I'm curious as to how the internet works exactly, I've gained a fair understanding on the setup from my modem all the way to the ISPs server/routers but want to know how it works going internationally.
I'd like to know which companies our (smaller) ISPs purchase international capacity from. I know the Southern Cross cable is our link to the rest of the world and large ISPs like Telecom purchase directly from them; I believe there are also resellers of Southern Cross' bandwidth who sell to ISPs and large businesses. I have heard the name AsiaNet but know nothing about them and am not even sure who/what they are... I think Global Gateway are Telecom's reseller but I'm not really sure what they do either...
Is there a list of New Zealand bandwidth resellers and what does Southern Cross charge for, say, a 100Mbit/s international uplink per month?
I'm also curious as to how the international peering works. By supplying fibre optic cable from NZ to the USA (to global peering points?) how does Southern Cross allow us to communicate to other users across the globe? What kind of agreements allow us to communicate to Germany at the same speed as Japan for example? All of these countries must be in a similar situation to us and I'd imagine there must be a fair amount of politics involved no matter how valuable broadband is as a resource.
Many thanks to any who can shed some light or even point me to some further reading. I am not having much luck with Google on this topic.