We got plenty of positive responses in our last email regarding China’s slow transnational network. Many are suggesting it is likely influenced by commercial decisions instead of censorship. It seems like the three Chinese ISPs don’t really have enough peering internationally in Asia, and they have very strong bargaining power when it comes to peering.
Some suggest the cost of moving data to China is way lower if an ISP peers with US/European ISPs than directly with the Chinese ISPs. We assume the reason why those US/European ISPs offer cheaper prices is that they have settlement-free peering with Chinese ISPs. However, the “free-tier” capacity is simply not enough to handle the demand – the US/European ISPs now have way more traffic going into China, thus saturating the link and causing congestion.
Cogent Communications(AS174)
NTT Communications (America)(AS2914)
Level3(AS3356)
Tata Communications(America) Inc (AS6453)
Verizon Business/UUnet(AS701)
Zayo Bandwidth(AS6461)
AT&T Services, Inc.(AS7018)
GTT Communications Inc.(AS3257)
Comcast Cable Communications, LLC(AS7922)
It would be much appreciated if the operators of any such networks can give chime in. Thanks!
No one suggested it isn’t censorship, you’re bating here. Not deploying enough international capacity is absolutely a form or censorship deployed to great avail - if international sites load too slow, you can skimp on GF appliances!
Sorry we didn’t know this is out of scope. What do you mean by baiting questions? We are not very familiar with the peer protocol, so we don’t know what questions can be discussed here or not. We are researches, we just want to dig more to the cause of the slowdown that we observed. And we thought those questions are okay to ask here, which are not. But we don’t want bait anyone.
Sorry about the lack of knowledge of what can be discussed here.
Sorry we didn’t know this is out of scope. What do you mean by baiting questions?
This is an operator list. Not an opened research discussion. Take it off the list.
We are not very familiar with the peer protocol,
Then pay an expert to teach you.
so we don’t know what questions can be discussed here or not. We are researches, we just want to dig more to the cause of the slowdown that we observed.
You know it is the GFW. Pointing to other places is baiting. If you want to know how China Telecom does business ask them. Not us. If you want to say it is not the GFW, then write a paper about it. Dont send emails here.
And we thought those questions are okay to ask here, which are not. But we don’t want bait anyone.
It is not. Stop.
Sorry about the lack of knowledge of what can be discussed here.
Watch what others are talking about and add to it. Nobody else here is doing conversations like you.
In fact, some replies suggested it’s more commercial actions. We said it’s “likely influenced by commercial decisions”, we didn’t say censorship is out of the question. We still think censorship is the possible cause, but we run out of methods to verify it, that’s why we switched to commercial actions to try our luck. If commercial actions don’t seem to cause the slowdown, then it would be definitely censorship.
Most of the performance hit is because of commercial actions, not censorship.
When there is a tri-opoly, with no opportunity of competition, its easily possible to set prices which are very different than market conditions. This is what is happening here.
Prices are set artificially high, so their interconnection partners wont purchase enough capacity. additionally, the three don’t purchase enough to cover demand for their own network. Results in congestion.
– comment
what also doesn’t help is that the Chinese carriers don’t want to peer in Asia, not even with globally transit-free tier-1 networks. Their closest point of interconnection is typically in Europe or the US, so thousands of miles away from the end user.
– Anonymous comment
you’re bating here.
Once again we are confused by the accusation. We don’t want to bait anyone for anything.
Not deploying enough international capacity is absolutely a form or censorship deployed to great avail
Yes we agree it is also a form of censorship. However, it is based on the assumption that China didn’t deploy enough international capacity, which we don’t have direct proof of it. On the contrary, from the stable performance of the traffic going out of China, it is very likely the assumption is not true. They might have enough physical capacity, but they don’t make good use of it.
I do understand that you mean well, but do realize that interconnection between the rest of the world and the networks controlled by the Chinese government is a very, very sensitive and often touchy subject. It’s also generally true that networks aren’t going to disclose terms of commercial relationships on a public mailing list. ( By and large those terms aren’t likely to be disclosed privately either. )
So.. who was being "censored" when a recent game release caused capacity
problems and slow throughput for others?
Censorship, *by definition*, is content-dependent. Capacity issues are either
byte-count or packet-count dependent, and don't distinguish between pictures of
huge rubber duckies in Tiananmen square, and pictures of Mount Kilimanjaro.
If your goal is to force companies the world over to host domestically, where they follow local licensing regimes (yes, including censorship, as well as data access), it’s highly effective. Even better, it makes users fail to identify the difference between “google is down because it is blocked” and “google is slow, because western websites are always slow and too annoying to bother loading”. You also missed my other note that slower links means you don’t have to spend as much on GF appliances, cause there’s less traffic to filter!
There's a distinction between "setting up conducive conditions" and "doing".
Both may be morally problematic, but they're different things. Consider the US
example of certain US companies who got caught giving the NSA a fiber
connection at certain "interesting" points in the network - the legal exposure
for the companies and for the intelligence agency were totally different. It's
why our legal system recognizes the difference between committing a felony and
being an accessory to the crime.
We have *enough* trouble with people yelling "Censorship!" when Facebook
or Quora or other social media sites owned by private actors enforce AUPs.
Let's not let the word get further muddied into uselessness like "terrorism"
has been over the last 2 decades.
)