A Peering Strategy for the Pacific Islands

Telco2 Limited

A Peering Strategy for the Pacific Islands

Telco2 Limited

This research continued and expanded a set of Internet measurements of latency to Pacific Island telecommunications providers from various locations around the world, established with funding from ISIF and the University of Oregon’s Network Startup Resource Center. When evaluated in conjunction with submarine cable availability, the measurements can be used to determine a metric for efficiency of transit that can be considered along with the economic impact of having efficient transit. Critically these measurements, which have been to date accessed on an ad-hoc basis to support research, will be made available to the general public in real-time via a web interface. Guam is a good example of costly inefficiencies in Pacific islands telecommunications. The small island receives nearly a million Japanese tourists each year, many of whom are advanced Internet users who participate in websites and social media networks specific to Japan. The lowest cost and best possible latency path between Tokyo and Guam is 31 milliseconds, achievable via routes on two different submarine cables, available from three cable landing stations. Despite low cost traffic and great performance on available cables, latency measurements show that almost all Guam-Tokyo traffic routes via the West Coast of the US. Samoa’s major trading partner in terms of goods and tourism is New Zealand. Nearly as many Samoans live in Australia and New Zealand as live in Samoa. Development organisations have funded construction of a new submarine cable to terminate in Fiji, where it will interconnect with the Southern Cross Cable that connects the US to Australia and New Zealand. One Samoan operator has already announced they will be purchasing capacity directly from Samoa to Los Angeles, bypassing Fiji and the rest of the South Pacific. The operator made the decision thinking it would be the only way for their users to get good performance to Facebook and YouTube, unaware they could have access to these networks via Sydney. The result of their decision, should they carry through with it, was degraded performance for the majority of their users engaging in real-time communications like Skype and Facebook Calling, without any upside such as significant cost savings or better social media performance. Helping operators, regulators, and funders understand the physical routing of network traffic, availability of content, and benefits of peering lead to shorter network paths and denser interconnections between carriers. These outcomes helped to improve the availability, reachability and security of the Internet in the Asia Pacific region.

Share this article