Why does New Zealand's new Fibre cable need to come offshore in the US?

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ripdog

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#1128085 13-Sep-2014 21:39

TIL there are actually people alive today who deny mass surveillance is happening. And they all work for vodafone. Well, that's a glowing endorsement if I've ever seen one.

Of course, there's no need for the cable to go to the US to be intercepted, NZ is part of five eyes.

MikeB4

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#1128088 13-Sep-2014 21:49

ripdog: TIL there are actually people alive today who deny mass surveillance is happening. And they all work for vodafone. Well, that's a glowing endorsement if I've ever seen one.

Of course, there's no need for the cable to go to the US to be intercepted, NZ is part of five eyes.

All of them?

ripdog

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#1128089 13-Sep-2014 21:50

KiwiNZ:
ripdog: TIL there are actually people alive today who deny mass surveillance is happening. And they all work for vodafone. Well, that's a glowing endorsement if I've ever seen one.

Of course, there's no need for the cable to go to the US to be intercepted, NZ is part of five eyes.

All of them?

This is a joke, right?

oxnsox

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#1128168 14-Sep-2014 07:24

Mass surveillance is nothing new
Now days there's just better ways of handling the data
And perhaps more importantly, there's more folk outside the government collecting and massaging meta data

Mr FlyBuys just pays you for the information, and you pay your Telco to gift it to them

Now plug in that new cable full of more confusion

eracode

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#1128192 14-Sep-2014 09:32

The SSID on our home WLAN used to show 'CIA Surveillance' - so they must be around here somewhere.

(It's now showing '[Street Name] Massage and Escorts WiFi' - I'm not sure if that's more wholesome.)

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

raytaylor

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#1133064 21-Sep-2014 10:34

So back to the original question

The cable needs to go to either Australia or the USA because that is where our content comes from.

Places like japan and hong kong see huge speeds because they have high speed last mile networks like fibre to the home in dense urban areas.
And because they dont speak english as a first language, most of their content comes from servers hosted within their own country. If you were to do a speed test going outside some of these countries, it isnt very fast.

If an ISP were to purchase capacity on a cable that went to Japan, they would need to also purchase capacity to another cable going to the USA to get to the content
Your argument that european countries would be faster accessible is true, but australia has connections to the SeMeWe cable that connects Europe<>australia<>Japan and a bunch of other countries along the way.
So going to japan to get to say the UK is slower than going to australia across southern cross, hawaiki or the proposed Tasman Global Access cable, then the APX-Central, then on to SeMeWe direct to europe.

It is common for an ISP to purchase the bulk of their capacity to Australia and the USA and then smaller amounts of capacity to other parts of the world

A few milliseconds of delay can slow down your downloads - slightly. But over thousands of customers, thats alot of speed lost, and extra cost to the ISP.

A cable operator makes money by selling capacity to ISP's and Telcos or corporations who purchase capacity in the cable. No ISP would want to purchase capacity to Japan then pay extra to another cable operator to connect from Japan to the USA. So an NZ<>Japan cable would not be able to make money to pay for its build cost before it becomes old technology and beyond its service life in 20 years time.

You can see a map of submarine cables here
http://www.submarinecablemap.com/

Ray Taylor

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quickymart

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#1133072 21-Sep-2014 11:24

Interesting post (and map), thanks Ray.

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superman

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#1138466 26-Sep-2014 20:45

Lol really, one would have to be functionally retarded to pull the tinfoil hat argument as far as surveillance is concerned, in the face of incorrigible evidence, this coming from someone who despises conspiracy theories in general.

raytaylor

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#1138475 26-Sep-2014 20:54

superman: Lol really, one would have to be functionally retarded to pull the tinfoil hat argument as far as surveillance is concerned, in the face of incorrigible evidence, this coming from someone who despises conspiracy theories in general.

It is widely believed that the US Navy has a ship that can lift a cable from the ocean floor. Inside the hull of the ship, they break open the cable and place a slight bend in the fibres. They can then "listen in" on the traffic as it traverses the fibre.

I too dont like nutjob conspiracy theorist hippies but there is more info on the subject here
http://www.zdnet.com/news/spy-agency-taps-into-undersea-cable/115877

And an older similar project - the recording devices were put in a museum by the soviets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells

Ray Taylor

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bbqroast

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#1150767 9-Oct-2014 14:44

Simple: content.

The US and the EU are the world centers for content. Japan is not. China has some pretty major server farms, but odd intl transit pricing means that there's a noticeable divide in Chinese/Non-Chinese internet (international sites very slow in China, Chinese sites quite slow internationally). As a western country nearly all of our content is hosted in the US, or cached in NZ/AUS.

Japan has good last mile infrastructure, but most of the content comes from the states or the EU. Having looked at pricing across Japan & the rest of Asia server co-location is very expensive compared to the US, which explains why.

Japan has a decent transit network around it, but it's not great for us. The US hosts most of the content and has very good links to the EU. Japan on the other hand hosts little content, has good connections into the rest of Asia - which also hosts little relevant content, it does have connections into the EU and the US but they're expensive. Japan might have a slight edge in latency for EU connections, but a route via Japan certainly wouldn't help US latency.

Finally, cost. Internet transit in Japan costs about $2.60/mbps/month into the US, international transit in the US costs about 80c/mbps/mo (NZ sits at about $20/mbps/mo). If you went into the market with the aim of reducing transit pricing in NZ to say, $10/mbps/mo you're going to end up paying 34% of your revenue to terminate connections in Japan ($2.60+80c = $3.40/mbps/mo), compared to the US' 8% that's pretty bad. In fact the US wins out even more - as landing a cable involves building connections to major DCs - which, in the US, will allow you to peer directly with a lot of content.

webwat

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#1162136 25-Oct-2014 19:45

Some of the other landings might eventually get their own links to Singapore or HK, but can't see the point of running a calbe to Japan. A few years ago an earthquake near Taiwan knocked out most of the cables connecting USA to China, so ISPs had to use some very congested routes through Japan. I don't think Japan's links to USA now would be any less congested (or expensive).

On the up side, you would probably get less mass surveillance going through USA than through China. There is also a new cable being built from Perth to Singapore, which could reduce the amount of traffic going via USA.

Time to find a new industry!

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