IXes in South Asia: IXes in South Asia Gaurab Raj Upadhaya CEO/Tech Chair Nepal Internet Exchange gaurab@lahai.com


Countries: Countries Afghanistan Bangladesh Bhutan India Maldives Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka


Afghanistan: Afghanistan 6 ISPs NEDA, Ariana Telecom, CeReTechs, InstaNet, Trasil Telecom, Itehad Internet Company Difficult to say how may links, 200 Cyber Café in Kabul ACCA : World Bank run ISP UN Organizations have their own links Regulation in progress National and International ISPs All ISPs still not licensed Connectivity is through V-SAT, most private ISPs are customers of larger ISPs in Pakistan MOIC and AFGNIC thinking about initiating and IX


Bangladesh - BDIX: Bangladesh - BDIX Ongoing work since November..active work since last four months 100+ ISPs, many small ISPs are neighborhood business. They get their bandwidth from larger ISPs BDIX- project funded by UNDP through SDNBD to include 20 largest ISPs at the BDIX this year. BDIX working group / mailing list has participation from ISP Association. IX mailing list still not populated properly. Connectivity equipment partially funded by the project. Wireless connectivity to be used initially due to difficult regulatory regime. Switch and IX equipment provided by PCH, IX LAN block provided by EP.net July 30, 2003, first IX workshop with 35 Participants Late September/mid-October, Cisco ISP/IXP workshops to be held to enable ISPs to participate at the IX.


Bhutan: Bhutan Only One ISP – Druk Net Around 10,000 access account About 40-50K users Connectivity through VSAT Multi homed


India - NIXI: India - NIXI National Internet Exchange of India is a government funded project with participation from ISPs (www.nixi.org Non-profit company established to undertake the job Plan to establish four IXes in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata Delhi IX location identified and has been turned on with 8 ISPs (last month) Cisco 2950-48 Switch Cisco 3600 route server Mandatory Peering Private Peering between a few ISPs already there, traffic levels not known NIXI policy mandates peering between all members, but discussions continuing There's been a lot of talk for many years, and good to see something happening.


Maldives: Maldives Again only one Private ISP – Focus Comp Island Country Two reasonably high population area VSAT connectivity NO local IXes Some interesting wireless experiments  Government ISP also exists – run by incumbent telephone company


Nepal -npIX: Nepal -npIX Update Migrated all 6 ISPs to BGP Two ISPs facing connectivity problems traffic growing at 10-15% , Some ISPs showed tremendous traffic increase Average Traffic is 2.5 MBps Peaked at 5 MB in June when high school results were announced Plan to interconnect the two switch to be done in September Inclusion of non-ISPs started – University and other Agencies with own Satellite links working towards connectivity to the IX http://traffic.npix.net.np


Pakistan: Pakistan


Pakistan: Pakistan PIE – Pakistan Internet Exchange is a transit selling exchange for the PTCL – the incumbent Telco. ISPs were not allowed to have independent gateway but had to connect through PIE. This has been changed, but take up has been slow ISPs allowed to have download only links PIE also used by government to try and regulate content. Recently, new telecom policy –hopefully for the better IX formation hindered by connectivity problems and lack of knowledge ISPs interested in forming an IX – basic work started, hopefully something to update in the next meeting co-location agreement exists so should be easy to get going


Sri-Lanka : LISPA-IX: Sri-Lanka : LISPA-IX Lanka IX Longest operational IX in South Asia An activity of the Sri Lanka ISP association Operated by Lanka Com on behalf of the ISPs Static Routes used so far Plan to migrate to BGP, Cisco ISP/IXP workshop concluded last month No website available Traffic level at 6-7 MBps Traffic stats and website to be made public soon


Thank you: Thank you Information here collected through travel to 5 countries (AF, BD, IN, NP, LK) and others through interaction with folks in those countries Pakistan fiber network slide and diagram, originally presented at SANOG II meeting, 27 July by Farhan Liaquat Thanks to Philip Smith (Cisco), Bill Woodcock (PCH), Md. Aslam (AF), Kapil Chawla (IN), Hakikur Rahman (BD), Tee Emm (PK), Rohith Udalagama (LK) Questions ????