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The Relative Cost of Bandwidth Around the World
- slagfart 12y agoJust as a note, Cloudflare is not alone in struggling with this. I'm very surprised that the status quo has been maintained for so long. I suggest that Cloudflare should look under the process of transit becoming 'Declared', within the Australian Trade Practices Act. More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_and_Consumer_Act_2010#Part_IIIA:_Access_to_Services http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_and_Consumer_Act_20...
- msrpotus 12y agoWhy is peering so much lower in the US? Is that a business strategy on the part of ISPs?
- xeroxmalf 12y agoFrom the article: "In North America, while there are Internet exchanges, they are typically run by for-profit companies." ... "In North America the combination of relatively cheap transit, and relatively expensive exchanges lowers the value of joining an exchange. With less networks joining exchanges, there are fewer opportunities for networks to easily peer."
- theandrewbailey 12y agoLet me get this straight: North America has several for-profit companies that operate continental-wide networks, because building them is cheap, but they peer with each other less often than in Europe. The situation isn't ideal, but it makes the internet "backbone" market competitive, so it works out. Side note: the situation is very different when talking about last mile ISPs in North America.
- adventured 12y agoI always find it interesting that the business network in the US is often ignored. It's quite stellar on a combination of quality and price. I think it's an inconvenient data point for people that only like to bash the US telecommunications situation.
- exelius 12y agoWhich is why you never see it on HN.
- curiouscats 12y agoPeople tend to complain about problems and ignore things that are fine. While a desire to avoid pointing out any positive of a situation that drives them crazy frequently may be part of the reason it isn't mentioned I think it pales in comparison to just forgetting about whatever isn't a problem.
- thejosh 12y agoHoly crap Australia is expensive. Thanks Telstra, this is why Blizzard and other companies won't come here.
- yotelstra 12y agoblizzard is actually peered in sydney ;) http://monitor.nsw.ix.asn.au/cacti/graph.php?local_graph_id=455&rra_id=all http://monitor.nsw.ix.asn.au/cacti/graph.php?local_graph_id=...
- heywire 12y agoInteresting set of graphs available through that site. Is the same type of information available for US peering?
- kuschku 12y agoNo, the US exchanges don't provide any public data at all, this is also why they can't be listed in the Wikipedia Table for "Internet Exchange Nodes by throughput". If you can find some data though, I'd encourage you to add the data to the table :)
- voltagex_ 12y agoOther Australian states are on http://ix.asn.au/peering.html http://ix.asn.au/peering.html
- voltagex_ 12y agoI didn't know that existed - does anyone else in Australia provide those graphs?
- gregd 12y agoIf I remember my timeframes correctly, it wasn't until last year (2013) that Cloudfront finally got a node in Australia. As much as I like to complain about Comcast here in the States, my Aussie friends may have it worse.
- valarauca1 12y agoThe TL;DR of the article. >If Australians wonder why Internet and many other services are more expensive in their country than anywhere else in the world they need only look to Telstra (Note: ~50% of all internet is from Telstra in Australia). >What's interesting is that Telstra maintains their high pricing even if only delivering traffic inside the country. >Given that Australia is one large land mass with relatively concentrated population centers, it's difficult to justify the pricing based on anything other than Telstra's market power. >In regions like North America where there is increasing consolidation of networks, Australia's experience with Telstra provides a cautionary tale.
- idlewords 12y agoThis seems to be a common failure mode in Australia. Grocery prices follow the same pattern—food is extraordinarily expensive, which you assume might have to do with the country's remoteness until you notice that local foods are just as overpriced. Mangoes grow by the side of the road in Queensland, but sell for $3.50 at the supermarket. The root problem is duopoly (in the case of grocery stores) or monopoly (Telstra).
- pkaye 12y agoIs it expensive relative to your income?
- valarauca1 12y agoNo. Australia is more expense then the USA when it comes to everything. Rent, grocery, internet, etc. Australian consumers also have on average less buying power then American citizens. [1] The medium household income for both countries is nearly identical. $30,932 (USA) vs $30,077 (AUS) ~2.76% [2] So income is ~3% higher in America, but rent is ~46% more expensive in Australia (Groceries are 32.5%). I would say its based on factors other then average income. [1] Numbeo.com [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
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- Sami_Lehtinen 12y agoI think there are a few huge gaps. Russia, they got as many people as Japan. And another even larger hole is Africa, there's well over one billion people in Africa. Compared to ridiculous 22 million in Australia, that's a lot more. And in India, there's even more people than there is in Africa. Roughly US, Europe and Australia combined got same population as India or Africa which is in same ball park with China.
- eastdakota 12y agoAgree there are other regions left out (Africa, India, Russia and China are the biggies). We don't operate in a scaled up way in any of those yet. That's changing and, as we have data for other regions, we'll look into revisiting this topic.
- guard-of-terra 12y agoIn Russia it should be more like Europe with peering (MSK-IX) and not terribly expensive connectivity. However this might change because of political instability (or "stability" if you call it that). UPD: If they consider Europe to have population of 750 they surely include Russia and other ex-USSR in the mix.
- mlvljr 12y agoIn Russia, 2 Mbit / 512 Kbit ADSL costs me about $8 per month; they keep suggesting I make a free switch to a 15 (or 30 or 60, have not checked the actual speeds yet) Mbit cable connection, but I am unsure if I do want to pay extra $3 :) Given the (free) D-Link 2300 running a 2500 firmware is really showing its age sometimes now (after 6 or 7 years of non-stop work), it may be indeed time to switch (not that I need anything more than 5 Mbit downlink, I think though). This is a state provider, there are many private ones around, and their prices (usually for a 50-100 Mbit downlink via usual Ethernet cable) are $10-20 per month (comparable, that is), if I remember correctly. The ADSL quality has always been good, btw (esp. given I wired the modem to telephone cables probably 30-40 years old :) ) -- decent pings, stable speed, was down only once or twice (in all the years).
- mlvljr 12y ago
- chatmasta 12y agoGood article, but frustrating they picked some arbitrary $10/mbps as their baseline instead of a more accurate number.
- Someone1234 12y agoCan you explain what you mean? Why is $10/Mbps inaccurate? Aren't both $1 and 1 Mbps known fixed quantities we can use to calculate other figures (e.g. $100/Mbps, etc).
- corin_ 12y agoBecause it's a made-up number. > "We don't disclose exactly what we pay for transit, but I can give you a relative sense of regional differences." They are literally pulling 10 out of the air and saying "IF it cost 10 in the US, what would it cost in other regions comparatively"
- tarblog 12y agoDo you know what a more accurate number would be? I'm curious...
- eastdakota 12y agoIt really depends on your scale. When we first launched CloudFlare 4 years ago we were paying around $20/Mbps as a blended average in North America, Europe, and Japan. We pay much, much less now both because we've grown a bit and because the price of transit has continued to trend down.
- samcrawford 12y agoWe pay $1.50 per Mbit with a commit of 200Mbps in NY, LA and Miami. This is for 'premium' blended transit (e.g. Specifically excludes Cogent and HE)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mrmondo 12y agoAustralian here: can confirm Telstra as one of the most 'evil' companies I've dealt with and it's very clear to those of us in the Australian IT sector that they're holding us back.
- abdelm 12y agoI'm not sure why Africa and the Middle East specifically aren't really mentioned in that article since the prices would be on par with Australia if not more, also due to having only 1 or 2 ISPs and no competition.
- eastdakota 12y agoBecause we don't operate in those regions yet and therefore don't have data for them.
- squeaky-clean 12y agoBecause CloudFlare doesn't have any data centers there. https://www.cloudflare.com/network-map https://www.cloudflare.com/network-map
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ajcarpy2005 12y agoWould it be feasible to have a global federation that played referee to negotiations between citizens and ISP's on pricing for Internet access?
- santaclaus 12y agoNo mention of New Zealand. New Zealand is an amazing country, but goddamn, they have some pricey internet access. Wasn't Kim Dotcom planning to finance a new pipe to New Zealand at one point?
- jpollock 12y agoMy experience is that Internet connections are price competitive with the US (and perhaps cheaper). You can get 100/50 with 80GB of traffic for NZ$110/month, which is US$91.64. You can go full unlimited at USD$115. Amazingly, this is the same price as Comcast Extreme 105 which is only 105/20. One thing to understand about the NZ market. Since carriers charge per byte, I was generally able to get full speed out of my links during prime time - barring TCP RTT throttling.
- guard-of-terra 12y ago"Running undersea cabling is more expensive than running fiber optic cable across land" I always imagined that the opposite would be true.
- wnevets 12y agoshark proofing is expensive
- aroch 12y agoI would imagine its because the continued and unexpected maintenance of things at the bottom of the ocean is much harder
- dyladan 12y agoWhile sharks biting internet cables may be funnier, more often ship anchors and natural disasters cause cables to break.
- caf 12y agoOn land there is a seemingly unlimited supply of idiots with backhoes, though.
- pchristensen 12y agoMother Earth, Motherboard, the best 50 page story about the business and technology of undersea cables: http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
- jessaustin 12y agoIn regions like North America where there is increasing consolidation of networks, Australia's experience with Telstra provides a cautionary tale. But, but, the market is magic! Regulation is evil. Does not compute!?!!
- jacques_chester 12y agoAustralia didn't start with a free market in telecommunications and the aftermath of a botched privatisation means that we're left with a distinctly dysfunctional market as a consequence.
- jessaustin 12y agoThe USA might have had a free market at one time, but we haven't since 1934, so memories are hazy. The uptick in competition post-1996, which has steadily rolled back for some time now, was mostly a gimmick to funnel investment into the Daughters Bell. TFA is spot-on that concentration is bad for consumers, and our slow roll-back from even the paltry market diversity we once had for data connection bodes ill for us. I heartily apologize to all who were disconcerted by my caricature of the useful idiots who "believe in a free market in telecommunications", as the most recent email I received from my corrupt Senator put it.
- sp332 12y agoWow, North America came out on top of an Internet comparison for once?
- kalleboo 12y agoNo, Europe had more free peering so had a lower effective cost.
- Smerity 12y agoFor those who don't know the story about the Australian internet industry, Telstra plays a pivotal and depressingly stupid role. Telstra was a government monopoly in the past and owned + owns almost all the copper network in Australia. From 1997, Telstra was progressively privatized without separating the telecommunications business (phones) with the telecommunications infrastructure (cables). This was an idiotic idea. There were some regulations that forced the infrastructure to be offered wholesale to competitors but they're still the gateway that the majority of the population get onto the internet. It's also problematic as Telstra are doing worse and worse at maintaining the copper network that is relied upon. If you are an ISP using their network, you need to go through their maintenance fees to improve the line quality for any of your customers. The cost of wholesaling through the Telstra network is also fairly high. Regardless, we've got reasonable competition at the ADSL/ADSL2+ level thanks to this. Forward to the National Broadband Network (NBN), the government plan to connect the majority of Australian homes to fiber to the node (FTTP). Telstra submit the equivalent of a joke tender for the project -- 12 pages connecting only ~90% of the population when the tender requests 98% -- and then suffer their biggest one day stock fall in history when it's rejected. Construction of the NBN rolls on without them, promising to replace the copper network with a fiber network that will be the new telecommunications infrastructure used by the majority of ISPs. However... a new government came to power in Australia. One of their election falsehoods was that FTTP was too expensive and too slow and instead a ridiculous hodge podge (sorry: "hybrid") network of failing technologies would be preferred. Instead of building a complete FTTP network for $73 billion, they're instead going to spend $41 billion on a hybrid network that will need to be replaced only five years after completion according to the chairman of the NBN[1]. This hybrid network relies on the old copper network owned by Telstra. Telstra have previously stated that it is ready to die and will have billions of dollars of maintenance issues. This is also only a very brief discussion of the ridiculousness. tldr; Telstra played an important role in screwing up the previous generation of Australia's internet. Telstra is continuing to play an important role in screwing up the current generation. [1]: http://www.zdnet.com/its-time-for-turnbull-to-swallow-his-nbn-pride-7000024263/ http://www.zdnet.com/its-time-for-turnbull-to-swallow-his-nb...
- r00fus 12y agoWith the recent leaks about News Corp's finances [1] showing massive revenue loss due to internet news, and their known corruption of the political system, I wonder what ties exist between NewsCorp and Telstra? [1] http://www.businessinsider.com.au/leaked-documents-reveal-the-scale-of-revenue-losses-at-news-corp-last-year-2014-8 http://www.businessinsider.com.au/leaked-documents-reveal-th...
- kondro 12y agoI'm confused. AAPT, Optus, PipeNetworks, etc all offer transit at significantly lower prices than this for anything I've been quoted with (circa $20-30/Mbps for 100Mbps+). Is this just because they're offering blended traffic?
- jacques_chester 12y ago50% of the traffic they send in Australia terminates in Telstra-controlled networks and Telstra don't offer peering.
- kondro 12y agoWas talking about transit offered by Australian providers.
- wmf 12y agoThe article inflates the price of transit by a factor of 10.
- kondro 12y agoBut Telstra really does charge $200+/Mbps for transit.
- jfim 12y agoIt's a synthetic number. From the article: "We don't disclose exactly what we pay for transit, but I can give you a relative sense of regional differences. To start, let's assume as a benchmark in North America you'd pay a blended average across all the transit providers of $10/Mbps (megabit per second per month). In reality, we pay less than that, but it can serve as a benchmark, and keep the numbers round as we compare regions."
- Swannie 12y agoNote that CloudFlare never states that they use Telstra for transit, nor what the blended cost would be for transit with the other transit providers, so this is actually, somewhat misrepresenting Australia.
- triggercut 12y agoAt my place of work our 50:50 Unlimited (not Telstra) is in the low to mid four figures a month. For a company with offices worldwide, we have by far the most expensive and have the worst performing connection to our regional datacenter. The standard response from any supplier is to blame Telstra. Recently I was porting some ISDN phone lines from an old provider to a new SIP provider. Not only did the two need to arrange and agree the porting with each other, but Telstra needed to work on both of their behalf to facilitate the port. One number took 3 months.
- parisidau 12y agoTelstra seems to disagree: https://twitter.com/Telstra_news/status/504435708098908160 https://twitter.com/Telstra_news/status/504435708098908160
- ksec 12y agoThey say they’re overstating our charges by a factor of ten. Of coz Cloudflare already state those number are ratio only. I am not sure if Telstra were taking those into account.
- eastdakota 12y agoThey're correct that at scale the dollar pricing listed is at least 10x too high in Australia. What they fail to acknowledge is that it's also 10x too high in every other region described. So the conclusion remains the same, Australia is 20x more expensive than Europe for no reason other than Telstra's market power.
- photorized 12y agoIs this the thread where everyone is sharing how much they are paying? All of my companies are bootstrapped (and bandwidth is the largest expense item), so some of the rates quoted got me excited. It sounds like there are a lot of knowledgeable folks here (on the buy side), would you mind sharing some info? I typically buy between 2..5 Gbps per POP in the US and Europe. What's the best rate I should be able to get, you think? Tend to buy L3 or premium blend (no Cogent or HE). Any insights would be appreciated.