North American Network Operators Group

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Re: AP IX locations

  • From: keichii
  • Date: Thu Sep 26 14:34:45 2002

From: "Neil J. McRae" <[email protected]>
> I'm looking to improve my connectivity into the AP region, in
> a cost effective [i.e. for as little as possible :-)]. I have
> ruled out buying transit as it doesn't help the issue that I'm
> trying to resolve, so I was wondering if there was a location/IXP
> in the AP region that would enable me to interconnect with
> as many AP carriers as possible.

Above.net and AT&T are your best bets for operations based in the Americas.
Above has a .jp IX/colo that is almost "the" best connected place in AP.
ATT and Above.net provide almost 80 to 90% of the bandwidth from
the Americas to AP.

If you want other choices:
1. Singapore Telecom or Pacfici.net.sg
2. Hinet.net of Taiwan, somewhat notorious for bad tech support. (but then
is there
   a "good" telco? :) )
3. Telstra of .AU

Do NOT, I repeat, do not go to a .cn or .hk provider.  I cannot
emphasize how strongly I recommend against that.  .CN, well, bans things
and generally the engineering level is not that great.  .HK has some
political
issues, IMHO.  If your customers are based in .CN, however, you would have
to.
China's "Great (Fire)Wall" (don't laugh, it's the government project name)
blocks anything they deem harmful to national security.  As a result,
anybody connecting in and out of .cn is slow, but their internal
infrastructure is
very good.  So you serve .cn customers by establishing a colo mirror or
something
with China Telecom.

Depending on where your customers are located the most, Taiwan, Japan, and
Singapore
are the best choices.

Other people on the list have mentioned that connecting to MAE-West and PAIX
would
be good enough.  However, I must point out the latency in serving AP-local
customers can be variable, and the trans-pacific fibres have been cut 4 or 5
times
in the last year.  (Each cut requires a day or so to repair.)

Michael