Interconnection: Costs,
Complexity, Policies
Why Peering in Asia Sucks !
Gaurab Raj Upadhaya
gaurab@llnw.com
Disclaimer
• Everything in these slides is my own opinion.
Interconnection Markets
• Internet interconnections are concentrated in
few hubs around the world
– US West Coast (Silicon Valley, Los Angeles)
– US East coast (New York, Ashburn)
– London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Stockholm
– Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo
Interconnection Markets
• It takes time and lots of efforts to create a
viable interconnect market.
– Singapore is a very recent entrant into this ‘hub’
status.
• It doesn’t always work at scale for everyone
– Local relevance may sometimes be more value
• Moscow, Miami, Prague, Budapest
• Open and easy access are the key drivers
– Why are Rio / Mumbai / Dubai not real hubs yet?
Let’s Dig Deeper into the Asian Hubs
• Singapore
– A hub for a lot of other things – transport, banking, logistics due
to ease of doing business
– Equinix SG1 IX (287 networks according to peeringdb)
• Hong Kong
– Similar to Singapore, traditional hub for logistics
– Voice Interconnect hub, so carrier density
– HKIX (297 networks according to peeringdb)
• Tokyo
– The traditional jumping point to the ‘Internet’ in the US
– Japan is one of the largest Internet markets (users, content,
everything)
– JPIX (184 ), JPNAP (150)
Greg’s Cable Map : www.cablemap.info
But
Layer 1 infrastructure doesn’t translate
into Layer 3 Interconnect
Because of
Cost
Complexity
Policies
Cost of Backhaul – NA/Europe
• Intra Europe 10G terrestrial wave Costs
– 800-1200 USD for 10G between major points
– 1000-1500 USD for extended locations
– Bucharest to London is ~2500KMs, costs below
2500 USD, or roughly 0.0001/mbps-km.
• Intra-US 10G wave costs are similar (actually a
bit higher)
– US distances are longer
– Large expanse of empty lands
Cost of Backhaul in APAC
• Intra Asia is mostly Sub sea, costs are
traditionally higher, but going down drastically
– Intra Asian Hub prices range from 12-20K/Month,
depending on locations
– Cost of local loop are a key driver, but with POP to
POP design changes, the local loop is not a big
consideration for many providers.
• Where it does, the cost of CLS to POP backhaul is a big
problem
Cost of terrestrial Backhaul
– North Asia
• Japan: Tokyo – Osaka : 10G ~-5-8K/month
• Korea: Seoul – Busan : 10G ~ 12K/month
– South Asia
• India : Delhi-Mumbai: 10G ~50-60K a month
• Bangladesh : Dhaka-Cox’ 10G – 25K/month
• Nepal : Kathmandu-Pokhara 10G: - 10K/month
– South East Asia
• Malaysia: Kualalumpur – Johor: 30K/month
• Thailand: Bangkok – Phuket: 10G ~25-30K/month
*Philippines, Indonesia are mostly subsea. Different costs
Asian Transport Pricing
10 Gbps Wavelength Price Multiple over London-New York
Let’s look deeper
• CLS to POP costs
– Tuas/ Changi – SG1 : 5-8K/month
– Chikura/Maryuama - Otemachi : 5-8K/month
– Hongkong : 4K/month premium for anywhere
outside Mega-I.
– Korea: it cost more for local backhaul from the CLS to POP, then the
wet segment from Tokyo
– India : Regulated Access charge ($4/mbps ?)
So,
• It is EXPENSIVE to get to peering locations
– Transit may be cheaper
– Going to LA is likely cheaper
• Operators keep costs artificially high
– In Metro Areas
– Offer IP Transit over the same transport, which is
cheaper (vs. buying the transport).
• Complexity keeps the costs high
– SDH
– Weak Fiber Infrastructure (i.e, needing 3 routes to
build full redundancy).
Complexity & costs are related
• In Tokyo metro area, metro 10G between certain
Datacenters are available as low as $350.
– Same transport from other providers range upto 5K/month
• Aggregation for other services are not optimal for data.
– One major Indian mobile carrier aggregates into 3
locations, and those are not close to data gateways.
– Network designed based around regulatory boundaries,
and voice optimization
• Just easier to buy transit in 3 locations then try to aggregate and
build peering.
• It adds the costs, makes engineering changes difficult.
It’s not just the cost or complexity
• Most Markets are closed except for HK
– HKIX had an early start, and is popular even with the
high local transport cost
• (imagine HKIX without transport cost.. without M-I)..
– But then you have Dark Fiber in HK being limited to NWaves
• Domestic Peering fabric are closed user groups or
non existent
– Korea, Japan, Vietnam, India have closed environment
– In most other it’s likely non-existent
Can it be improved
• Singapore has nearly done it, so yes.. Can be
done
• Things may move faster in JP, HK, SG then in
other locations.
• But something more disruptive needed
– Dark Fiber availability or metro waves availability
– Metro area IXPs ? (in SG and HK)
Acknowledgement
• Telegeography
• Donald Clark
• Raphael Ho