One belt, many roads and beyond

Abu Saeed KhanSenior Policy Fellow

LIRNEasiaabu@lirneasia.net

ESCAP Working Group on the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway

Incheon, Republic of KoreaSeptember 1, 2015

Technology virtualizes distance

Source: Emirates’ response to claims raised about state-owned airlines in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. June 29, 2015.

Around the world in <40 hours

• Over 2/3 population of the world lives within

8 hours flight from Dubai

• 1/3 lives within 4 hours

Source: Emirates’ response to claims raised about state-owned airlines in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. June 29, 2015.

Ground reality: Sky links the ground

• During the past two years, China has built 15 new airports and expanded 28 existing ones that have direct links with countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt that connects the country with Europe via Central Asia.

• Fifty-one out of the 193 civil aviation construction projects that are planned for this year, will directly serve the Belt and Road initiatives in 2015.

• One Road One Belt infrastructure projects either planned or in construction exceeded $161 billion by the end of March.

“In Kazakhstan alone, China has invested $40 billion in road and rail projects to improve routes through the country.”

Source: China’s One Belt, One Road strategy takes to the air

Inauguration of China-Europe Block Train (Yiwu-Madrid) at Yiwu Railway Freight Station on Nov. 18, 2014

DHL multimodal Asia-Europe serviceChina-Europe Rail Routes: 1. Zhengzhou-Hamburg (10,214 km in 17 days) 2. Suzhou-Warsaw (11,070 km in 14 days)3. Chengdu-Lodz (9,862 km in 14 days)

Sea-Rail:From ports in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe and Hakata to Shanghai Port to further connect into the existing China rail connections to Europe Road:

Extensive cargo pickup within China to rail departure points at Zhengzhou, Suzhou and Chengdu.

Consequence: “China-Europe rail has air cargo in the crosshairs.”

• Airlines flying cargo between China and Europe will be hit hardest by Beijing’s One Belt, One Road trade strategy as the land bridge rail route proves too attractively priced to ignore, believes Steve Flowers, head of global freight forwarding at UPS.

• “Transportation managers will likely have a hard time passing on the opportunity to reduce transport costs up to 65 percent while not having to endure the 40 days-in-transit typical for ocean service,” Flowers told JOC.com.

DREAM (Diverse Route for European and Asian Markets)

was launched October 17, 2013

Madrid-Hong Kong-Los Angeles

IMF 2015 GDP Growth Forecasts

World economic outlook, April 2015

• Asia has 3.7 billion mobile subscribers. Asia has added 194 million subscribers between Q1 2014 and Q1 2015, which is over 60% of net new global wireless subscribers.

• The Asian mobile market is far from saturated, as there are over 270 million people without a cell phone.

• China and India alone account for 2.3 billion subscribers, but while China has emerged as a meaningful 4G market with 162 million LTE subscribers, 90% of Indian mobile subscribers remain on 2G networks, driving the region’s ongoing reliance on the legacy technology.Source: TeleGeography Commsupdate. July 28, 2015.

Source: Asia Pacific Mobile Economy 2015, GSMA.

Data Center + Cloud = The game changers

Facebook in Asia Pacific Gateway (APG)A consortium of eleven Asian carriers and Facebook is planning to build Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) cable by 2015.

It will cover 10,400 kilometers and link China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Singapore.

The US$500 million system will use 100 Gbps technology, offer a potential capacity of 54.8 Tbps, and utilize a trunk-and-branch configuration.

The owners are: NTT, China Telecom,China Unicom, China Mobile,Chunghwa Telecom, KT, LG Uplus, Viettel Corporation, Vietnam Telecom International, Global Transit, Starhub, TIME dotCom and Facebook.

Landing Points:Changi South, SingaporeKuantan, MalaysiaSongkhla, ThailandDanang, VietnamToucheng, TaiwanChongming, ChinaNanhui, ChinaTseung Kwan O, ChinaPusan, Korea, Rep.Maruyama, JapanShima, Japan

Google hops in Japan (2010) with UnityThe Unity cable is jointly owned by a consortium of six companies: five telecommunications companies (including major intra-Asian operator Pacnet) and Google.

Although Unity lands at a cable station in Redondo Beach, California, it also includes terrestrial backhaul to the One Wilshire colocation facility in Los Angeles.

Landing Points:

Chikura, JapanRedondo Beach, California, USA

Owners: Pacnet, Google, Global Transit, SingTel, KDDI, Bharti.

Cable Length: 9,620 km

Cost: US$300 million

Capacity: 9 Tbps

Google continued with Southeast Asia Japan Cable (SJC) in 2013

Landing Points:•Chikura, Japan•Chung Hom Kok, China•Nasugbu, Philippines•Shantou, China•Songkhla, Thailand•Telisai, Brunei•Tuas, Singapore

Owners: Globe Telecom, Google, KDDI, Telkom Indonesia, SingTel, China Telecom, TOT, China Mobile, Chunghwa Telecom, Brunei International Gateway, SingTel Optus and Bharti.

Cost: US$400 million

Capacity: 45.6 Tbps

Length: 8,900 km

Coming soon: Google with MonetAlgar Telecom, Angola Cables, Antel Uruguay, and Google are building the Monet cable linking Brazil and the United States.

The cable will contain 6 fiber pairs each capable of 10 Tbps. The consortium hopes to activate the cable by the end of 2016.

Length of this US$400 million cable is 10, 556 kilometers.

Landing Points:•Boca Raton, Florida, USA•Fortaleza, Brazil•Santos, Brazil

Next stop: Africa

• Over the past 9 months, Microsoft has been significantly investing in subsea and terrestrial dark fiber capacity by engaging in fiber partnerships that span multiple oceans and continents.

• We announced deals with Hibernia and Aqua Comms, in which Microsoft is investing in a cable with each company to connect Microsoft’s datacenter infrastructure from North America to Ireland and on to the United Kingdom. These cables will help deliver data at higher speeds, with higher capacity and lower latency for our customers across the globe.

• Additionally, we joined a consortium comprised of China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Chunghwa Telecom, KT Corporation with TE SubCom as the cable supplier. As part of our participation in the consortium, Microsoft will invest in its first physical landing station in the US connecting North America to Asia. The New Cross Pacific (NCP) Cable Network will provide faster data connections for customers, aid Microsoft in competing on cloud costs, all while creating jobs and spurring local economies. The goal of our expansions and investments in subsea cables is so our customers have the greatest access to scale and highly available data, anywhere.

Terrestrial link

Submarine cable

Infrastructure dictates bandwidth price

“100G: are the potential savings worth the investment?” TeleGeography, 4 Jun 2015

• ‘As 100Gbps technology continues to mature and equipment costs decrease, network operators are able to pass along their cost savings to bandwidth buyers in the form of steady price declines,’ said TeleGeography analyst Brianna Boudreau. ‘The initial cost of purchasing 100Gbps capacity is daunting for many. However, where massive point-to-point connections are needed, economies of scale make this approach less expensive than purchasing incremental capacity upgrades over the long term. Customers can further benefit from a reduction in network complexity and the aggregate cost of required cross connects.’

Takeaway

• ‘The initial cost of purchasing 100Gbps capacity is daunting for many. However, where massive point-to-point connections are needed, economies of scale make this approach less expensive than purchasing incremental capacity upgrades over the long term. Customers can further benefit from a reduction in network complexity and the aggregate cost of required cross connects.’

Takeaway

• ‘The initial cost of purchasing 100Gbps capacity is daunting for many. However, where massive point-to-point connections are needed, economies of scale make this approach less expensive than purchasing incremental capacity upgrades over the long term. Customers can further benefit from a reduction in network complexity and the aggregate cost of required cross connects.’

AP-IS is all about “massive point-to-point connections” across this continent