Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.
I think it began a while ago, but I suspect it'll increase. There's now two trans-Russian terrestrial systems, and more investment in Asia - Europe cables. Initially the capacity will be used for redundancy and to shorten latencies (ie. just to go around the other way and because it's quicker than going US->Atlantic->Europe from Asia). I don't think any of this will be because of sinister reasons, just for good engineering reasons and probably just to guarantee, without a doubt, that your circuit does NOT go through One Wilshire! MMC Hank Nussbacher wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
-Hank
-- Matthew Moyle-Croft - Internode/Agile - Networks Level 4, 150 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia Email: mmc@internode.com.au Web: http://www.on.net Direct: +61-8-8228-2909 Mobile: +61-419-900-366 Reception: +61-8-8228-2999 Fax: +61-8-8235-6909
Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:
I don't think any of this will be because of sinister reasons, just for good engineering reasons and probably just to guarantee, without a doubt, that your circuit does NOT go through One Wilshire!
Just to ensure no confusion - this was just about redundancy and diversity to ensure that not all your circuits go through OW, which is a common US West Coast issue. MMC
I don't think any of this will be because of sinister reasons, just for good engineering reasons and probably just to guarantee, without a doubt, that your circuit does NOT go through One Wilshire!
What exactly would be sinister about moving traffic through routes that didn't intersect the U.S. border? -j
Jamie A Lawrence wrote:
What exactly would be sinister about moving traffic through routes that didn't intersect the U.S. border?
Nothing if the reason isn't to avoid the US to prevent interception. ie. my point was the people are doing this for engineering reasons not political ones as was implied by that article. We have connectivity to Japan to reduce latency to Asia from Australia (ie. remove the trombone via the US) - this is purely an engineering/commercial decision to improve latency. MMC -- Matthew Moyle-Croft - Internode/Agile - Networks
Hank Nussbacher wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30pipes.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
Pardon my ignorance here, but isn't this more of a case of traffic growing outside of the USA which means that traffic within the USA represents a smaller share of the total internet traffic ? Did western europe ever really have a primary route via the USA to reach asia ? (I realise that during the cable cuts in middle east last year, traffic might have been rerouted via USA but this would be a temporary situation). There may be political issues since the USA decided that there was to be no privacy with regards to traffic flowing to/from non-USA countries (so the 3 letter acronym orgs could spy/record that traffic without warrant). However, I am not sure if other transit providers would have built cables designed to avoid transit via the USA since then. It takes time to build a cable.
Pardon my ignorance here, but isn't this more of a case of traffic growing outside of the USA which means that traffic within the USA represents a smaller share of the total internet traffic ?
I suspect so - especially with CDN/Content providers pushing traffic out to the edge it means that we (the rest of the world) don't pay so much to haul it back from Northern America! (Thanks to those who are doing it - you know who you are and we love you for it!). Japan has 80% of it's internet traffic as domestic, as do a lot of Asian countries. As China, Korea and others grow their domestic volumes the %age coming from the USA is a lot less.
Did western europe ever really have a primary route via the USA to reach asia ? (I realise that during the cable cuts in middle east last year, traffic might have been rerouted via USA but this would be a temporary situation).
Most Asian providers (at least Northern Asia) use USA, Atlantic path to get to Europe. The capacity going Westt isn't that high in comparision, so the extra latency hit is well offset by the much reduced cost. My point in my first post is that this is changing rapidly as people (eg Reliance/Flag) are building more capacity West to Europe plus the Trans-Russian terrestrial (eg. TEA) are going for fast (and expensive from my understanding). For instance, out of Australia we have a single, old cable going West out of Perth to Singapore (SEA-ME-WE3) which allows only low speed circuits, but we've got almost 4 (as of next year) cables going North and East out of Sydney. So most Europe traffic to/from Australia is via the USA. MMC -- Matthew Moyle-Croft - Internode/Agile - Networks Level 4, 150 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia Email: mmc@internode.com.au Web: http://www.on.net Direct: +61-8-8228-2909 Mobile: +61-419-900-366 Reception: +61-8-8228-2999 Fax: +61-8-8235-6909
For instance, out of Australia we have a single, old cable going West out of Perth to Singapore (SEA-ME-WE3) which allows only low speed circuits, but we've got almost 4 (as of next year) cables going North and East out of Sydney. So most Europe traffic to/from Australia is via the USA.
Which is not a political problem, as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Great Britain and the USA share Echelon and other intelligence systems... Russia, France and Germain might have other feelings about traffic going through the USA or UK when it is not directed to one of above. Rubens
Nothing if the reason isn't to avoid the US to prevent interception. ie. my point was the people are doing this for engineering reasons not political ones as was implied by that article. I don't see it sinister even if someone wants to avoid US due to interception. But, yes I agree people are doing for engineering reasons. But, it still is impossible in many asses, as ISPs in many countries are still not cooperating with each other. On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 5:22 AM, Matthew Moyle-Croft <mmc@internode.com.au>wrote:
Pardon my ignorance here, but isn't this more of a case of traffic
growing outside of the USA which means that traffic within the USA represents a smaller share of the total internet traffic ?
I suspect so - especially with CDN/Content providers pushing traffic out to the edge it means that we (the rest of the world) don't pay so much to haul it back from Northern America! (Thanks to those who are doing it - you know who you are and we love you for it!).
Japan has 80% of it's internet traffic as domestic, as do a lot of Asian countries. As China, Korea and others grow their domestic volumes the %age coming from the USA is a lot less.
Did western europe ever really have a primary route via the USA to reach asia ? (I realise that during the cable cuts in middle east last year, traffic might have been rerouted via USA but this would be a temporary situation).
Most Asian providers (at least Northern Asia) use USA, Atlantic path to get to Europe. The capacity going Westt isn't that high in comparision, so the extra latency hit is well offset by the much reduced cost. My point in my first post is that this is changing rapidly as people (eg Reliance/Flag) are building more capacity West to Europe plus the Trans-Russian terrestrial (eg. TEA) are going for fast (and expensive from my understanding).
For instance, out of Australia we have a single, old cable going West out of Perth to Singapore (SEA-ME-WE3) which allows only low speed circuits, but we've got almost 4 (as of next year) cables going North and East out of Sydney. So most Europe traffic to/from Australia is via the USA.
MMC
-- Matthew Moyle-Croft - Internode/Agile - Networks Level 4, 150 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia Email: mmc@internode.com.au Web: http://www.on.net Direct: +61-8-8228-2909 Mobile: +61-419-900-366 Reception: +61-8-8228-2999 Fax: +61-8-8235-6909
-- Ghulam Murtaza
But, it still is impossible in many asses, as ISPs in many countries are still not cooperating with each other. But, it still is impossible in many cases, On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 6:11 AM, Murtaza <leothelion.murtaza@gmail.com>wrote:
Nothing if the reason isn't to avoid the US to prevent interception. ie. my point was the people are doing this for engineering reasons not political ones as was implied by that article.
I don't see it sinister even if someone wants to avoid US due to interception. But, yes I agree people are doing for engineering reasons. But, it still is impossible in many asses, as ISPs in many countries are still not cooperating with each other.
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 5:22 AM, Matthew Moyle-Croft <mmc@internode.com.au
wrote:
Pardon my ignorance here, but isn't this more of a case of traffic
growing outside of the USA which means that traffic within the USA represents a smaller share of the total internet traffic ?
I suspect so - especially with CDN/Content providers pushing traffic out to the edge it means that we (the rest of the world) don't pay so much to haul it back from Northern America! (Thanks to those who are doing it - you know who you are and we love you for it!).
Japan has 80% of it's internet traffic as domestic, as do a lot of Asian countries. As China, Korea and others grow their domestic volumes the %age coming from the USA is a lot less.
Did western europe ever really have a primary route via the USA to reach asia ? (I realise that during the cable cuts in middle east last year, traffic might have been rerouted via USA but this would be a temporary situation).
Most Asian providers (at least Northern Asia) use USA, Atlantic path to get to Europe. The capacity going Westt isn't that high in comparision, so the extra latency hit is well offset by the much reduced cost. My point in my first post is that this is changing rapidly as people (eg Reliance/Flag) are building more capacity West to Europe plus the Trans-Russian terrestrial (eg. TEA) are going for fast (and expensive from my understanding).
For instance, out of Australia we have a single, old cable going West out of Perth to Singapore (SEA-ME-WE3) which allows only low speed circuits, but we've got almost 4 (as of next year) cables going North and East out of Sydney. So most Europe traffic to/from Australia is via the USA.
MMC
-- Matthew Moyle-Croft - Internode/Agile - Networks Level 4, 150 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia Email: mmc@internode.com.au Web: http://www.on.net Direct: +61-8-8228-2909 Mobile: +61-419-900-366 Reception: +61-8-8228-2999 Fax: +61-8-8235-6909
-- Ghulam Murtaza
-- Ghulam Murtaza Lahore University of Management Sciences
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 06:11:28AM +0530, Murtaza wrote:
Nothing if the reason isn't to avoid the US to prevent interception. ie. my point was the people are doing this for engineering reasons not political ones as was implied by that article.
I don't see it sinister even if someone wants to avoid US due to interception. But, yes I agree people are doing for engineering reasons. But, it still is impossible in many asses, as ISPs in many countries are still not cooperating with each other.
speaking from the middle east, i have been advising my clients against co-location/hosting in the US due to potential political issues. the current US policy of "detain first, question later" has the potential for serious customer relations issues, should one of the TLAs become interested in your data. oddly enough, the ISP's in the region have not caught on to the potential winfall of providing cost effective hosting locally, so therefore, the bulk of the hosting for companies in the region is primarily done in the US, then in EU, then, maybe locally. if you drive down Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, and check where the hosting is for 90% of the URL's on the billboards (even those with .ae domains), you will find that they follow the above pattern. a primary example is that of du.ae, one of the only two incumbent/dual-opoly providers for the UAE, hosts its own website and customer portal in Canada, even though it has a perfectly fine data center (if not more than one) in Dubai. UAE/Dubai is a major landing point for many asian/indian ocean fibers, but there is no equivilent of One Wilshire/60 Hudson/etc. so, as the data finds more and better direct routes to the end user, reducing the need to route through the US, there is still a penchant for hosting the primary data there. -- Jim Mercer jim@reptiles.org +971 55 410-5633 "I'm Prime Minister of Canada, I live here and I'm going to take a leak." - Lester Pearson in 1967, during a meeting between himself and President Lyndon Johnson, whose Secret Service detail had taken over Pearson's cottage retreat. At one point, a Johnson guard asked Pearson, "Who are you and where are you going?"
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 7:13 AM, Jim Mercer <jim@reptiles.org> wrote:
oddly enough, the ISP's in the region have not caught on to the potential winfall of providing cost effective hosting locally, so therefore, the bulk of the hosting for companies in the region is primarily done in the US, then in EU, then, maybe locally.
if you drive down Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, and check where the hosting is for 90% of the URL's on the billboards (even those with .ae domains), you will find that they follow the above pattern.
a primary example is that of du.ae, one of the only two incumbent/dual-opoly providers for the UAE, hosts its own website and customer portal in Canada, even though it has a perfectly fine data center (if not more than one) in Dubai.
The political implications are interesting; the UAE has been more than keen to attract fibreoptic infrastructure, but setting up an IX would encourage local networks to interconnect without going via either Etisalat or Du, which has consequences both for their quasi-official monopoly and for the government's mass Internet filtering policy. There are (as you know Bob) already office developments that are allowed to have their own access to $World, and presumably there are networks in them; if they were allowed to interconnect with each other and with other networks, who knows? anarchy, cats and dogs making love in the streets, etc. Interestingly, other emerging markets did it the opposite way round. Kenya, frex, established an IX long before it had even the hope of submarine cable access. Now, with the new East African projects, there is talk of an Indian-style call centre/backoffice boom.
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 10:22:27AM +0100, Alexander Harrowell wrote:
On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 7:13 AM, Jim Mercer <jim@reptiles.org> wrote:
oddly enough, the ISP's in the region have not caught on to the potential winfall of providing cost effective hosting locally, so therefore, the bulk of the hosting for companies in the region is primarily done in the US, then in EU, then, maybe locally.
The political implications are interesting; the UAE has been more than keen to attract fibreoptic infrastructure, but setting up an IX would encourage local networks to interconnect without going via either Etisalat or Du, which has consequences both for their quasi-official monopoly and for the government's mass Internet filtering policy.
there is an exchange http://emix.ae, however, when i last interacted with them several years ago, it was a relatively closed club. that, and the actual exchange is located in Dubai (i think), which will require the arrangement of transit from the fiber drops (in Fujerah) to Dubai, at whatever rates etisalat (maybe du) decide to charge. the government filtering is not out of line with others in the region, and for the most part, doesn't hit political or religious sites, mostly porn, or sites that are reported to have porn (facebook/myspace/etc have all had their turn at being blocked, and then unblocked).
There are (as you know Bob) already office developments that are allowed to have their own access to $World, and presumably there are networks in them; if they were allowed to interconnect with each other and with other networks, who knows? anarchy, cats and dogs making love in the streets, etc.
nah, the perception that it is some kinda quasi-moral, quasi-authoratarian issue is wrong. its about money, period. they currently actively block anything VoIP related, and at points in the past, i ran into etisalat blocking access to sites containing voip-related forums/etc. generally the blockage is either for preserving their cash-flow (ie, no VoIP), or reactions to local-culture complaints about content, which allows them to maintain the high-moral ground with the local population, as "outsiders" wouldn't defend the local-culture.
Interestingly, other emerging markets did it the opposite way round. Kenya, frex, established an IX long before it had even the hope of submarine cable access. Now, with the new East African projects, there is talk of an Indian-style call centre/backoffice boom.
yep. as i was saying, the middle east region, with all of its potential capital, is overly protective of its incumbents to allow any kind of real competition. having lived here for some time, this tends to be true in alot of other market segments as well. if anyone from du or etisalat wishes to speak up and correct my impressions, please do. -- Jim Mercer jim@reptiles.org +971 55 410-5633 "I'm Prime Minister of Canada, I live here and I'm going to take a leak." - Lester Pearson in 1967, during a meeting between himself and President Lyndon Johnson, whose Secret Service detail had taken over Pearson's cottage retreat. At one point, a Johnson guard asked Pearson, "Who are you and where are you going?"
On 15 Sep 2008, at 05:40, Jim Mercer wrote:
there is an exchange http://emix.ae, however, when i last interacted with them several years ago, it was a relatively closed club.
Unless things have changed recently, it's more of a monopoly transit provider than an exchange point. It's a service of Emirates Telecom/ Etisalat, AS8966; it's who people are obliged to buy transit from, there being no alternative for licensed ISPs. They do like to use the word "exchange" though, which can give the wrong impression. If it seems like a closed club, perhaps that's more of an ISP licensing issue in UAE than anything else. Joe
Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:
Most Asian providers (at least Northern Asia) use USA, Atlantic path to get to Europe. The capacity going Westt isn't that high in comparision, so the extra latency hit is well offset by the much reduced cost.
I take it voice would have priority for use of the existing europe-asian links ? When there were a number of cable cuts in middle east last year, I remember BBC mentioning that internet access to asia was much slowed due (this was significant to those companies who had outsourced a lot of stuff from europe to India). I guess this would have been more of media hype than reality ?
For instance, out of Australia we have a single, old cable going West out of Perth to Singapore (SEA-ME-WE3) which allows only low speed circuits,
Was there any thought about building cables to singapore from darwin now that it has had fibre links to the rest of australia for over a decade ?
On 15/09/2008, at 10:46 AM, Jean-François Mezei wrote:
Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:
Most Asian providers (at least Northern Asia) use USA, Atlantic path to get to Europe. The capacity going Westt isn't that high in comparision, so the extra latency hit is well offset by the much reduced cost.
I take it voice would have priority for use of the existing europe- asian links ?
Probably - voice is pretty small in the scheme of things (my estimate is less than 1% of used capacity out of Australia (used not lit)). But, from Australia to Europe the difference in latency East vs West may not make a LOT of difference to voice where 150ms-200ms one way isn't too bad.
When there were a number of cable cuts in middle east last year, I remember BBC mentioning that internet access to asia was much slowed due (this was significant to those companies who had outsourced a lot of stuff from europe to India). I guess this would have been more of media hype than reality ?
I suspect it did slow it down - I was talking more Northern Asia (China, Japan, Korea) than India. Companies who relied on purchasing, corporate links between India and Europe (for example) would probably be happy to pay the premium for low latency path direct, whereas IP transit providers want cheap, bulk capacity that the Northern Pacific routers offer.
For instance, out of Australia we have a single, old cable going West out of Perth to Singapore (SEA-ME-WE3) which allows only low speed circuits,
Was there any thought about building cables to singapore from darwin now that it has had fibre links to the rest of australia for over a decade ?
Ha! Darwin has the incumbent only. It's cheaper to go around the world than from Australia to Darwin. Perth will be the place again as there is a reasonable amount of trans- Australian capacity across the Nullabour. Although a Darwin break out from such a cable would be welcome, but the small population in the Northern Territory maybe doesn't make it viable unless a big mining /oil drilling/gas firm wants a lot of capacity. Hopefully the extension of the Singapore->Indonesia cable Matrix have/ are building to Perth will happen in 2010/11. Although, personally, I'd love to see a Perth-Chennai cable given what's going on in India. MMC -- Matthew Moyle-Croft Internode/Agile Peering and Core Networks
Jean-François Mezei wrote:
For instance, out of Australia we have a single, old cable going West out of Perth to Singapore (SEA-ME-WE3) which allows only low speed circuits,
Was there any thought about building cables to singapore from darwin now that it has had fibre links to the rest of australia for over a decade ?
There are two old cable systems heading out from Western Australia (MMC forgot JASURAUS). Darwin is a monopoly zone, only Telstra have capacity into it although others have thought about it (assuming the government stumps up some cash). The technical issue with submarine cables out of Darwin is avoiding the Timor Trench. It makes more sense for a lot of reasons to head out of Perth if you want to go west. Mark.
On 14 Sep 2008, at 19:41, Jean-François Mezei wrote:
Did western europe ever really have a primary route via the USA to reach asia ?
Yes, I think so. If I remember correctly, before FLAG started laying cables, there was no terrestrial route to Asia from Europe that didn't involve North America. Joe
Other cable systems predated FLAG (at least for voice). SEA-ME-WE predates FLAG by almost a decade. I'm sure some digging would reveal a bit more on that path either submarine or terrestrial. MMC On 15/09/2008, at 11:06 AM, Joe Abley wrote:
On 14 Sep 2008, at 19:41, Jean-François Mezei wrote:
Did western europe ever really have a primary route via the USA to reach asia ?
Yes, I think so. If I remember correctly, before FLAG started laying cables, there was no terrestrial route to Asia from Europe that didn't involve North America.
Joe
-- Matthew Moyle-Croft Internode/Agile Peering and Core Networks Level 4, 150 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia Email: mmc@internode.com.au Web: http://www.on.net Direct: +61-8-8228-2909 Mobile: +61-419-900-366 Reception: +61-8-8228-2999 Fax: +61-8-8235-6909
On 14 Sep 2008, at 23:38, Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:
Other cable systems predated FLAG (at least for voice).
The qualifier might be important. As should have been obvious from all the IIRCs and related qualifiers in my note, I wasn't in Europe at the time I started paying attention to these things. However, in other parts of the world, circuits provisioned and planned for voice traffic growth started to become effectively full as soon as there was demand for circuits much bigger than an E1. As an example, PacRimEast still had capacity in the late 90s, strictly speaking. But given the difficulty in ordering anything other than E1s on it at that time, did it really exist as a terrestrial option for New Zealand ISPs trying to send packets to the US? There was a lot of satellite transmission sold around that time on PanAmSat, IntelSat and Loral transponders, and it's not as if anybody was really using satellite out of choice. There are only so many discrete E1s you can comfortably inverse-mux together before it's really not worth bothering. The timelines are no doubt different, since Europe experienced a giant boom in Internet demand and infrastructure while smaller markets like New Zealand were still preoccupied with X.25. However, the original question was whether there had ever been a time during which Europe had no option but to cross oceans to get to Asia, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case. Perhaps someone who actually knows this stuff can throw some facts into the thread and put a stop to my wild speculation.
SEA-ME-WE predates FLAG by almost a decade. I'm sure some digging would reveal a bit more on that path either submarine or terrestrial.
The contract to build SEA-ME-WE-4 was signed in March 2004, according to their web page. SEA-ME-WE-3 was commissioned in March 2000 in India, according to Wikipedia. The Europe-Asia segment of FLAG was lit in the mid-1990s. Joe
On 15/09/2008, at 10:06 PM, Joe Abley wrote:
As an example, PacRimEast still had capacity in the late 90s, strictly speaking. But given the difficulty in ordering anything other than E1s on it at that time, did it really exist as a terrestrial option for New Zealand ISPs trying to send packets to the US? There was a lot of satellite transmission sold around that time on PanAmSat, IntelSat and Loral transponders, and it's not as if anybody was really using satellite out of choice. There are only so many discrete E1s you can comfortably inverse-mux together before it's really not worth bothering.
Satellite was mainly because it was cheaper in a world where 2mbps out of Australia to the US cost US$150k/month. Circa around 1996 Telstra Internet had 16x2Mbps to the US plus 1x2Mbps to NZ. That didn't change until Southern Cross (SCCN) arrived in 2000. (I started in the ISP industry in 1994 in Australia, so whilst some of this is now a tad fuzzy, I was at least there for this bit. My home / 24 was 16 years old last month).
The timelines are no doubt different, since Europe experienced a giant boom in Internet demand and infrastructure while smaller markets like New Zealand were still preoccupied with X.25. However, the original question was whether there had ever been a time during which Europe had no option but to cross oceans to get to Asia, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case.
I guess it depends how far back you look in telecommunications history. The 1901 telegraph network was as extensive as today's submarine networks (if not broader) (http://atlantic-cable.com/Maps/1901EasternTelegraph.jpg ). Australia had telegraphy connectivity via Singapore and the All Red Route that the British ran and controlled since around 1879.
Perhaps someone who actually knows this stuff can throw some facts into the thread and put a stop to my wild speculation.
SEA-ME-WE predates FLAG by almost a decade. I'm sure some digging would reveal a bit more on that path either submarine or terrestrial.
Before SEA-ME-WE4 and 3 there was SEA-ME-WE and SEA-ME-WE2. SEA-ME- WE had an inservice date of 1986. MMC -- Matthew Moyle-Croft Internode/Agile Peering and Core Networks Level 4, 150 Grenfell Street, Adelaide, SA 5000 Australia Email: mmc@internode.com.au Web: http://www.on.net Direct: +61-8-8228-2909 Mobile: +61-419-900-366 Reception: +61-8-8228-2999 Fax: +61-8-8235-6909
On 15/09/2008, at 10:36 PM, Joe Abley wrote:
On 14 Sep 2008, at 23:38, Matthew Moyle-Croft wrote:
Other cable systems predated FLAG (at least for voice).
The qualifier might be important.
As should have been obvious from all the IIRCs and related qualifiers in my note, I wasn't in Europe at the time I started paying attention to these things. However, in other parts of the world, circuits provisioned and planned for voice traffic growth started to become effectively full as soon as there was demand for circuits much bigger than an E1.
As an example, PacRimEast still had capacity in the late 90s, strictly speaking. But given the difficulty in ordering anything other than E1s on it at that time, did it really exist as a terrestrial option for New Zealand ISPs trying to send packets to the US?
yes, for Australia, certainly. A number of us were using E1 inverse MUX units to pull higher channel rates out of the circuits. Same thing happened a few years later with muxing up 155Mbpsd circuits.
There was a lot of satellite transmission sold around that time on PanAmSat, IntelSat and Loral transponders, and it's not as if anybody was really using satellite out of choice. There are only so many discrete E1s you can comfortably inverse-mux together before it's really not worth bothering.
heh heh - we ran out of cable capacity before we ran out of cascading inverse muxes at the time! Satellite really was a very inferior choice.
The timelines are no doubt different, since Europe experienced a giant boom in Internet demand and infrastructure while smaller markets like New Zealand were still preoccupied with X.25. However, the original question was whether there had ever been a time during which Europe had no option but to cross oceans to get to Asia, and I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case.
The original telegraph circuits in the latter half of the 19th century were largely overland, but, unless there are markets you want to intercept with in the middle, undersea tends to be a better option where you consider all aspects (territorial rights, political issues, total length, stability etc etc). There was a very informative article by Neal Stephenson in Wired some years back that was published at about the time FLAG was being constructed which still is about the best article on the submarine cable business I've read. Everyone interested in this submarine cable game except Joe should read it. The problem with the routes in that part of the word include: the Wallace line, territorial waters, shallow waters, the Luzon strait, the stability of overland segments, the size of the markets in the middle, the cost and availability of the alternatives, and the major factor that spending 100% of your investment money to optimise 80% of your traffic needs makes more sense than many other investment strategies - hence the outcome that the Pacific has become the heavily favoured route for submarine cable systems in this area of the world.
Perhaps someone who actually knows this stuff can throw some facts into the thread and put a stop to my wild speculation.
nah - more fun to watch you speculate Joe.
* Jean-François Mezei:
Did western europe ever really have a primary route via the USA to reach asia ?
It depends where you buy transit from. For instance, I see Baidu through AT&T, and the traffic is routed through the U.S. Some Singaporean banks and a few Koran government sites are routed through Level3, also via the U.S West coast. For sites in Thailand and Vietnam, the picture is a bit unclear (no visible IP hop in the U.S.). On another network, I reach Baidu through Telia, and it's still routed through the U.S. West coast. Both networks appear to see IIJ through a peering in San Jose. Anyway, at times, the more apt question would have been: Is Europe reachable from Europe without crossing the U.S.? I can't read the NYT story, but it seems highly unlikely to me that risk of eavesdropping on behalf of democratically elected governments is a factor in public Internet routing decisions.
Fiber opic capacity from to Europe to Asia via the African cost has always been quite slim by TransAtlantic standards. As I recollect, you have FLAG, SWM3, and SWM4. Those systems can push multi-terabits. Capacity is not fundamentally the problem, but rather the lack of competition. Also you need a vibrantly competitive local loop market in these countries to drive undersea capacity demand. You don't have that yet, although it is emerging in countries like India. Regards, Roderick S. Beck Director of European Sales Hibernia Atlantic
Hi Francois, The answer is yes. The cost of reaching Asian via the US was and is still much lower than via the cables that hug the Africain cost. And since Europe had a lot of traffic terminating in the US, it made more sense to throw it all that way than split into two major routes. Finally, a lot of European traffic is handed off to Asian backbones at the US West Coast peering points. There is no need to carry all the way to Asian since the Asian carriers have a huge presense at PAIX and other West Coast sites. Regards, Roderick S. Beck Director of European Sales Hibernia Atlantic 13-15, rue Sedaine, 75011 Paris http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com Wireless: 1-212-444-8829. 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.
Jean-François Mezei wrote:
Did western europe ever really have a primary route via the USA to reach asia ? (I realise that during the cable cuts in middle east last year, traffic might have been rerouted via USA but this would be a temporary situation).
Yes. And the main issue is not technical, but economic and disorganisation question. For example, we need an Internet connectivity in Kazakhstan. The path through TAE (www.taeint.net) or FLAG-Iran-Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan costs about $6000 per 1Mbit, and lot of nervous. Path through China-USA is said about $100-$400 per 1Mbps and easy to get comparing with first two ones.. Yes, Europe-Asia satellites is a good way too, and it can give less latency than Europe-USA-Asia in some cases. A lot of traffic to Asia and Middle East is going this way. But satellite is expensive, and there is even lack of capacity there. So Fiber around the world is cheaper in most cases. -- WBR, Max Tulyev (MT6561-RIPE, 2:463/253@FIDO)
participants (14)
-
Alexander Harrowell -
Florian Weimer -
Geoff Huston -
Hank Nussbacher -
Jamie A Lawrence -
Jean-François Mezei -
Jim Mercer -
Joe Abley -
Mark Prior -
Matthew Moyle-Croft -
Max Tulyev -
Murtaza -
Rod Beck -
Rubens Kuhl Jr.