Let’s speak about geopolitical dispute in between China and the U.S. and how it’s impacting the network. Has it triggered the 2 nations to detach?
This dispute has actually definitely impacted us in the submarine cable television market.
A couple of years back, Group Telecom challenged the PLCN Submarine Cable television Landing License application, partly on premises of their ownership structure– which had some Chinese ownership– and likewise since of the cable television’s geography.
The cable television was going to land in Hong Kong. In order to get approval, that needed to be reconstituted
Here’s another one– BtoBE– likewise landing in Hong Kong.
Nope.
HKA– a 3rd cable television system considering Hong Kong– coming directly from the U.S. mainland.
Once Again, no. That’s not going to occur.
Political stress have definitely impacted the cable television market in the last 4 years, however have the U.S. and China’s network detached?
I’m going to take a look at a couple of various methods of screening this misconception.
Direct Physical Disconnect Test
There is definitely a disconnection of direct physical networks in between China and the U.S.
While there are some old cable televisions that still link the 2 nations, it’s quite clear that more recent cable televisions are not going to be enabled to do so in the future.
However that’s not the entire photo.
Indirect Physical Disconnect Test
Let’s likewise take a look at indirect physical connection. Firstly, is it even possible to receive from the U.S. to China?
Obviously, it is. You might need to drop in Japan, or the Philippines, or Singapore and go from there onto Shanghai or Hong Kong, however there are a great deal of choices for intra-Asian physical networks. You simply need to make an additional hop now.
In reality, there are 17 brand-new intra-Asian cable televisions that are presently in the works, and a lot more that have not been revealed yet.
So currently, our 2nd test has actually been busted.
I likewise wish to advise everybody that while we are accustomed to operating at the physical layer, there are 7 various layers of the network stack.
Next, we’re going to speak about layer 4, layer 3, and layer 2.
3 More Disconnect Tests
The video listed below strolls through our tests of BGP, network existence, and layer 2/3 connection.
The Conclusion
To sum up the outcomes of our detach tests, there has actually been an interruption of direct physical connection. Nevertheless, indirect physical connection has actually not been detached, and BGP, network existence, and layer 3 network links are still growing.
While stress no longer permit brand-new end-to-end submarine cable television connections today, to date, general network connection has actually been the same.
So we can call this misconception busted.
Alan Mauldin and I tackled this misconception and 5 others throughout our discussion at SubOptic 2023. Download our slides for the complete breakdown.