topological closeness....

Thu May 16 14:03:10 UTC 1996

Hello,

	IMHO, in the context of the AP region, I guess we are overlooking the 
	user perspective - locally available "Internet" content. Barring
	.au, .sg, .kr, .hk (?), .jp and .tw, I do not see any major effort
	around to provide locally, content that is available in the US
	be it the GNU archive, the WU archive or one-of-those Beatles
	song and lyrics archive - result - good amount of traffic to the
	US. (The AP region has only 4 archie servers !) When one sees 
	such traffic trends, why would an ISP even think in terms of 
	investing in a link to a place other than the US - the cost 
	permitting ? 

	I have been attempting to convince ERNET to invest in a link
	each to NL/GB and SG/JP since we have a significant amount of
	traffic to these places. I have even tried to present the idea
	that IN is strategically placed in the context of linking the
	Southern AP region to Europe/US which could mean good gatewaying
	business - NO GO ! Each time we have a meeting, there's a raging
	war on this point, but, bring out the top 25 hosts contacted and
	the related traffic percentages and the consensus is to add more
	bandwidth on the link to the US !

	If on the one hand the tariffs and the telecom policies do not
	provide for a good intra-AP connectivity, there is this "content
	availability" that's adding to the "US-centricity" (not that
	most of the Internet tools aren't ... ;-) ). So ... could we
	do anything at all ?

	It may not be possible to persuade governments to change their
	policies as fast as we would like them to change. 

	My gut feel is that the tariffs permitting, making content available
	locally will hold the key to bandwidth investments and the choice
	of the upstream ISP.

--Gopi Garge

Enzo Michelangeli sez:

> On Thu, 16 May 1996, Geoff Huston wrote:

> > Paul,
> > 
> > You can be a vocal as you desire, but ultimately from this part of the
> > globe the dominant factor in any ISP business is the cost of the
> > International Private Lease. This lease cost is approximately 10 times
> > the cost of domestic infrastructure.
> > 
> > Now when you construct an IPL in a competitive environment where do
> > you terminate it? Generally you are loking for an optimal mix of price
> > and functionality. The observation for the AP region today is that the
> > cheapest IPL half circuits for the AP region terminate in the
> > US. Hence Randy's observation. The internal infrastructure within the
> > AP region happens in a second pass, once the primary objective of
> > major connectivity is achieved internal infrastructure can be cost
> > effective if there is internal traffic flow to match.
> > 
> > About the only thing that could hasten regional infrastructure is a
> > drastic revision of the trading practices and expectation of return on
> > investment by the undersea cable investors. Exchange points have
> > little impact per se as they are, in economic terms, a minor aspect of
> > the entire equation.

> Exactly. And all the regional governments should realize that the best way
> of shifting traffic from North America to their region is de-regulating
> the international telecommunications market, scrapping monopolies and
> increasing competition among carriers. That will result much more
> effective than policy-making and verbal "declarations of independence". 

> Enzo

-- 