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Comment by rhplus | Hacker News Reader

I would guess that the primary reason Australian organizations prefer hosting locally is performance. Australia is really far from the US and even further from Europe. Most of Australia's population is clustered in east coastal cities, so it makes sense to host the data and services there too.

Why would anyone choose to add 200ms+ to every network call if there's an option to host data and services locally? Not to mention the bandwidth costs associated with moving bits across the Pacific.

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Even without the latency (which is significant), there are two more technical issues:

1. Australia has pretty limited data pipes to the outside, so the more traffic is kept in-country the cheaper it is and the less likely there will be issues with world-traveling traffic

2. Aus ISPs have pretty low quotas for international traffic (40-200GB range I believe) but none for national traffic[0], which also lead those same ISPs to build or help building massive national caches of international resources (I believe Steam download traffic, for instance, is kept mostly or solely national)

[0] I may be wrong, and please correct me if I am. That's what I recall from past conversations on the subject

My Aussie relatives' caps don't differentiate between international and domestic traffic, it's just one number. They're with the major telecom Telstra, I believe.

I have seen plans that have separate quotas. And even ISPs that don't, I think it's safe bet that there is shaping and throttling on international routes.

No, there are generally not separate quotas for national and international in Australia, at least not any longer.

(Checked: Telstra, Internode, iiNET, TPG, Optus.)

That said, they do tend to have bandwidth quotas in the order of 50-500 GB/month depending on the plan you have.

And it is dirty expensive here. I currently pay $89.95/month for 300 GB/month via ADSL2 (20/1 Mbit/s) including line rental.

I pay Comcast $60 for 20 Mbit / 2 Mbit up, with 250 GB a month (with threats to disconnect me after that and ban me from ever being their customer).

I don't have any other Internet providers that service my house...

> And it is dirty expensive here. I currently pay $89.95/month for 300 GB/month via ADSL2 (20/1 Mbit/s) including line rental.

It's not as expensive as you think-at least if we're comparing DSL vs DSL and ignoring FiOS/Cable.

Our download limits are pretty similar to the most of the limits "hidden" by the US ISP's, and our ISP's typically offer better free content and are FAR better in terms of customer service[1] and more lenient if you are the type to regularly hit your limit.

[1]: In part because they have to be due to consumer advocate bodies, and also because this will be the key differentiator (along with content) when the National Broadband Network gets deployed to the majority.

Fair enough, about the same costs as in the US.

...but I am used to Swedish pricing levels. $45 for 100/10 Mbit/s with no quota.

Limited in several ways: total bandwidth, independence, number of routes, and latency.

Australia is a long way from anywhere. It's closest technical neighbor is NZ, but by several measures, that's tiny. Among the benefits AU has is that it's relatively close to India and the Philippines, both of which share a fair bit of language and culture (Commonwealth / US protectorate).

Shared culture with the Philippines and India? What an interesting way of looking at things.

Both are countries with their own distinctive histories and cultures, tough they share a pretty significant colonial history under an English-speaking power (England, for India, the US for the Philippines), resulting in a population that's largely English-speaking. At least among educated classes. As opposed, say, to most of the rest of Asia. Yes, China was some English dominion, but other than Hong Kong the legacy isn't particularly deep. Japan's largely been independent (though with some US influence post WWII). Vietnam some French/US influence, but it's not a significant tech player.

Australia from my time there is very much a crossroads of Asian and the Pacific. Especially Sydney. But I see stronger cultural ties with these two countries in particular.

So, yes, for countries which are technically relatively forward in its hemisphere, India and the Philippines offer some cultural landmarks offering commonality.

I never had any different caps for international vs local data traffic.

Many of the smaller ISPs (of which there are now not many) and some of the larger ISPs have peering agreements (with PIPE networks) which mean that this traffic is effectively "free". It used to be quite the selling point, but appears to be no longer be the case (possibly because it's a bit iffy as to what is and isn't free).

Neither of the above is true anymore.

There used to be a lack of competition in the submarine cable sector, this is no longer true. In some cases it would cost more to push it to the user (DSL wholesale etc), and this is solely due to monopoly infrastructure providers.

No ISP has ever explicitly differentiated international and local traffic. Many ISPs unmeter their own content and mirrors, this was a result of international and some domestic traffic costing a fortune back in the day. Some ISPs unmetered peering exchange traffic as well, but I don't think any do anymore. The trend now is towards true unlimited plans.

I've been subscribing to ISPs in Australia for 14 years, and have never had an international traffic quota.

I'm a subscriber to iiNet and I think what they meant is - downloading from iiNet's mirrors doesn't count towards my quota.

Not true, I live in Sydney, my clients are in Australia and I host in both the US and in Australia.

Sure, I get <3ms latency from local servers and ~200ms latency from Freemont CA, but it's not a big deal to anyone (except maybe gamers).

I have consulted to government and banks in Australia, and they all do care (to varying degrees ) about the legal jurisdiction in which their data is held.

The main issues I have heard (from memory) are:

1. Subpoena risk - can a third party access my information without my consent (or even knowledge) using a subpoena?

2. Legal jurisdictional complication - As a business I must comply with the laws of Australia and NSW, but if a software supplier keeps their data outside of Australia, how can I prove that the supply chain complies with Australia / NSW law?

3. Lack of recourse if there is a breach / loss of data because a supplier is out of jurisdictional reach.

4. Sovereign risk - How can I be expected to track pertinent changes to law in foreign jurisdictions?

My experience is that in most cases clients don't perceive these risks as insurmountable; they do understand that they are industry wide problems that need to be addressed out, and they do in some cases lead to a preference for local suppliers of hosted software.

I believe there is also a legal requirement for Government organisations to keep Australian data local, for privacy reasons.

I'd say that the major reason is cost.

Inside Australia you have the major peering fabrics which are on the order of a dollarish a mbit (cap). Compare that to $50-200/mbit for international transit and you'll see the problem. Quickly compare the cost of a gigE link.

About the only "international" player that doesn't (really) have this problem is NZ. Transit to NZ is ca $5/mbit last time i looked at it.

Not only that, but Australian ISPs usually pay 100% of the cost of their links to international peering points, and these costs get passed on in the form of quotas and tiered plans, sometimes with separate quotas for international traffic. AARNET, the Australian Academic network definitely included differential pricing for international traffic that it passed onto universities when I was in college.

I think it makes a lot of sense for governments to require local hosting/same-nation-hosting of cloud services that they purchase.

So many legal issues issues become so much easier to handle.

And then there is that slight but not negligible additional benefit of extra local jobs in operating that local DC.

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