From: "Neil J. McRae" <neil@DOMINO.ORG>
I'm looking to improve my connectivity into the AP region, in a cost effective [i.e. for as little as possible :-)]. I have ruled out buying transit as it doesn't help the issue that I'm trying to resolve, so I was wondering if there was a location/IXP in the AP region that would enable me to interconnect with as many AP carriers as possible.
Above.net and AT&T are your best bets for operations based in the Americas. Above has a .jp IX/colo that is almost "the" best connected place in AP. ATT and Above.net provide almost 80 to 90% of the bandwidth from the Americas to AP. If you want other choices: 1. Singapore Telecom or Pacfici.net.sg 2. Hinet.net of Taiwan, somewhat notorious for bad tech support. (but then is there a "good" telco? :) ) 3. Telstra of .AU Do NOT, I repeat, do not go to a .cn or .hk provider. I cannot emphasize how strongly I recommend against that. .CN, well, bans things and generally the engineering level is not that great. .HK has some political issues, IMHO. If your customers are based in .CN, however, you would have to. China's "Great (Fire)Wall" (don't laugh, it's the government project name) blocks anything they deem harmful to national security. As a result, anybody connecting in and out of .cn is slow, but their internal infrastructure is very good. So you serve .cn customers by establishing a colo mirror or something with China Telecom. Depending on where your customers are located the most, Taiwan, Japan, and Singapore are the best choices. Other people on the list have mentioned that connecting to MAE-West and PAIX would be good enough. However, I must point out the latency in serving AP-local customers can be variable, and the trans-pacific fibres have been cut 4 or 5 times in the last year. (Each cut requires a day or so to repair.) Michael