Paul, You can be a vocal as you desire, but ultimately from this part of the globe the dominant factor in any ISP business is the cost of the International Private Lease. This lease cost is approximately 10 times the cost of domestic infrastructure. Now when you construct an IPL in a competitive environment where do you terminate it? Generally you are loking for an optimal mix of price and functionality. The observation for the AP region today is that the cheapest IPL half circuits for the AP region terminate in the US. Hence Randy's observation. The internal infrastructure within the AP region happens in a second pass, once the primary objective of major connectivity is achieved internal infrastructure can be cost effective if there is internal traffic flow to match. About the only thing that could hasten regional infrastructure is a drastic revision of the trading practices and expectation of return on investment by the undersea cable investors. Exchange points have little impact per se as they are, in economic terms, a minor aspect of the entire equation. Thanks, Geoff
At 07:37 PM 5/15/96 +0900, David R. Conrad wrote:
In the Asia Pacific Rim region, nearly all the bandwidth goes from AP region countries to the US directly. This is true due to the tariffing situation, although it is now beginning to change (some intra-Asia networks have already been established).
I think many of us have been *very* vocal supporters of encouraging creationm of multiple AP NAPs to avoid this form of dementia. :-)
When traffic transits back to the US West Coast to reach another AP location, this clearly contributes to the overall problem.
Putting mirrors in countries usually makes sense (particularly when a country has an Internet exchange or two), but putting them on a continental basis generally doesn't.
Agreed. Creating exchange points would also help immensely.
- paul