An AWS Region is coming to South Africa • Hacker News Board

Re: An AWS Region is coming to South Africa

#71

Post by sangnoir » Fri, Oct 26, 2018, 5:09 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #69

sangnoir wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there were backbone ables inside of Africa, they wouldn't show up. There are, and the information in sibling comments is either wrong or outdated. Liquid has a fiber network that literally stretches from "Cape to Cairo"[1]. Liquid has a presence in Nigeria, but it's not connected to the overland fiber network [1] https://www.liquidtelecom.com/about-us/network-map.html

That's very interesting, thanks. And also fairly new? > covering Africa's fastest-growing economies, where no fixed network has ever existed before.

Yes, it's fairly new. The build-out was done in the last ~ 3-5 years, but it was only lit in stages within the past 2 years.

Re: An AWS Region is coming to South Africa

#72

Post by andkenneth » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 3:00 AM UTC

jonathanlydall wrote: post #33

andkenneth wrote: post #9

Probably not at the top of everyones mind, but this will be great for gamers in SA. Lots of games-as-a-service (i.e. no dedicated server software you can run yourself) are hosted on AWS. Overwatch is a particular example that might now receive African servers off of this.

Sorry, it’s unlikely that Overwatch latency would improve specifically from this as I am very doubtful that it is hosted on AWS, or any cloud provider for that matter. I worked customer support for Blizzard Europe for several years until about 2012. At the time they ran their own infrastructure co-located in ISP data centres. It was very important to Blizzard to have as much control of the quality of the user gaming…

Things must have changed. I've worked in esports in Australia, and I know that professional OW players use tools to specifically give nearby IP ranges high ping so they can play on the region of their choosing.

AUS players have a jsfiddle they link around which grabs the current IP ranges for AWS so they know what to block to be able to play on NA servers. They do this because the local playerpool is much smaller, to the point where they cannot climb to very high ranks without playing overseas.

Re: An AWS Region is coming to South Africa

#73

Post by tills13 » Sat, Oct 27, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

orf wrote: post #63

tills13 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fornite makes $250m a month (by some reports) and is entirely hosted on AWS. That's one game.

> That's one game. The largest game, by a large margin.

Sure, but there are _hundreds_ of games.

Re: An AWS Region is coming to South Africa

#74

Post by mikorym » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:43 AM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #59

mikorym wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 100 Mbps up and down mentioned is USD 85 per month at the current R 14.45 to the dollar in Johannesburg itself. However, outside the urban areas internet is slower and there is not fibre yet. Cellphone coverage is generally good. For some "inexplicable" reason, however, 1GB cellphone data has been stuck at R 149 for over 5 years now...

You can get cellphone data for much, much cheaper (try Afrihost mobile). Having recently moved to US, I'm amazed at how backward fixed internet access is here and how first-class it is in SA. Fibre is rare even in urban areas, I specifically asked my estate agent to find someplace with Comcast competition at best and Comcast fibre at worst - she couldn't manage either.

> try Afrihost mobile

But this would mean I have a data-only mobile contract, right?

Re: An AWS Region is coming to South Africa

#75

Post by mikorym » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:46 AM UTC

tills13 wrote: post #47

mikorym wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How big is the gaming industry so far? My impression of the younger peer group is that it's pretty big.

Fornite makes $250m a month (by some reports) and is entirely hosted on AWS. That's one game.

Makes me feel old. Any game that even requires internet access makes me cringe. But it is nice to know that SA is keeping with trends.

I attribute my slightly better English vocabulary to Diablo 2 and other games of that time.

Re: An AWS Region is coming to South Africa

#76

Post by mikorym » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 5:51 AM UTC

zamalek wrote: post #59

mikorym wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 100 Mbps up and down mentioned is USD 85 per month at the current R 14.45 to the dollar in Johannesburg itself. However, outside the urban areas internet is slower and there is not fibre yet. Cellphone coverage is generally good. For some "inexplicable" reason, however, 1GB cellphone data has been stuck at R 149 for over 5 years now...

You can get cellphone data for much, much cheaper (try Afrihost mobile). Having recently moved to US, I'm amazed at how backward fixed internet access is here and how first-class it is in SA. Fibre is rare even in urban areas, I specifically asked my estate agent to find someplace with Comcast competition at best and Comcast fibre at worst - she couldn't manage either.

On the fibre topic: That's interesting, I know the regulations are backward thinking in relation to the EU, but I would have thought fibre would be more widespread.

How have you found the move, work wise? My impression in JHB is that core economic activity is suffering (e.g., contruction) but people with mathsy or programming qualifications get jobs easily. Case in point: I have a Mathematics MSc and can get a job very easily; however, a Biology MSc looking for an environmental job simply does not. Any area that requires govt input of course will be less focused on quality and integrity of work.

Re: An AWS Region is coming to South Africa

#77

Post by mikorym » Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 6:01 AM UTC

throwaway34re3 wrote: post #42

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #20

In terms of maximising the metric of "getting the servers closest to the maximum number of end-users with the longest current ping-times" then a region in Johannesburg seems to make more sense - it's a bigger metropolitan area than Cape Town, and is closer to points north of South Africa. However 1) Johannesburg is inland, the internet backbone cables land at the coast e.g. at Cape Town. ( https://www.submarinecablem…

3) Johannesburg is one of the largest murder/crime zones in the country, whereas Cape Town is one of the last areas remaining in the country that has a low murder/crime rate.

- Cape Town murder rates are higher than JHB (attributed partly to Cape Flats vs. Soweto, the latter which is a much better place to live now).

- JHB theft rates I think are higher than Cape Town.

There are some statistics about this, but generally they show that CT is worse than some people think and JHB slightly better than people think. At least, from your comment, we can infer that some people seem to have the CT-is-good-vs-JHB-is-bad impression.

Personally, I prefer not to flash about statistics. The only thing that I will say is that former township areas in JHB are improving compared to areas like Khayalitsha and the Cape Flats. I do think that culture wise, Cape Town has a lot going for it; in JHB, the only thing still needed is an Eiffel Tower. It is not an uglier city than Paris, but it is not (yet) a tourist destination.