On Fri, Mar 07, 2008 at 10:22:32AM -0800, matthew zeier wrote:

Looking for anyone who has experience deploying a network in China. I'm getting 1500RMB/Mbps with a 10Mbps commit that I'm already bumping up against.

Moving to 20Mbps is going to drop me to 1200RMB/Mbps or about $3400 USD a month which seems excessive compared to my US pricing (or even what I'm seeing in Amsterdam).

Are these prices what others see? Where can I get better pricing?

It's been a year or so since I did anything in China, but that sounds like about right. Political factors in China are a major factor in pricing, but there's also the fact that across most of SE Asia and Oceania transit is expensive. The central control of most/all network infrastructure over there adds a lot of cost and inefficiency, and (although it's not a pleasant sentiment) I'm pretty sure there's an element of "fleece the foreigner" in the pricing. I'm told (very unofficially) that wholly-Chinese owned companies can get significant bandwidth discounts, but I don't have any numbers there. If you're deploying in China without significant experience there I'm assuming you're doing it to capture the local market rather than to serve an international audience, so you could try explaining that your traffic is all country-internal (won't hit the really expensive international links) to get a discount. It didn't work for us, but you might have better luck. <grin> - Matt -- The hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain, involved in many kinds of motivation, among other functions. The hypothalamus controls the "Four F's": 1. fighting; 2. fleeing; 3. feeding; and 4. mating. -- Psychology professor in neuropsychology intro course