[tor-relays] Estimating the value and cost of the Tor network

[Tim]

On 24 Sep 2014, at 13:38 , tor-relays-request at lists.torproject.org wrote:

> Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 05:40:00 +0200
> From: Moritz Bartl <moritz at torservers.net>
> To: tor-relays at lists.torproject.org
> Subject: Re: [tor-relays] Estimating the value and cost of the Tor
> 	network
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Prices vary widely across different countries. We pay between $400 and
> $1500 per Gbit/s per month in "popular and cheap locations". In a
> scenario where we want to grow the network and at least keep the current
> geographical diversity (or even grow it), we'd have to at least equally
> strengthen less fortunate locations.
> 
> The list of the top 20 countries [0] contains countries such as Russia,
> Poland, Norway and Hungary, where international bandwidth is quite
> expensive. Hopefully someone from this list can help us compile or find
> estimates for pricing per country. It would be interesting to learn the
> prices even for mid-size (~50-100Mbit/s+) relays in any country outside
> of the top five countries, even more so for crazy places that don't make
> the top 20.
> 
> Another factor that we should not ignore is that, while it may be
> possible to find a set of ISPs that allow mid-size exit relays, it gets
> harder the more traffic you push, because of the additional workload
> (and scariness) for the ISP from complaints.
> 
> [0] https://compass.torproject.org/
> 
> -- 
> Moritz Bartl
> https://www.torservers.net/

Mike, Moritz,

Re: crazy places that don't make the top 20

I've noticed that most of the Tor network is concentrated in the northern hemisphere, particularly Europe and North America. I assume the distribution of authorities is similar.

Apart from China, no Asia-Pacific country makes the top 20 in Tor compass.[1] And no southern hemisphere country makes the top 20 at all.

The first Asia-Pacific countries after China are Japan at #29, then Singapore at #37.
And unless I've missed something, the first southern hemisphere country is Australia at #42.

Details aside, I'd love to see more routers and exits in countries other than the top 4 (Germany, France, Netherlands, United States). This helps spread failure risk, sovereign risk, and the risk from 3 letter agencies and the like.

And it would make Tor faster for those in the southern hemisphere, Africa, and the Asia-pacific.

But I don't know how much hope there is for this - I've tried to find pricing in Australia, and the figures I've found are:

$8000 per month for 100Mbps.[2]
$1500 per month for 25Mbps.[3]
$800 per month for 10Mbps.[4]

That seems ridiculously pricey…

I'd rather wait for the National Broadband Network and run one on 100Mbps fibre at 1% of the price.[5] (Except bandwidth would not be guaranteed on a "home"-style plan.)

Time to find a sympathetic university?

Tim

[1]: https://compass.torproject.org/?family=&ases=&exits=all_relays&by_country=True&top=-1#?exit_filter=all_relays&links&sort=cw&sort_reverse&country=&top=-1&by_country
[2]: http://www.intervolve.com.au/datacentre/
[3]: http://www.exetel.com.au/corporate/ip-transit-colocation
[4]: https://www.xhostsolutions.com.au/services/dedicated-server-unmetered.cfm
[5]: http://delimiter.com.au/2014/04/03/unlimited-100mbps-89-99-tpg-equals-top-nbn-plan/

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