Internet Traffic Begins to Bypass the U.S.

Jim Mercer jim at reptiles.org
Mon Sep 15 06:13:45 UTC 2008


On Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 06:11:28AM +0530, Murtaza wrote:
> Nothing if the reason isn't to avoid the US to prevent interception.  ie.
>  my point was the people are doing this for engineering reasons not
> political ones as was implied by that article.
> 
> I don't see it sinister even if someone wants to avoid US due to
> interception. But, yes I agree people are doing for engineering reasons.
> But, it still is impossible in many asses, as ISPs in many countries are
> still not cooperating with each other.

speaking from the middle east, i have been advising my clients against
co-location/hosting in the US due to potential political issues.

the current US policy of "detain first, question later" has the potential for
serious customer relations issues, should one of the TLAs become interested
in your data.

oddly enough, the ISP's in the region have not caught on to the potential
winfall of providing cost effective hosting locally, so therefore, the bulk
of the hosting for companies in the region is primarily done in the US, then
in EU, then, maybe locally.

if you drive down Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, and check where the hosting is
for 90% of the URL's on the billboards (even those with .ae domains), you will
find that they follow the above pattern.

a primary example is that of du.ae, one of the only two incumbent/dual-opoly
providers for the UAE, hosts its own website and customer portal in Canada,
even though it has a perfectly fine data center (if not more than one) in Dubai.

UAE/Dubai is a major landing point for many asian/indian ocean fibers, but
there is no equivilent of One Wilshire/60 Hudson/etc.

so, as the data finds more and better direct routes to the end user, reducing
the need to route through the US, there is still a penchant for hosting the
primary data there.

-- 
Jim Mercer        jim at reptiles.org        +971 55 410-5633
"I'm Prime Minister of Canada, I live here and I'm going to take a leak."
   - Lester Pearson in 1967, during a meeting between himself and
    President Lyndon Johnson, whose Secret Service detail had taken over
    Pearson's cottage retreat.  At one point, a Johnson guard asked
    Pearson, "Who are you and where are you going?"




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