Creating exchanges

Fri Oct 11 21:27:54 UTC 1996

> 	Hawaii does have lots of fiber.  Monetary costs for circuits between
> Guam and Hawaii are not ignorable.  Also, back-haul all the way to Hawaii for
> an intra-Asia interconnect causes a significant increase in latency when
> compared with a Guam-based interconnect.  (No, I've never been to Guam and
> I don't own any land or fiber there :-)

My Big Map o' Fiber(*) shows the HAW-5 cable going from L.A.-ish
(probably San Diego?) to Hawaii, and then continuing on to Guam and
then Japan as TPC-5. The Pacrimeast cable leaves Hawaii bound for
Wellington, NZ, and the Pacrimwest cable leaves Guam bound for
Sydney/Canberra. Tasman-2 then connects Sydney/Canberra with
Wellington. Both Pacrim cables and Tasman-2 are a LOT skinnier on the
map than TPC-5 or HAW-5.

Why does it have to be an either-or? Topologically, it looks like both
Hawaii and Guam would both make sensible exchange points. For the west
side of the Pacific Rim, though, Guam is looking pretty good from a
U.S territory perspective.

>From an infrastructure perspective, though, Japan looks hard to beat.
The pipes to Singapore/Jakarta/Australia, Guam/Hawaii/L.A.-ish, and
somewhere in Oregon (?) all meet there. Ignoring regulations, tariff
issues, etc., of course.

Stephen

(*) Telecommunications Map of the World, produced by The Petroleum
Economist, Ltd., London, and Telegeography, Inc., Washington D.C., in
associated with Ing Barings. Truly a stunning map, and it comes with a
thousand pages of paragraphs with circles and arrows explaining what
it is.