The Cost of Paid Peering with Chinese ISPs

Wed Apr 1 20:59:37 UTC 2020

I do understand that you mean well, but do realize that interconnection
between the rest of the world and the networks controlled by the Chinese
government is a very, very sensitive and often touchy subject.  It's also
generally true that networks aren't going to disclose terms of commercial
relationships on a public mailing list. ( By and large those terms aren't
likely to be disclosed privately either.  :) )

On Wed, Apr 1, 2020 at 3:28 PM Pengxiong Zhu <pzhu011 at ucr.edu> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> We got plenty of positive responses in our last email regarding China's
> slow transnational network. Many are suggesting it is likely influenced by
> commercial decisions instead of censorship. It seems like the three Chinese
> ISPs don't really have enough peering internationally in Asia, and they
> have very strong bargaining power when it comes to peering.
>
> Some suggest the cost of moving data to China is way lower if an ISP peers
> with US/European ISPs than directly with the Chinese ISPs. We assume the
> reason why those US/European ISPs offer cheaper prices is that they have
> settlement-free peering with Chinese ISPs. However, the "free-tier"
> capacity is simply not enough to handle the demand -- the US/European ISPs
> now have way more traffic going into China, thus saturating the link and
> causing congestion.
>
> So we are wondering, do the Tier-1 US/European ISPs really have
> settlement-free peering with Chinese ISPs? If we want to do paid peering
> directly with the Chinese ISPs or purchase the full/partial transit, what
> is the price range?
>
> From the BGP information, we know some of the peers of AS4134 (the biggest
> one) are:
> - Telia Carrier(AS1299)
> - Cogent Communications(AS174)
> - NTT Communications (America)(AS2914)
> - Level3(AS3356)
> - Tata Communications(America) Inc (AS6453)
> - Verizon Business/UUnet(AS701)
> - Zayo Bandwidth(AS6461)
> - AT&T Services, Inc.(AS7018)
> - GTT Communications Inc.(AS3257)
> - Comcast Cable Communications, LLC(AS7922)
>
> It would be much appreciated if the operators of any such networks can
> give chime in. Thanks!
>
> Regards,
> Pengxiong Zhu
> Department of Computer Science and Engineering
> University of California, Riverside
>
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