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Any interest in cheap HK without Direct China route?
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Any interest in cheap HK without Direct China route?

randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

I think most people already know that HK (and the rest of Asia actually) is pretty expensive when it comes to bandwidth. But that's mainly because of China Telecom charging $120+ /Mbit on even 1Gbit commitments. If you pay less than $120 and get Direct China routing from another provider, it is almost a certainty that it's oversold big time!

Asia region bandwidth is generally more expensive compared to say, North America or Europe.

So what if you strip out all the high cost routes that make Asia so expensive? Would there be any interest if prices were competitive with North America / Europe?

For example, what do you all think about the following:

Location: HK
Hardware: Xeon E3-1230v5, 64GB RAM, 2x4TB HDD
Network: 1Gbit Port | 10TB Data Transfer
IPs: /29 (4 usable for the server + 1 for IPMI)

Monthly Fee: US$200

This is NOT an offer, but I calculated such a server at such a price should be possible in Hong Kong, and I believe should be consider competitive by US/EU standards.

The question is, would it be appealing at all?

Comments

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    Just to clarify, this would be based on using the following carriers/network providers/internet exchanges.

    HE.net / Cogent / HKIX

    So routing within HK and anyone who peers with HKIX should be good! USA/EU/SG/JP and several other Asia ISPs should also be good. But China will route via USA and so will many other countries in Asia, so they will see relatively high latency.

  • rm_rm_ IPv6 Advocate, Veteran
    edited April 2016

    Just reading the thread subject "cheap HK without Direct China route" and assuming a LET-priced VPS, this might have a buyer or two here on LET, however a frigging TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR DEDI very much doesn't.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    rm_ said: TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR DEDI

    This isn't an offer. Besides, $200 for that kind of spec seems quite reasonable regardless of location.

    LET rules I believe would allow only up-to $49 /month for a dedicated server. I don't see the an E3-v5 with 64GB RAM being on offer at that price for at least another 5 years :-)

  • If you only have HE and Cogent transit, then it will not only be non-China direct.

  • nepsneps Member

    As long as it has HKIX I'd be interested.

    Thanked by 1lifehome
  • AlexBarakovAlexBarakov Patron Provider, Veteran

    The truth is that both US and EU have similar configs for a lot cheaper. Can't see a benefit, unless it targets people in HKIX directly. For normal users, it will go through USA anyway and possibly even add latency (Normal route for them would be Them - USA and this would be Them - USA -You)

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    XIAOSpider97 said: If you only have HE and Cogent transit, then it will not only be non-China direct

    That's true of any ISP. Not all ISP have direct routes to every country. But Cogent/HE.net would be particularly true for most of Asia, granted.

    neps said: As long as it has HKIX I'd be interested.

    With HKIX of course! Or at least some other 'local' access that effectively connects to HKIX any way.

    AlexBarakov said: The truth is that both US and EU have similar configs for a lot cheaper. Can't see a benefit, unless it targets people in HKIX directly. For normal users, it will go through USA anyway and possibly even add latency (Normal route for them would be Them - USA and this would be Them - USA -You)

    A lot cheaper? How much cheaper can such a server be? I know it can be cheaper, but I don't think it would be A LOT cheaper.

    The benefit that I would see is that it's good for say HK customers who want a server close to home, so it is fast for them and their mainly HK audience. The international traffic would not really be all that important if they have a predominantly LOCAL visitor base, but at the same time, they may want the flexibility and freedom to use as much bandwidth as they want/need at any given time. For website browsing, latency is hardly ever an issue. For file downloads, particularly large ones, it's almost never an issue. So this would enable users to still have the freedom to download or upload very large amounts of data and not get capped by the provider.

    It would also be good quite good for customers in SG and several other ISPs who have peering with HKIX or a 3rd party connection through HE.net. For example, many Malaysian ISPs connect to HE.net via Singapore, so they get pretty decent connection too.

    At the moment, a majority of Asian destinations would not have any direct routing available, but this will change as time goes on and more and more POPs open up.

    If using other carriers in Asia, then the bandwidth would in many cases cost 10x more. So the same server would have only 1TB traffic instead of 10TB. But then you could get low latency to much of Asia, excluding China, and the price would basically be the same. Would that be better you think?

  • qpsqps Member, Host Rep

    I think you'll run into issues with customers signing up because they see it is in HK, then after realizing that the connectivity to CN runs through the US, they cancel or possibly dispute even if you have properly disclosed that the connectivity to CN won't be ideal.

    Thanked by 2WSCallum raindog308
  • I would think that most of client will choose singapore server without direct china as singapore sit between USA and Europe. Personally i feel the price is good, but market demand very getting low. Slight low end server may make more attractive to potential client.

  • @qps said:
    I think you'll run into issues with customers signing up because they see it is in HK, then after realizing that the connectivity to CN runs through the US, they cancel or possibly dispute even if you have properly disclosed that the connectivity to CN won't be ideal.

    ~Exactly that, we have customers sign up when they see HK and then become sad when they see we don't peer with CT (but do at HKIX and others)

  • Argh, here is one of the "adorable" provider:
    http://www.host-friendly.com/us/server-colocation

    It seems to be a subside company of HKBN, a local ISP providing medium-cost range service to residential users, and medium-high cost range service to commercial clients. (Check the peering for the subsidiary connections)

    It's not "VERY ATTRACTIVE" but IMO lots of alternative choices out there for this price.

    Peering is also important if you aims the local community, there is a saying goes local ISPs intend to block/add latency to routes to other local provider, making it a bit "laggy" to regret not using their own service.

  • @qps said:
    I think you'll run into issues with customers signing up because they see it is in HK, then after realizing that the connectivity to CN runs through the US, they cancel or possibly dispute even if you have properly disclosed that the connectivity to CN won't be ideal.

    Well that's a false statement, at least to 40% of HK citizens it's not true.

    Given HK people knows how sucks the connection to China, and China people do know how sucks to springboard to oversea/HK, can't really see the problem if stated clearly.

  • dnwkdnwk Member
    edited April 2016

    Is NTT route possible? They route CN traffic in Japan which will be better than in US.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    NTT is not good fro China.

  • dnwkdnwk Member

    @randvegeta said:
    NTT is not good fro China.

    How so? Could you elaborate.

  • @randvegeta said:
    NTT is not good fro China.

    Routing Japan is always better than routing USA.

  • FuslFusl Member

    randvegeta said: A lot cheaper? How much cheaper can such a server be? I know it can be cheaper, but I don't think it would be A LOT cheaper.

    HKIX costs essentially nothing if you have loop capacity.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    Fusl said: HKIX costs essentially nothing if you have loop capacity.

    HKIX membership is no longer free, but it is very cheap. The local loop is what costs. Funny that in HK the local HK bandwidth costs almost as what normal providers in the US charge simply because of the local loop :-). 1GBit local loop = approx US$1,000.

  • You can get the HK broadband local loop, only cause USD750

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    admsam said: You can get the HK broadband local loop, only cause USD750

    HKBN local loop prices depend on end point locations. I would say normally their prices are HK$6,000 - $7,000, but I said US$1,000 as it's kind of the most expensive it gets I think. US$750 = HK$5,850 and I haven't seen prices for local loop that cheap. But it's not far off from my $6k=$7k estimate.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    dnwk said: How so? Could you elaborate.

    A lot of it is not Direct. China don't sell cheap to the Japanese companies, so if the ISPs do have direct routes, it tends to be congested!

    XIAOSpider97 said: Routing Japan is always better than routing USA.

    That's like saying HK is always better than USA. Which is not always true. China Telecom and Unicom do not sell cheap bandwidth to any of their neighbouring countries. Hong Kong would still be the best place for high speed and low latency, but it comes at a cost. It seems its pretty much only the US that actually gets fairly cheap China bandwidth, but it comes at the cost of high latency.

    qps said: I think you'll run into issues with customers signing up because they see it is in HK, then after realizing that the connectivity to CN runs through the US, they cancel or possibly dispute even if you have properly disclosed that the connectivity to CN won't be ideal.

    This could be true but if you make it absolutly clear thereis no direct route to China then there really is no excuse.

    In terms of who this service may appeal to.. well there is a reasonably sizeable and thriving 'off-shore' market. People who simply want to keep their data or services running outside of the jurisdiction in which they live. Such people may not really care about latency or even location of server so long as it is not in their country. Price may be a concern however, so this would then make HK a viable 'off-shore' location for the price conscious.

  • Really wish I can have a local loop from my home to any cheap-cost DC...
    That way I can have my own network setup.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    @lifehome said:
    Really wish I can have a local loop from my home to any cheap-cost DC...
    That way I can have my own network setup.

    Even if you have a local loop, you still need transit.

    What do you have now? HKBN BB100?

  • @randvegeta said:

    @lifehome said:
    Really wish I can have a local loop from my home to any cheap-cost DC...
    That way I can have my own network setup.

    Even if you have a local loop, you still need transit.

    What do you have now? HKBN BB100?

    HKBN 1000Mbps plan (residential

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    @lifehome , do you have a static IP?

  • @randvegeta said:
    @lifehome , do you have a static IP?

    I have some, but not assigned from HKBN, likely VPS ones and my friend gave me a several, to create GRE tunnel.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    @lifehome said:

    @randvegeta said:
    @lifehome , do you have a static IP?

    I have some, but not assigned from HKBN, likely VPS ones and my friend gave me a several, to create GRE tunnel.

    Well to be honest, a 1G HKBN line is pretty good as a cheap alternative for local loop. But really you need some sort of static IP. But if you have that, you can really achieve good performance over GRE, and then run things at home. If you like, we can talk more about what options are available :-).

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