Editor,

RE: "New facility to lower cost of internet, enhance security” (The New Times, November 9).

I really enjoy Rwanda Broadcasting Agency (RBA) live streaming programmes, because for example when President Kagame has graced a certain event, he always has some wise, challenging and inspiring speeches. I prefer to hear them rather than read his speeches that are often heavily edited. 

A live speech always catches nuances that obviously miss from written speeches. RBA usually does live streaming on their website, and sometimes through YouTube. Herein lies the problem.

If live-streamed through YouTube, if I am on telecom internet bundles, I am not able to follow it as my money quickly runs out. This is because my smartphone has to fetch the video feed from YouTube servers somewhere else in the world. This causes lag times, hence takes longer to load, and eats my money.

Now if I watch this on RBA website locally hosted (co.rw domain for instance), I hope to be able to watch the President’s speech seamlessly (no annoying buffering) at a minimal cost.

This is due to 3 things: Reliable and sufficient bandwidth hence 4G advantage to 3G advantage, local website hosting because the RBA website is hosted in Rwanda’s data centre and not outside the country (well I hope this is the case), and efficient internet exchange point that ensures the video feed is routed internally in the country instead of taking the long route outside. 

Another analogy to having an internet exchange is, suppose I wish to go to Gicumbi, and there is no internet exchange in the country – this would be similar to taking a bus from Kigali to Uganda (Mbarara) and then Mbarara to Gicumbi, of course with big inconveniences and ridiculous costs.

I commend the team that is overseeing this timely development and hopefully as the exchange becomes more efficient and regional, more of Rwanda content (and ultimately African content—videos, websites etc.) will be available at a lower cost. 

It is quite annoying actually to watch local YouTube videos and I know I will pay this expensively through internet bundles at least Rwf1000 per day (and even then I am literally avoiding a heart attack because telecom companies notoriously don’t warn us when the bundle is finished hence cutting more of airtime money). 

Why can’t we watch them on locally hosted servers at a subsidized cost?

By the way, Tour du Rwanda is coming up this Saturday, and last year RBA did a good job to bring it to us as live as possible and I could watch it comfortably online. Let’s hope the good team at RBA does an even better job this year. To Team Rwanda, we are behind you 100%!

Kigali Girl