Carrier Options in Hong Kong

Mailman List Mirror (Read Only)
1

Nanog,

Currently my organization uses PCCW which we pay through the nose for and I’m looking to cut them. This was put in place before me. I was informed that PCCW is “the carrier” in Hong Kong but based on my analysis I’m not sure that’s the case. My analysis of carriers such as Lumen and Cogent put them on par with PCCW. Pings to random IPs in HK are reasonable fast on all of them, same with pings to cloud providers. Access to mainland is not a hard requirement but just to check they all had 300+ ms latency to known IPs in Shanghai and Tanjin.

I know some regions such as Korea or Dubai are monopolized where the wrong carrier takes you on a far away path to get a few blocks down the street.

I don’t need anything special, just general DIA and good access to eyeballs and internet. I just wanted to see people’s opinions here as APAC connectivity can be tricky.

  • Nanoguser99
2

I am in no way an expert in APAC but all of the IP carriers I have in NA are present in HK: Cogent, Tata, Telia, Zayo.

My guess is a good portion of the interconnections with other IP carriers, CDNs and such will be either in Singapore or Tokyo.

3

Colt is a good option if you’re seeking wavelengths. For transit we use a mix of the other carriers, pccw included but we go through the wholesale side and not hkt which is the domestic arm of pccw and they are ridiculously expensive.

4

Looking glass pings from Lumen to my gear behind PCCW = 1ms, immediate handoff. Looking glass pings from Lumen → Google (216.239.38.120), immediate handoff. Some CDNs\cloud are 30 ms away, like you said Tokyo or Singapore.

My main concern is the eyeball networks. Is PCCW the main carrier for the eyeball networks there or do they all peer in country for the most part.

5

PCCW / HKT are the main networks for eyeball HKT ASs feed into AS3491 which is the international arm, PCCW global if you will.

6

Eric, none of the carriers you mention in HK has local connection, other HK ISPs will route to US if they don’t peer with you.

Currently we are using NTT and Telstra, which has good connectivity in Asia except mainland China.

7

PCCW can be very competitive…… if you can find the right people and have the volume. They are a lot easier to deal with (vs Telstra/NTT)

8

I think the biggest difference between what the IP transit providers have described is that PCCW is also a major middle-mile and last-mile provider in Hong Kong. You’ll find their 100Mbps to gigabit class end user service in apartments, condos and office buildings throughout the city.

The non-HK based transit providers that would be in a top-40 CAIDA ASRANK size are generally not operators of last mile connectivity within the city.

9

Raymond,

Thanks for the response. Would you say then any ‘major proivder’ is fine for HK? Based on my tests w\ Lumen everything seems fine. I’ll check the other ASNs. My posts are not making it to the list. I’ve done the following tests. The only ‘bad one’ was net-navigator.

10

Eric Dugas,

I’m not seeing that, seems llike they do peer locally. These tests are Lumen but cogent was similar. I believe they peer locally with the Cogents\Lumens of the world. Looking at BGP.he.net AS9444 I found some HKT IPs and pinged from the Lumen looking glass

11

Telstra Global (4637) are solid all around APAC