Re: Creating exchanges

[Barry Raveendran Greene <barry () singnet com sg>]

Hello All,

This topic of Guam as an IX has come up many times in the past. Frankly, if it made since, it would have already 
happened. The #1 factor for an IX location in the Asia Pacific is the business case. Geographic topology does play a 
factor, but 1/2 circuit lease line prices are the major determinant if people will come to an IX. 

Guam's problem is that people have to pay the full circuit cost to get to Guam. These circuit costs are roughly 10X the 
cost of circuits in the US. In addition, pricing of the circuits are NOT distance sensitive. So for most of the region, 
the full circuit costs to Guam will be more expensive than a circuit to the US.

One engineer/colleague working for a large US Internet backbone did work through the business case of placing a major 
hub in Guam for his Internet, FR, and X.25 traffic. He had the advantage of knowing what 'military' resources he can 
draw from (i.e. Typhoon hardened FM facilities) case he use to work for the Air Force in the region. The results was 
that the business case did not make since. Using Japan, HK, Singapore, and Australia as redundant hubs made better 
since. And that is what happened when they upgraded their backbone.

Robert Mathews-ICICX wrote:

> > 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.

Japan and Singapore does look good because of the cable interconnects and the satellite foot prints. AIH/Abone (Japan - 
http://www.aih.net) and STIX/SIB (Singapore - http://www.stix.net) are two successes of international IXs - through 
both are commercial IXs - not neutral. Yet, each of them are working.

Personally, after working this issue for 3 1/2 years, international neutral IXs will not work in Asia Pacific. National 
IXs are fantastic and work wonders. Commercial IXs are there to compete with the big US backbones in the region.

Barry






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Barry Raveendran Greene             |       ||        ||        |
Senior Consulting Engineering       |       ||        ||        |
Singapore                           |      ||||      ||||       |
tel: +65 738-5535 ext 235           |  ..:||||||:..:||||||:..   |
e-mail: bgreene () cisco com           |  c i s c o S y s t e m s  |

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