New TransPacific Cable Projects:
This is what happens when I stay late at the office on a Friday. http://www.commsday.com/node/186 - Google participating in a new Transpacific Cable Project http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/121806-verizon-business.html - Verizon on a different transpacific project And all the same articles say there is already an overpriced glut of capacity along these routes and a glut of fiber laying ocean vessels. Good times. Rather than having competition, everyone is just building their own routes that they won't share at wholesale prices to folks in the wholesale buying business. :) Ahh... reminds me of the late 90s when everyone was building dark fiber networks for the surge of demand that was coming. Now, the remaining folks are buying up all the unused bits to constrain capacity. If I were a stakeholder in transpacific cables, I'd be leasing up the next 3-6 years of the entire global cable laying fleet. :) Deepak Jain AiNET
It is not obvious to me that there is a Pacific cable capacity glut. For example, I sold a DS3 from LA to Hong Kong for $6K MRC whereas the last time a wholesale TransAtlantic DS3 rivaled that figure was 2001. Now you could argue that one needs to look at pricing on a mileage-adjusted basis since the typical TransPacific cable spans a much greater distance than its TransAtlantic counterpart. But operating costs are not proportional to mileage - the bulk of your operating expense is what you pay the undersea maintenance companies such as Global Marine and Tyco Submarine and Alcatel. And their annual charges are not very sensitive to distance. What is peculiar about the Pacific is the lack of new products. For example, it's extremely difficult to get any Ethernet transport on many routes such as LA/Sydney or into India. Yes, there is some Ethernet/IP junk, but that doesn't meet most of my clients' performance standards. It is IP masquerading as Ethernet. In fact, it is very difficult to find Packet-over-SDH Ethernet even on the all-important LA/HK route. To sum up, I do believe the median Pacific cable enjoys a substantial margin advantage over the median Atlantic There is only TransAtlantic cable that is particularly well right now, largely due to its unique physical diversity and footprint. Roderick S. Beck Director of EMEA Sales Hibernia Atlantic 1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com Wireless: 1-212-444-8829. Landline: 33-1-4346-3209. French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97. AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com rodbeck@erols.com ``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.'' Albert Einstein. -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu on behalf of Deepak Jain Sent: Sat 9/22/2007 12:44 AM To: nanog list Subject: New TransPacific Cable Projects: This is what happens when I stay late at the office on a Friday. http://www.commsday.com/node/186 - Google participating in a new Transpacific Cable Project http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/121806-verizon-business.html - Verizon on a different transpacific project And all the same articles say there is already an overpriced glut of capacity along these routes and a glut of fiber laying ocean vessels. Good times. Rather than having competition, everyone is just building their own routes that they won't share at wholesale prices to folks in the wholesale buying business. :) Ahh... reminds me of the late 90s when everyone was building dark fiber networks for the surge of demand that was coming. Now, the remaining folks are buying up all the unused bits to constrain capacity. If I were a stakeholder in transpacific cables, I'd be leasing up the next 3-6 years of the entire global cable laying fleet. :) Deepak Jain AiNET This e-mail and any attachments thereto is intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may be proprietary and/or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email, and any attachments thereto, without the prior written permission of the sender is strictly prohibited. If you receive this e-mail in error, please immediately telephone or e-mail the sender and permanently delete the original copy and any copy of this e-mail, and any printout thereof. All documents, contracts or agreements referred or attached to this e-mail are SUBJECT TO CONTRACT. The contents of an attachment to this e-mail may contain software viruses that could damage your own computer system. While Hibernia Atlantic has taken every reasonable precaution to minimize this risk, we cannot accept liability for any damage that you sustain as a result of software viruses. You should carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment
On Sep 22, 2007, at 5:26 AM, Rod Beck wrote:
It is not obvious to me that there is a Pacific cable capacity glut. For example, I sold a DS3 from LA to Hong Kong for $6K MRC whereas the last time a wholesale TransAtlantic DS3 rivaled that figure was 2001.
Not to mention that the Taiwan straits earthquake showed a clear lack of physical diversity on a number of important Pacific routes, which I know some companies are laying fiber to address. Regards Marshall
Now you could argue that one needs to look at pricing on a mileage- adjusted basis since the typical TransPacific cable spans a much greater distance than its TransAtlantic counterpart.
But operating costs are not proportional to mileage - the bulk of your operating expense is what you pay the undersea maintenance companies such as Global Marine and Tyco Submarine and Alcatel. And their annual charges are not very sensitive to distance.
What is peculiar about the Pacific is the lack of new products. For example, it's extremely difficult to get any Ethernet transport on many routes such as LA/Sydney or into India.
Yes, there is some Ethernet/IP junk, but that doesn't meet most of my clients' performance standards. It is IP masquerading as Ethernet.
In fact, it is very difficult to find Packet-over-SDH Ethernet even on the all-important LA/HK route.
To sum up, I do believe the median Pacific cable enjoys a substantial margin advantage over the median Atlantic
There is only TransAtlantic cable that is particularly well right now, largely due to its unique physical diversity and footprint.
Roderick S. Beck Director of EMEA Sales Hibernia Atlantic 1, Passage du Chantier, 75012 Paris http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com Wireless: 1-212-444-8829. Landline: 33-1-4346-3209. French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97. AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com rodbeck@erols.com ``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.'' Albert Einstein.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu on behalf of Deepak Jain Sent: Sat 9/22/2007 12:44 AM To: nanog list Subject: New TransPacific Cable Projects:
This is what happens when I stay late at the office on a Friday.
http://www.commsday.com/node/186 - Google participating in a new Transpacific Cable Project
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2006/121806-verizon-business.html - Verizon on a different transpacific project
And all the same articles say there is already an overpriced glut of capacity along these routes and a glut of fiber laying ocean vessels.
Good times. Rather than having competition, everyone is just building their own routes that they won't share at wholesale prices to folks in the wholesale buying business. :)
Ahh... reminds me of the late 90s when everyone was building dark fiber networks for the surge of demand that was coming. Now, the remaining folks are buying up all the unused bits to constrain capacity.
If I were a stakeholder in transpacific cables, I'd be leasing up the next 3-6 years of the entire global cable laying fleet. :)
Deepak Jain AiNET
This e-mail and any attachments thereto is intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may be proprietary and/or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email, and any attachments thereto, without the prior written permission of the sender is strictly prohibited. If you receive this e-mail in error, please immediately telephone or e- mail the sender and permanently delete the original copy and any copy of this e-mail, and any printout thereof. All documents, contracts or agreements referred or attached to this e-mail are SUBJECT TO CONTRACT. The contents of an attachment to this e-mail may contain software viruses that could damage your own computer system. While Hibernia Atlantic has taken every reasonable precaution to minimize this risk, we cannot accept liability for any damage that you sustain as a result of software viruses. You should carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment
On Sep 22, 2007, at 5:26 AM, Rod Beck wrote:
It is not obvious to me that there is a Pacific cable capacity glut. For example, I sold a DS3 from LA to Hong Kong for $6K MRC whereas the last time a wholesale TransAtlantic DS3 rivaled that figure was 2001.
Not to mention that the Taiwan straits earthquake showed a clear lack of physical diversity on a number of important Pacific routes, which I know some companies are laying fiber to address. Regards Marshall Human beings systematically underestimate certain risks and exaggerate others. The defenders of the Pacific cables will point out that the cables were actually quite well spaced and that the only reason so many cables were destroyed was that the earthquake caused an undersea landslipe that rolled over hundreds of kilometers. However, the Taiwan strait is an area of constant seismic activity and that risk was ignored largely because the Big One occurs infrequently enough not to matter to the decision makers. On the other side of the coin, the average American is more likely to die in a car accident than a terrorist attack. Yet the US devotes more resources to preventing terrorist attaacks than to preventing car accidents or reducing its extreme high infant mortality rate (twice the level of developed countries like Canada or France). This e-mail and any attachments thereto is intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may be proprietary and/or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email, and any attachments thereto, without the prior written permission of the sender is strictly prohibited. If you receive this e-mail in error, please immediately telephone or e-mail the sender and permanently delete the original copy and any copy of this e-mail, and any printout thereof. All documents, contracts or agreements referred or attached to this e-mail are SUBJECT TO CONTRACT. The contents of an attachment to this e-mail may contain software viruses that could damage your own computer system. While Hibernia Atlantic has taken every reasonable precaution to minimize this risk, we cannot accept liability for any damage that you sustain as a result of software viruses. You should carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment
Not to mention that the Taiwan straits earthquake showed a clear lack of physical diversity on a number of important Pacific routes, which I know some companies are laying fiber to address.
Anyone who took the trouble to read the two articles knows that one of the two cables is a USA-to-China direct cable that does not hop through Japan. This is really part of a larger connectivity story for the People's Republic of China along with the trans-Russia cable being built by Russia's railway-backed TTC and China Unicom. http://europe.tmcnet.com/news/2007/09/20/2954870.htm I wouldn't be surprised if this is somehow connected with GLORIAD as well. In any case, the USA-China direct route is clearly avoiding the Taiwan Straits weak point. And the other cable, which Google is involved in, is connecting the USA and Australia, a country that has always had connectivity issues, especially pricing issues. This has led to a much higher use of web proxies in Australia to reduce international traffic levels and this may be the key to why, Google, an application developer and ASP/SaaS operator, is trying to build a cable link to the major English language market in Asia-Pacific. Seems to me both builds are adressing diversity issues in different ways, and if this results in a bandwidth glut to the region, that may be part of the plan. --Michael Dillon
Here is a TeleGeography news article worth a quick read: http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=19783&email=html It appears that that article assumes that capacity will not be increased by WDM products...have those that been applied on those links already reached the cables' maximum capabilities based on current technology? Frank -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu] On Behalf Of michael.dillon@bt.com Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2007 9:11 AM To: nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: New TransPacific Cable Projects:
Not to mention that the Taiwan straits earthquake showed a clear lack of physical diversity on a number of important Pacific routes, which I know some companies are laying fiber to address.
Anyone who took the trouble to read the two articles knows that one of the two cables is a USA-to-China direct cable that does not hop through Japan. This is really part of a larger connectivity story for the People's Republic of China along with the trans-Russia cable being built by Russia's railway-backed TTC and China Unicom. http://europe.tmcnet.com/news/2007/09/20/2954870.htm I wouldn't be surprised if this is somehow connected with GLORIAD as well. In any case, the USA-China direct route is clearly avoiding the Taiwan Straits weak point. And the other cable, which Google is involved in, is connecting the USA and Australia, a country that has always had connectivity issues, especially pricing issues. This has led to a much higher use of web proxies in Australia to reduce international traffic levels and this may be the key to why, Google, an application developer and ASP/SaaS operator, is trying to build a cable link to the major English language market in Asia-Pacific. Seems to me both builds are adressing diversity issues in different ways, and if this results in a bandwidth glut to the region, that may be part of the plan. --Michael Dillon
[michael dillon]
And the other cable, which Google is involved in, is connecting the USA and Australia, a country that has always had connectivity issues, especially pricing issues. This has led to a much higher use of web proxies in Australia to reduce international traffic levels and this may be the key to why, Google, an application developer and ASP/SaaS operator, is trying to build a cable link to the major English language market in Asia-Pacific.
Correcting: Google's in Sydney. Australians don't use web proxies, even though (sans google) they still save ~30% byte hit rates to decent size populations. Web proxies can be taught to cache stuff like updates and flash media (think "youtube"); and no amount of intercontinental bandwidth can fix the current issues AU ISPs face - throwing bandwidth between their aggregation point and the DSL DSLAMs in exchanges. Try again! Adrian
Here is a TeleGeography news article worth a quick read: http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=19783&email=html It appears that that article assumes that capacity will not be increased by WDM products...have those that been applied on those links already reached the cables' maximum capabilities based on current technology? Frank I think you are going to find that the numbe of waves that can put on an undersea fiber is a function of the distance between the landing stations. Obviously most TransPacific cables traverse greater distances and hence probably cannot carry as many waves as TransAtlantic cables. There is also a need for cables that are diverse from the existing cables. So lighting more capacity will not solve the physical diversity problems that were highlighted by the December earthquakes. Most modern undersea cables have four fiber pairs per cable. And each of those fiber pairs can handle from 24 to 80 10 gig waves. Hibernia can do 80 10 gig waves, but only becuase we replaced the undersea DWDM kit deployed at our landing stations. Regards, - Roderick. This e-mail and any attachments thereto is intended only for use by the addressee(s) named herein and may be proprietary and/or legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this email, and any attachments thereto, without the prior written permission of the sender is strictly prohibited. If you receive this e-mail in error, please immediately telephone or e-mail the sender and permanently delete the original copy and any copy of this e-mail, and any printout thereof. All documents, contracts or agreements referred or attached to this e-mail are SUBJECT TO CONTRACT. The contents of an attachment to this e-mail may contain software viruses that could damage your own computer system. While Hibernia Atlantic has taken every reasonable precaution to minimize this risk, we cannot accept liability for any damage that you sustain as a result of software viruses. You should carry out your own virus checks before opening any attachment
Make sense what you said, I'm just pretty sure that eventually they'll come up with a way to put 100 to 500 waves on it. Frank -----Original Message----- From: Rod Beck [mailto:Rod.Beck@hiberniaatlantic.com] Sent: Monday, September 24, 2007 1:57 PM To: frnkblk@iname.com; michael.dillon@bt.com; nanog@merit.edu Subject: RE: New TransPacific Cable Projects: Here is a TeleGeography news article worth a quick read: http://www.telegeography.com/cu/article.php?article_id=19783&email=html It appears that that article assumes that capacity will not be increased by WDM products...have those that been applied on those links already reached the cables' maximum capabilities based on current technology? Frank I think you are going to find that the numbe of waves that can put on an undersea fiber is a function of the distance between the landing stations. Obviously most TransPacific cables traverse greater distances and hence probably cannot carry as many waves as TransAtlantic cables. There is also a need for cables that are diverse from the existing cables. So lighting more capacity will not solve the physical diversity problems that were highlighted by the December earthquakes. Most modern undersea cables have four fiber pairs per cable. And each of those fiber pairs can handle from 24 to 80 10 gig waves. Hibernia can do 80 10 gig waves, but only becuase we replaced the undersea DWDM kit deployed at our landing stations. Regards, - Roderick.
participants (6)
-
Adrian Chadd -
Deepak Jain -
Frank Bulk -
Marshall Eubanks -
michael.dillon＠bt.com -
Rod Beck