The Next Net

According to the official communiqué, the Luxembourg authorities are planning to fund the development of the country’s connectivity to the Internet, as well as build new data centers for Internet hosting.

This is surprising in that it is a well-known fact, in Luxembourg at least, that we have plenty of unused fiber connecting the country to the major internet exchanges. On the other hand, it may be the authorities are looking at diversifying the connectivity to avoid risks of disruptions and force more competition between operators.

What would also benefit the country are more extensive and diversified peering agreements between the ISPs. Trying traceroutes on various ISPs connections yeld surprising results. It is not unusual to see your connection transiting through Amsterdam, Paris or London for an intra-country connection. A good example: the following traceroute is from a host on the academic network to the Europa web site. Physically, the two machines are less than a kilometer apart, but your packets will travel 1000 kilometers.

You’ll notice the packets are transiting through 3 networks, through Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Brussels.

At a more global scale, Internet connections to Asia and Oceania often transit through the US East and West coasts. The authorities could really help by renting bandwidth on fibers between Europe and the Far-East.