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
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
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,
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,