Dave Curado wrote:
but note that HK has a reasonable sized nap already. The HKIX. My understanding is that they are about to upgrade the exchange to an ATM switch. (whatever)
Just a minor note regarding HKIX: As the person-in-charge of HKIX, I would say upgrading to ATM is not of urgent need for the current traffic volume (5-min average up to 11Mbps). In fact, with the expensive tariff of T3 local circuit (starts at US$7,700/month for a full circuit) and unavailability of clearline OC3 service, upgrading HKIX (currently a Catalyst 5000) with an ATM switch is almost out of the question especially after the recent roll-out of city-wide ATM service by Hongkong Telecom (starts at US$4,200/month for two ends with OC3 physical circuits).
I'd love to see someone get an oc3/12/48 pipe from HK to the west coast, and resell to the 60+ HK ISPs at reasonable prices.
Me too. :) But unfortunately, it is still not justified to set up a OC3 pipe for Hong Kong. But maybe a DS3 pipe is justified. Anyone looking at this business opportunity? :)
For the time being, it seems that the most affordable solution would be for each country to build it's own exchange, and have everything link back via the US. (although its silly to have traffic from HK to Bangkok routing via San Jose...)
It seems that this applies more to medium-sized ISPs. We now see large ISPs with deep pockets setting up intra-Asia/Pacific connections or backbones. Examples are Global One, Asia Internet Holdings (ABONE), UUNET, AT&T, IBM, CWIX, STIX, and mesh connections of ISPs run by telephone companies in Asia/Pacific. It seems that they have totally different business models. Fortunately (to HK), most of them have presence in Hong Kong so they can choose to interconnect at HKIX. :) Cheers, -- Che-Hoo Cheng | Email: chcheng@cuhk.edu.hk Data Comms and Networking Section | URL: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/ Information Technology Service Unit | Tel: +852 2609-8848 The Chinese University of Hong Kong | Fax: +852 2603-5001