Satellite Internet Exchange Point facility: - Nayasat

naBody">exchange traffic on a barter basis, rather than on a
A study conducted by “Thecash basis—net neutrality being the key. Such
Economist” magazine, showed a strongarrangements bypass ITU protocol, regarding revenue
correlation between the price of a “Bigsharing and allow net lower cost to all the ISP
Mac” in a country and it’s cost ofparticipants.
living. The cost of living—rent, consumer goods,The exchange point essentially allows the
food, entertainment is usually significantly higher in theISP’s to segment the traffic, according to the
US than in the developing world (and so is the price ofdestination and by pass the tier-1 providers. Results are
a “Big Mac”). However, “Bigdramatically lower cost and lower latency.
Mac” indexes notwithstanding, the price ofThe entrenched incumbents in developing countries
Internet bandwidth in the third world is off the charts.(such as Pakistan) have the most to lose from
As a point of comparison, a 1 Mbit/sec ADSL costsdomestic exchange of traffic and are the biggest
about 20 dollar for a home user in the US, and aboutimpediments to the adoption. The governments of
800 dollars in Pakistan. Needless to say, there is asuch countries also have a vested interest in
strong need for a reduction in cost and improvementsupporting the monopoly of Telecom companies, given
of quality of service.the revenues and taxes received. The larger
The issue with the developing countries is the lack ofISP’s also have a vested interest in using high
infrastructure. Our case study of Pakistan showed thatcost of connectivity to hasten the exit of smaller or
all of Pakistan has only one backbone fiber line,less capitalized players through attrition.
resulting in bottlenecks. The lack of redundancy has itsIn conclusion, to reap advantage of Internet exchange
costs—in July 2005 the fiber wire got severedpoints, the telecom companies have to overcome their
resulting in massive outages. The back up satellitemonopolistic ways and there has to be an effort to
connection was hardly a solace to the burgeoning ITmake a neutral body responsible for the traffic sharing
industry of Pakistan.facilities. The lower cost of internet will actually foster
A significant percentage of traffic in Pakistan isoverall growth in overall traffic, which will compensate
domestic, but it’s routed through servers in thethe monopolies’ initial loss of international
US and Europe. A trace route from one Pakistan ISPtraffic.
to another yields a shocking pattern—packetsDid you find this article useful? For more useful tips and
traveling from Pakistan to UK, US, Singapore and backhints, points to ponder and keep in mind, techniques,
to Pakistan. The situation is exacerbated in the case ofand insights pertaining to Internet Business, do please
fiber failures, when the traffic gets routed over multiplebrowse for more information at our websites.
satellite hops. The latency is about 700 millisecondsReport this article
hop(or about 1.5 seconds for every transaction). ThisThis article is free for republishing
not only adds latency, needlessly raising costs butSource:
chokes the connection slowing down genuine PakistanRepublish this article
to international traffic.
Internet Exchange Point is a facility to allow theAsk a Question About this Article
exchange of traffic between multiple ISP’s. In>> Is it safe to buy on Ebay?
general the ISP’s have to pay to the tier-1>> How do I follow a Link? (The sender wants
providers or the governing body(say Pakistan Telecomvalidation of my Email address). In order to register at
Authority) for the carriage of traffic. Even if the traffica Website.
is local, without the Exchange Point, the traffic is routed>> Babysitter is the Television.
over the international Internet.>> AIM not working, any ideas why?
The peering arrangement allows local ISPs to