project. Here the local incumbents should not compete but cooperate to get a strong common platform in the MEA Hub and together with IFRAnet face the rest of the world.

Hub Concept

By collecting the international traffic need from each targeted country into ONE huge traffic volume, IFRAnet can get volume-based services for lower prices than one and each of the countries. And by having a small overhead cost IFRAnet can resell the services to the targeted countries for a much lower price than they are paying today.

In a region formed by neighbouring countries IFRAnet will set up a Regional Internet Hub connected by a sea cable to an Internet gateway in Europe. National POPs (point-of-presence) in the regional countries are connected to the Hub by existing or new interregional networks, forming an Intraregional Network. This network may provide a very large international capacity (hundreds of Mbps) to all the local/domestic networks. The regional network can be used for both Internet Global Transit and ordinary International Telephony.

IFRAnet will together with partners create the MEA Internet Hub, which will switch all the traffic of the MEA Regional Network. In practice it will be at least three Regional Switching Nodes covering Africa, one in North-Eastern Africa, a second in Western Africa and a third in Southern Africa as well as one node for the Middle East.

IFRAnet's vision is making an Internet Gateway for MEA as the 3rd Internet Hub of the world. Regarding the market potential of MEA with a huge young generation (much larger than Europe’s) this could be a reality within a few years.

As an additional favour when having the MEA Hub, the Internet and telecom traffic between the  MEA countries will stay within the region. There is no longer a need for sending the e-mails overseas to UK or US to be switched and then back again. The need for overseas communications will reduce dramatically and thus the corresponding costs.

The interconnection lines between the MEA Hub and Europe, which will be leased for the Internet traffic, should always have such a great capacity, that there would be enough surplus capacity covering all the need for Outbound International Calls from Africa. Therefore local telcos could buy termination of international calls to Europe and the rest of the world for a much lower price than today.

Network for the MEA Hub

The MEA Hub will put up its own Hub equipments on a few strategic sites in the region, in order to keep the Internet traffic as well as the International Calls between the regional countries within the region. As an alternative, the MEA Hub may hire capacity in existing switches of the local telcos. The MEA Hub shall employ personnel for establishing and managing the regional Hub network.

There will be a need for some supplementing submarine cables for primary or redundancy interconnections to certain countries. These future sea cables could be owned by MEA Hub or by existing sea cable owners. IFRAnet has ongoing negotiations with both ITU (International Telecommunications Union) and sea cable owners. For redundancy even land cables or satellite communications could be used.

A close relation and cooperation with ITU is foreseen, since ITU already has put in a lot of investments in Africa and will continue to do so. ITU already has shown its great interest for the MEA Hub project and has declared its willingness to participate also with fundings. 

IFRAnet could start the Carrier business immediately without having its own equipment by hiring capacity in other network. Later on when more customer countries are involved, the MEA Hub has to establish itself physically with necessary equipment (routers, switches, servers etc.) for handling the regional Internet traffic and the International Calls.

For Western Africa countries able to take an immediate part in the MEA Hub are e.g. Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon, since they all are connected to the same sea cable (SAT3/WASC).

For Eastern Africa and the Middle East, countries able to take an immediate part in the MEA Hub are Egypt, Djibouti, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, since they are connected to the same sea cables (SEA-ME-WE 3).

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