In an African context with limited logistics and trucking options, absolutely. And the projects are at a bare minimum budget already. I've been involved with a few, just the subcontract for concrete vaults/splice locations runs on a shoestring budget. In many cases bringing singlemode to an inland/remote city will be a dramatic improvement no matter even if it's 12 strands back to the capitol city/cable landing station location. We're talking about replacing microwave backhauls that are 4 x STM1 capacity total, serving the entire inland/up-country area of a nation, with a single 10GbE circuit. Dramatic difference. And very basic 100 GHz grid DWDM gear can be used.
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nice. I'd love to swap stories some time. I'm posting this from Malawi doing some CD/PMD testing on a new 48 core that runs the length of the country.
I'm not quite sure how to sent a direct user-to-user message, or if it's possible, so I'm doing this in a reply... I would also like to compare notes and previous experience from telecom/ISP work in developing nation environments. One of the things I think will be interesting to see in the next few years is the glut of previous-generation DWDM transport gear (Ciena, Cisco, Infinera, Adva, etc) which is being replaced by US ISPs. Equipment that can do 40 x 10 Gbps channels in the 100 GHz ITU grid is becoming obsolete and pretty much everyone is upgrading to gear that can do 100 Gbps per channel. It'll be available really cheap in the used/refurb market and totally suitable for long distance applications in Africa where newly installed dark fiber is available. I already know of a few ISPs in the Seattle area that are pretty much giving away their old DWDM stuff.
it seems there is no way to message directly. I hope you see this as well -- would love to discuss further.
aaron at aagico dot com