Re: Creating exchanges [Was: Re: MAE-East - 30%]
Hong Kong looks slightly promising except for the slight problem of next summer. Singapore is probably a no-go because of how anal the government is there; all we need is an AP CIX with a host government enforced AUP that says "no dirty gifs, no politicallly unacceptable speech, etc".
Of course it remains to be seen what will happen in HK next July, 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) However, I had huge problems running an ISP in HK. The telco pricing has always been such that it is scads less expensive to connect back to the US than to another country, even another country just a few miles away. I keep watching the pricing and goings-on to see if/when there will be a reasonable pricing decrease on bandwidth to Asia, but haven't seen anything yet. 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. While in HK a week ago, I was trying to set up a 128K line for a small organization there. The cost is in the US$4k range -- I was afraid to tell those guys what I pay for a 128K bri line here in the US. 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...) If someone has more recent or more optimistic info, please let me know! davec
From: Dave Curado <dcurado@neteng.nis.newscorp.com> However, I had huge problems running an ISP in HK. The telco pricing has always been such that it is scads less expensive to connect back to the US than to another country, even another country just a few miles away. I keep watching the pricing and goings-on to see if/when there will be a reasonable pricing decrease on bandwidth to Asia, but haven't seen anything yet. Oh well, mark HK off the list... 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. While in HK a week ago, I was trying to set up a 128K line for a small organization there. The cost is in the US$4k range -- I was afraid to tell those guys what I pay for a 128K bri line here in the US. I'll forward this to some people I know. Probably nothing will happen but who knows? 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...) Well, Hawaii is closer... :-/ ---Rob
Robert E. Seastrom wrote:
From: Dave Curado <dcurado@neteng.nis.newscorp.com>
However, I had huge problems running an ISP in HK. The telco pricing has always been such that it is scads less expensive to connect back to the US than to another country, even another country just a few miles away. I keep watching the pricing and goings-on to see if/when there will be a reasonable pricing decrease on bandwidth to Asia, but haven't seen anything yet.
Oh well, mark HK off the list...
Pls don't. :) In fact, the situation is the same in almost all countries within Asia/Pacific.
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...)
Well, Hawaii is closer... :-/
But frankly, there is no incentive to connect to Hawaii or Guam unless an AP-CIX has really been set up there with significant number of major participants. A chicken & egg problem!? 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
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
participants (3)
-
Che-Hoo Cheng -
Dave Curado -
Robert E. Seastrom