1. The Trans-Asian Terrestrial
Broadband Link
Abu Saeed Khan
Senior Policy Fellow
LIRNEasia
@ Workshop on Broadband Policy and
implementation in South Africa
Pretoria – November 12, 2013

2. Great shift has happened
Greater shift is happening
•PSTN took 125 years to get 1 billion users
•It took mobile 10 years to get 1st billion
•More than 5 billion mobile users
•Redefining digital divide:
Mobility and ubiquity of voice and text
Ubiquity of broadband is yet to happen

3. Asia and Pacific lags behind
(Graphs: ITU World Telecommunication /ICT Indicators database)
• APAC is economic growth
engine of the world.
• Altogether more than $16
trillion economies.
• Home of more than 60%
global population.

4. The Cloud Readiness Index 2012
Cushman & Wakefield
Source: Asia Cloud Computing Association

5. Cushman & Wakefield Data Center Risk Index - 2013
60%
35%
5%

6. Cushman & Wakefield Data Center Risk Index - 2013
60%
35%
5%

7. Median 10 GigE IP Transit Prices
in Major Global Cities, Q2 2010-Q2 2013
“While prices have declined globally, significant geographic differences persist. For
example, the median Hong Kong 10 GigE price has remained 3 to 5 times the price of
a GigE port in London over the past 3 years. Developing Asian nations procure
wholesale Internet bandwidth mostly from Singapore and Hong Kong at price 11times that of Europe.” - TeleGeography.

8. The Great Asian Divide
(Source: TeleGeography)
Median IP transit prices/Mbps, Gigabit Ethernet, Q2 2010-Q2 2013
2010
2011
2012
2013
2012-13 CAGR 10-13
Hong Kong
$28.00
$22.00
$16.00
$16.49
3%
-16%
Seoul
$49.16
$37.00
$25.00
$20.00
-20%
-26%
Singapore
$39.00
$31.00
$14.40
$13.51
-6%
-30%
Taipei
$43.50
$39.33
$25.00
$21.34
-15%
-21%
Tokyo
$31.76
$30.01
$20.00
$18.00
-10%
-17%
Jakarta
$50.00
$26.00
$25.50
$20.00
-22%
-26%
Kuala Lumpur
$57.00
$45.03
$31.08
$26.85
-14%
-22%
$156.23
$132.97
$60.00
$49.98
-17%
-32%
$38.09
$40.00
$38.00
$38.00
0%
0%
East Asia and China
SE Asia and India
Manila
Mumbai

9. Bandwidth and affordability
divide in ASEAN-9
Country
Activated
Int'l
wholesale
bandwidth
capacity in
2012
Int'l
Int'l
Retail
wholesale bandwidth
price per
bandwidth per capita
Mbps
price/Mbps
(Kbps)
Annual retail
bandwidth
Fixed
Mobile
price as a % broadband
penetration
of per capita penetration
GDP
Cambodia
11 Gbps
$80
0.764
$35
48.70%
0.45%
152.78%
Indonesia
250 Gbps
$70
1.030
$20
5.50%
1.24%
119.44%
Lao PDR
2.5 Gbps
$100
0.383
$33
27.40%
0.61%
88.92%
Malaysia
400 Gbps
$25
15.60
$33
4.40%
7.79%
137.49%
Myanmar
14 Gbps
$100
0.286
$55
132.80%
0.10%
11.12%
Philippines
530 Gbps
$80
5.450
$24
11.20%
1.51%
104.87%
1,389 Gbps
$10
258.30
$4
0.10%
25.49%
149.90%
Thailand
463 Gbps
$80
6.622
$2
0.50%
6.16%
114.42%
Vietnam
360 Gbps
$70
5.150
$10
7.90%
4.88%
152.06%
Singapore
Source: Michael Ruddy, Terabit Consulting, September, 2013.

10. Why bandwidth is expensive in Asia?
Good competition
•Terrestrial & submarine
Fierce competition
•Coast-coast terrestrial
Broadband’s
biggest barrier
Poor competition
All submarine

11. Trans-Pacific (Asia-USA) cables are under fire

12. Pirates rule Europe-Asia route
“In 2011 Somali piracy cost the world economy $7
billion and earned the pirates some $160 million
in ransoms, according to a recent report by the
International Maritime Bureau. Piracy is receding
of late, but it is still a threat.”
Reuters: August 13, 2012.

13. Business (not) as usual
NAIROBI, April 16,
2009 (Reuters)Foreign navies have
agreed to protect a
vessel installing an
undersea high-speed
Internet cable from
pirates off the coast
of Somalia.

14. ME-Europe gets terrestrial
Jeddah-Amman-DamascusIstanbul (JADI)
Regional Cable Network (RCN)
Bypass Egypt
Dodge the pirates

15. Europe Persia
Express Gateway
Iran and Oman also detour
“EPEG is now the Internet’s fastest path between the Gulf and
Europe, shaving at least ten percent off the best submarine cable
round trip time from Dubai to Frankfurt.” Jim Cowie, Renesys. 26
Sep, 2013.
APAC to Europe via Middle East?

16. 1) 2008: Reliance and China Mobile terrestrial link.
2) 2009: Tata and China Mobile terrestrial link.
3) 2010: Bharti and China Mobile terrestrial link.

17. China goes to Europe via Russia

18. Why rush to Europe?
•
•
•
•
Middle East’s internet connectivity with Europe has sharply grown from 51% to 85%
during 2003~2013.
Less than 6% of South Asian capacity was connected to Europe in 2003 while it is over
46% today.
Europe now accounts for 94% of international Internet bandwidth connected to North
Africa, up from 61% ten years ago
72% of bandwidth connected to Sub-Saharan Africa, up from 39% a decade ago.

19. State-owned PTT
Closed access


20. Asian Highway has connected:
Russia, India, China, Turkey, Central Asia, SAARC, ASEAN+2
A network of 141,000 km of standardized roadways
crisscrossing 32 Asian countries connecting EU.

21. Longest International Open-access Network (LION)
to link Asia and Europe
Asian Highway has already linked the borders.
A fully meshed terrestrial LION is waiting.

22. Each country’s share in Asian Highway

23. Targets of LION: Open-access
1) Diversity and Redundancy to all submarine cables linking Asia with
Europe and the USA via Japan through a Terrestrial Consortium.
2) Migrate SEA-ME-WE (3 & 4) from offshore to on-shore.
 Also let all private carriers to migrate.
3) No regulatory disruption. Only the licensed carriers will access
LION.

24. Advantages of LION
• Presumed ‘unfriendly’ countries are already interlinked.
– Submarine : SEA-ME-WE 3 and SEA-ME-WE 4.
– Terrestrial: Sino-Russian link (TEA) and Sino-Indian link (Reliance/Tata/Bharti
+ China Mobile).
• Highly resilient due to being meshed.
– Rerouting the traffic means ‘zero’ downtime.
– Installation and maintenance crew/materials available everywhere.
• Creates more opportunities for submarine cables.
– Investments in transpacific rather than intra-Asia.
– Lower latency and higher SLA at lesser cost for intl’ bandwidth.
Open access guaranteed

25. Impacts of LION
• Internet in Asia will be similar to or cheaper than the EU.
– Mobile broadband (HSPA/LTE) will grow like 2G voice.
• Smart devices and Wi-Fi offload will accelerate the data growth.
– Investments in broadband will increase.
– There will be higher ROI in FTTx.
• More international and domestic PoPs/access nodes will emerge.
 Landlocked countries will have bandwidth at equal cost.
 Sub-regional telecoms initiatives have not delivered that.
 Pacific islands will enjoy reduced bandwidth cost in the mainland.
• International Gateway (IGW) reforms will be accelerated.
– Usage of submarine cables’ purchased capacity will be maximized.
– Carriers will commit longer contracts.
National broadband backbones
will require lesser subsidies.

26. Courtesy: Ciena
Submarine networks = Terrestrial networks

27. Courtesy: Ciena

28. So called alternate networks

29. • Regional Expert Consultation on Connecting AsiaPacific’s Digital Society for Building Resilience.
• 5-6 September 2012, Colombo, Sri Lanka
• Building E-Resilience through ICTs and Space
Technology.
• 20-21 November 2012, Bangkok, Thailand
• Expert Consultation on the Asian Information
Superhighway and Regional Connectivity.
• 24-25 September 2013, Manila, Philippines
Next: Expert Consultation on the Asian information
superhighway and regional connectivity, 3-4 December
2013, Baku, Azerbaijan.