I was just curious who is the likely ally in the IP world for a hermit state like North Korea which most of the west are much against. Out of which the Americans are the most vocal.
To my surprise.....
It is the Americans!!! Well, the Chinese are expected being their closet ally and supporter.
Looks like the Americans are doing business with the devil (or the Axis of Evil).
There are a few ranking ranking sites out there for IP. Which is more credible and which is not especially for those who needs to evaluate upstreams. Each claim to have their own algorithm (some are secret) to rank each upstream so it may not be easy to dispute if they are right or wrong. Perhaps we shall go by the industry knowledge about their connectivity especially in Asia.
Let's start with Netconfig.
One AS that stood out is AT&T. They have already left the wholesale market and are not longer active in that space. I am not sure if they even have any more customers connected in Asia at all. Yet they are still ranked number 2. In US, I am sure as they are still the incumbent there. However, for those connecting to AT&T in Asia, I believe you will find alot of routes missing and have to go all the way to US and back. And what is Rostelecom doing up there? They are not even a Tier 1 and probably only have presence in Europe?
For SingTel (an Asian carrier), you should get quite good connectivity in Asia but then it is also not a Tier 1 and have little POPs in US and Europe.
Let's define Tier 1. There are a few different interpretations out there but the universally accepted ones is one that doesn't buy transit from anyone.
Next is Fixed and Orbit.
This also doesn't seem right. AT&T is still there and Hurricane electric (HE) who is also not a Tier 1. They are also not that successful in Asia. Sprint is also not longer active in this space. And what's Swisscom doing up there?
Next will be Caida.
Ok, this looks more like it. Those top few are really very active in the market place and winning quite a fair bit of customers so they deserved to be up there. However, for level 3 (AS3356), the connectivity is only in US and Europe as they do not have any POPs in Asia. They have under AS3549 (ex-Global Crossing) which they acquired quite recently but it is still a separate AS number.
Sparkle (AS6762) may be abit high up there as most European ISPs will not consider them a strong contender in those markets. One reason could be because they are cable owner in SMW3/SMW4 and will be stronger in the South Asia market due to this factor.
Lastly, the Renesys. Sorry, you can't see this as it is a paid access (it's not cheap).
This is rather similar to Caida site. It does carefully track the customers acquisitions or even losses by each of the upstream. The reason is the number of prefix is one of the measurement. Whenever an upstream announces new prefix, that means their routing table has increased in size. This matters as it shows the amount of routes you have. Take for example Level 3 (ranked #1), it has about 288k IPv4 prefixes (according to Caida) whereas SingTel (ranked #28) has 29k.
No dispute for Level 3 in US. They are the undisputed number 1. However, under their Europe and Asia backbone ranking, Level 3 is also number 1. There is some problem here though as in Europe, TeliaNet (TeliaSonera) AS1299 should be number 1 as they have the most number of ISP connected (~90%). In Asia, Level 3 (AS3356) do not even have a POP in Asia and they are still separate from AS3549 (ex-Global Crossing). You will be in trouble if you connect to them for Asia routes. All routes from Asia will still have to go back to US and back. The other issue is of course the cost. It is quite expensive to buy an access to Renesys as it is not free. It is probably the most accurate of them all but the only paid service around. Well, good services and product comes at a price. That's how this world works generally.
Google and facebook topped most sites in Asia according to Alexa. These includes Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia Philippines, India and Taiwan. Well, almost everywhere in the world except China and Russian. In China, they have their own Baidu, QQ, etc. Google is only ranked number 5.
In Russian, the facebook equivalent is Vkontakte (no 2) and their Google equivalent is Yandex (no 1).
Google peers with most major carrier in each country and they have been very successful with that. Going to Youtube used to be a painful experience in terms of speed but that has been improved tremendously due to the extensive local peering. That's something that Facebook should be learning too. To top most countries in the world is no easy feat. One must admit that these guys really knows what they are doing.
What is really happening with Intelliquent? You don't need to be a financial analyst to know that something is not quite right with this company lately. The share price has fallen from $15 to $2 in just a few short months. Year to date, it has lost some 70-80% of its market value. Read from the news that many of its senior management (C-levels) has been let go. This is a fertile hunting ground for its staff whom should be very keen to leave. Not bad for a company that rose from more than 13 position (Global Backbone) in the renesys ranking 3 years ago (under the Tinet brand) to number 5 now to date .
Ncell, a TeliaSonera company, has been so successful in the few short years (about 6 years) since it bought Mero Nepal that it prompted the Nepal Telecom Authority (NTA) to issue a 3rd GSM license. Reason given is the incumbent, Nepal Telecom (NT), is unable to compete with Ncell anymore. Ncell has exceed 6 million subscribers base a few months ago. Rarely do you see an incumbent so beaten up by the newcomer. If this keeps going, not sure what will become of NT. However, NT still has its strength as it still remain the only one that owns the most cables in the cities.
Looking at the topology of Nepal gives you an idea the kind of the challenges they faced. It is a landlocked country sharing borders with China and India so there's no subsea cables. The only way to get out would be India and China. The only choice from India so far should be Bharti Airtel, Tata or Reliance. As for China, perhaps only China Telecom. China Unicom may not even be anywhere near Nepal. Both countries are not exactly that open when it comes to Telecommunications. This will make internet and voice traffic rather expensive as the infrastructure going in and out of the country is still prohibitively expensive.
Regardless, Ncell has overtaken NT in Apr 2012 as the Number 1 in Nepal. Ncell is also the largest foreign investment in Nepal and has become one of the more admired and coolest company to work for. By the way, they say you can even check your email at the Mount Everest base camp. Of course, only with Ncell.
Great job Ncell!!
