I had been meeting a lot of fellow friends in the industry in person lately for a number of reasons. One interesting number that I came out with was that of the total transit Internet bandwidth that Pakistan is currently subscribing to. Between PTCL, Transworld, Multinet (the companies) and SMW3, SMW4 and TW1 (the three cables -and a couple of transponders worth of satellite back up bandwidth) we are talking about an aggregated 2.5 Gigs of IP transit bandwidth (give and take an STM-1).
Not only the figure is respectable, the growth trend that my contacts described is excellent. Drivers for increased consumptions, as we discussed and nodded at, included new DSL services, VoIP traffics and the popularity of bandwidth hogging Internet services like Youtube.
A number of other potential bandwidth-suckers that are waiting around the corner include mass distribution alliances that are expected to talk place between bulk bandwidth suppliers mentioned above and the new distribution channels like Niyatel’s (and other similar outfits in Central Pakistan).
This trend is impressive. Additionally, it also presses the managements of the local industry to come forward and think broadly out of the box for some badly needed but missing standard industry practices like local peering and Internet Exchanges and local Data Centers. If the growth trends continue, it can soon become a major foreign exchange eater and the only way we can reign this in is through localization of traffic within Pakistan.
September 3, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Gives a very good feeling that at last we are moving in the right direction!
October 21, 2007 at 1:36 am
PTCL’s current capacity is about nearing 3.0Gbps and TWA 1Gbps on fiber alone.