Best Fiber internet in HK

[james_hklocal]

Netvigator / PCCW can charge the highest price not only because they have the best coverage but also highest overseas bandwidth - hence better / stable connection when downloading, streaming video and playing online games from overseas servers. When other ISPs started service around 20 years ago, they rented PCCW's undersea cable. I bet most of them, if not all are still renting.

Smartone mobile is one of the best value operator, but they don't allow tethering.

[methosb]

Netvigator / PCCW can charge the highest price not only because they have the best coverage but also highest overseas bandwidth - hence better / stable connection when downloading, streaming video and playing online games from overseas servers. When other ISPs started service around 20 years ago, they rented PCCW's undersea cable. I bet most of them, if not all are still renting.

Smartone mobile is one of the best value operator, but they don't allow tethering.

I was on PCCW before switching to Smartone at the same location and just across the road from the exchange and PCCWs performance with streaming was far inferior to Smartone. Netflix for example would take time to buffer up from SD to HD and at peak times on the weekend would drop back down to SD or even completely stop and buffer. Smartone immediately starts in HD and never buffers and has no peak time slow downs.

I also have tethering with Smartone, yiu just have to ask them to enable it.

[james_hklocal]

You get higher speed at lower cost, great deal then.

Regarding Smartone mobile, this is the 1st time I heard that they would enable it free of charge. Also great for you!

I was on PCCW before switching to Smartone at the same location and just across the road from the exchange and PCCWs performance with streaming was far inferior to Smartone. Netflix for example would take time to buffer up from SD to HD and at peak times on the weekend would drop back down to SD or even completely stop and buffer. Smartone immediately starts in HD and never buffers and has no peak time slow downs.

I also have tethering with Smartone, yiu just have to ask them to enable it.

[jgl]

Netvigator / PCCW can charge the highest price not only because they have the best coverage but also highest overseas bandwidth - hence better / stable connection when downloading, streaming video and playing online games from overseas servers. When other ISPs started service around 20 years ago, they rented PCCW's undersea cable. I bet most of them, if not all are still renting.

It's not this simple.

Submarine cables out of HK are typically owned by a consortium of other telecoms, and ISPs or other companies rent out chunks of bandwidth on these cables.

For example, APCN-2 which connects a fair chunk of Asia includes both PCCW and HKBN as owners. And any one ISP is going to be running over far more than a single cable because they need to connect out of region, and because any cable can go down at any time.

[methosb]

You get higher speed at lower cost, great deal then.

Regarding Smartone mobile, this is the 1st time I heard that they would enable it free of charge. Also great for you!

Maybe because my plan is a higher-end one? There is no extra charge on my bill for tethering but it was enabled from a long time ago and I used it a month or so ago.

[freeier]

how does the telco companies check if you are tethering ?

[Fenix2]

QUOTE=james_hklocal;3619548]Netvigator / PCCW can charge the highest price not only because they have the best coverage but also highest overseas bandwidth - hence better / stable connection when downloading, streaming video and playing online games from overseas servers. When other ISPs started service around 20 years ago, they rented PCCW's undersea cable. I bet most of them, if not all are still renting.

Smartone mobile is one of the best value operator, but they don't allow tethering.[/QUOTE]

This forum is full of people that just don't have a clue, and can't grasp simple concepts.... dumb ideas down to the point they are totally wrong, then spout it off and mis-educated others...

The same shit over and over for over 15 years... and same misconceptions never go away..... PCCW/HKBN is everything. Everyone is reselling their bandwidth, their IP backbone. everyone is using their submaricables. FFS NO!

Guys just listen to jgl, ignore EVERYONE else.

James, tell me which of these cables belongs to PCCW....
https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en...ls-in-hongkong

Tell me why in Big Asia Tsunami why was Netvigator last to get back up, 2 weeks down? Whilst eg my ISP was only down for 3 hours?

[it_guy]

As someone who has worked for a HK/SG based subsea cable operator in the past I can confirm that PCCW has tons of capacity out on the cables, however they are not the only ones.

Subsea capacity is all well and good, but a lot of it comes down to peering.

you can use websites like PeeringDB and caida.org to check out the different arrangements.

AS Rank: A ranking of the largest Autonomous Systems (AS) in the Internet.

As you can see on the link above, PCCW's network is currently the #9 AS globally in terms of "gravity"

to get a better look at the HK market, a good indicator is the IX rankings in either mega-i(HKIX) or hk EQX

here are some links:

Mega-i HKIX:
https://www.peeringdb.com/ix/42

Equinix HK1:

https://www.peeringdb.com/ix/125

this will show port speed into the exchange by carrier, however it wont show you the individual arrangements between the different carriers. this is negotiated independently between each carrier.

These negations periodically break down, and this results in slowed down connectivity to the networks.

In recent years, not only the carriers peer in the IXs but so do the content players.

You also have settlement free peering as well as paid peering.

These arrangements literally change daily, and sometimes ports are shut off during negations to try to extract a higher price.

[james_hklocal]

James, tell me which of these cables belongs to PCCW....
https://www.submarinenetworks.com/en...ls-in-hongkong

Sorry, I am a layman, but check this article -

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...-joint-venture

[Fenix2]

As someone who has worked for a HK/SG based subsea cable operator in the past I can confirm that PCCW has tons of capacity out on the cables, however they are not the only ones.

Subsea capacity is all well and good, but a lot of it comes down to peering.

you can use websites like PeeringDB and caida.org to check out the different arrangements.
As you can see on the link above, PCCW's network is currently the #9 AS globally in terms of "gravity"

to get a better look at the HK market, a good indicator is the IX rankings in either mega-i(HKIX) or hk EQX

here are some links:

1. Peering...
It is not the end all but.... don't confuse formerly BTN/(Beyond the Net's) PCCW Global massive backbone (mostly in the USA) with Netvigator, they different AS numbers and companies. Whilst PCCW Global ranks, 9, Netvigator ranks 2823.

Rank
39 1221 ASN-TELSTRA Telstra Corporation < - THis is AsiaNetcom/PacNet/HK Super Net.
320 10103 HKBN-AS-AP Hong Kong Broadband Network Ltd
329 9269 HKBN-AS-AP Hong Kong Broadband Network Ltd
873 9293 HKNet-vIPNet HKNet Co. Ltd.
1976 10098 HENDERSON-HK Henderson Data Centre Ltd
2317 24077 TMHK-Transit-AS-HK-AP Telekom Malaysia (Hong Kong) Ltd.
2364 58779 I4HKLIMITED-AS i4HK Limited
2387 63927 RISE-HK RISE ASIA TECHNOLOGY LIMITED
2823 4760 HKTIMS-AP PCCW IMS Limited
2907 17984 PCCWHKTNS-AP PCCW-HKT Network Services Ltd
6433 9925 HKTHOST-AP PCCW IMS Limited
10894 9444 HKT-AS-AP Hong Kong Telecommunications (HKT) Limited
30807 9263 PCCW-IMSBIZ-AP PCCW IMS Ltd (PCCW Business Internet Access)

Even comparing them to their competition in HK they are a joke, even i4HK has better peering. They are a very good, but small company. The old asia netcom when it merged with Pacnet became the real hybrid, Submarine cable operator and ISP, with very good pering for a Asia only company.

PCCW Global... is the upstream provider of Netvigator. Netvigator has no others.

https://bgp.he.net/AS4760

On that top 10 list you provided, the is Hurricane Electric, the re Verizon etc, which are all are in this town... Whilst getting a peering with them may not be feasible, for a home or business user, you can go to ISPs and Data centers who will connect you to HE global backbone.

2. Business and economics
AS ranking is not the whole story, you also need to take into account what SLA they... how well they manage, how much they oversell the network by....

PCCW Global could be No 1 global backbone and the submarine division own half of the fibre in the pacific but, if Netvigator doesn't have a business case to buy the bandwidth and PCCW Global can sell it to someone else for more money they will sell it. Those on Netvigator can suffer and as they pay peanuts... Point in case, when the submarine cable broke in Taiwan, in 2006? Netvigator was last in HK to get capacity...