Creating exchanges [Was: Re: MAE-East - 30%]

Sat Oct 12 16:50:21 UTC 1996

   From: "Miguel A.L. Paraz" <map at iphil.net>

   Robert E. Seastrom wrote:

   > If things have changed since then I'd be interestied to know; as it 
   > greatly affects whether Guam is a "logical" place to put an AP-CIX. 

   How about the ISPs in Guam, and the University of Guam?

and the telco on Guam and the X.25 carrier, and any private lines that
run in there.  Sure.  There _is_ _some_ bandwidth broken out on the
island.  Enough to make it a reasonable place for an AP CIX?  My
recollection is "no".

   > 'Course, if everyone who joins decides to run a full OC12 or OC48 
   > or whatever they run on a single strand of glass in one of those 
   > cables to the island, there wouldn't be any need for grooming out 
   > bandwidth out there?

   Well, if they would split it out later for connections to an exchange
   point.  Kinda ironic that the cable has to "split" out just for the
   purpose of "mixing" all the signals together.  

Well, that's live in the TDM muxing world...  :)

   I think this Guam-based NAP would make an interesting project, especially
   for people like us who need it.  :)

   Or, if the Guam folks decide they need a lot of bandwidth, they'll have it.

Oh, I think it would make an "interesting" project, all right.  Let's
just say that having dealt with telcos and internal telco politics,
the notion of trying to convince one or more of the carriers that they
should install muxing gear there is probably an 18 month to two year
project.  And God help you if they find out it's to support greater
connectivity for "that internet thing".  Stuff like Vocaltech has
gotten them terrified anyway; you can hardly expect them to cooperate
in international high bandwidth internet connections if by simply
doing nothing they put the brakes on the growth of this "thing", that
they do not understand but is by their perception threatening to eat
their lunch.

Telco Disease -- Just Say No.

And no, I don't have a better idea, except to examine tariffs and
figure out where it is relatively cheap to run circuits in the pac rim
-- you might be surprised that due to local influences like monopoly
telcos, the pricing structure has little to do with bandwidth x distance.

Hong Kong looks slightly promising except for the slight problem of
next summer.  Singapore is probably a no-go because of how anal the
government is there; all we need is an AP CIX with a host government
enforced AUP that says "no dirty gifs, no politicallly unacceptable
speech, etc".

Look at the cable maps again and figure out who has enough bandwidth
to support our needs and then...  start calling for pricing.  Don't
forget to get pricing for both halves of the circuit.  :)

                                        ---Rob