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THE NEWS
Tuesday January 08, 2002 PTCL Internet Exchange to route e-mails,
By Javad M. Goraya ISLAMABAD: The E-mail and E-Commerce traffic between internet
users of different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Pakistan will not be
going to Internet Hub in the US for its return journey after the installation of
PTCL’s Pakistan Internet Exchange which handles Intra ISP traffic on PTCL’s
backbone within the country.
ISPs and local users both stand to benefit of the newly
installed Pakistan Internet Exchange through savings in bandwidth cost and
faster transit time for internet users. The PTCL is already providing internet
access in more than 550 cities of Pakistan, and now the internet exchange will
speed up contacts between users in these cities.
More than 122 customers including more than 60 ISPs, 30 data
and corporate users and educational institutions have already shifted the
routing of their internet traffic to PTCL’s Internet Exchange. An estimated
internet traffic of 50 Mbps is being routed by these PTCL bandwidth clients
through the internet exchange. The internet exchange is one of the first of its
nature in South Asia and PTCL has introduced it as part of a three-tier approach
to streamline bandwidth availability in Pakistan.
In the first step, international bandwidth is planned to be
handled mainly through Singtel’s STM-1 (155 Mbps). The other bandwidth option,
which PTCL is keen to retain, is Concert’s 34 Mbps Satellite bandwidth which
will serve as a backup for STM-1. The bandwidth cost is a crucial factor in
opting for STM-1 and despite some financial burden on PTCL, it has still offered
local ISPs reduction in bandwidth charges. Though the task of reduction in
internet charges for end users remain a challenge for the concerned ministry of
IT & Telecom. The ministry expects to fully utilise the STM-1 bandwidth of
155 Mbps after the recent reduction in bandwidth prices and plans are afoot to
purchase another chunk of STM-1 (155 Mbps) for local users.
As a second step, the internet exchange has been set up which
will route the internet traffic between ISPs locally on PTCL fiber optic
backbone. Previously a simple E-mail between two clients of ISP A &
ISP B in the same city was routed through the US backbone. Now the same mail
from ISP A to ISP B can be routed locally on PTCL’s internet
backbone.
In addition, the E-commerce traffic for websites hosted on
PTCL backbone, traffic between government websites and other sites hosted in
Pakistan will be exchanged at cheaper bandwidth prices and faster speed. The
Internet Exchange has its node in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad and is based on
a Rs150m equipment mostly supplied by Cisco Networks.
The Internet Exchange is based on ATM switches, which is the
first time the intelligent traffic routing switches have been installed in
Pakistan. These switches are connected to high end routers which use a
dedicated capacity on the PTCL nation-wide fiber optic backbone to handle
internet data traffic throughout Pakistan. On the PTCL backbone linked with the
Internet Exchange, the other services planned are shared circuit services, full
circuit services, Inter ISP routing, VPN/VLAN, domestic frame relay, and
national/international IP access.
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