TeleGeography

The
State of the
Network
2020 E DIT I O N

Introduction 1
Global Wholesale Bandwidth Market 2
All Things Internet 8
Data on Data Centers 12
Mishaps in the Voice Market 18

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 1

INTRODUCTION
It’s officially 2020 and we have new data to show us how the world is
connecting. Meet Our Experts
With our third State of the Network report, we reflect on an industry
marked by evolving challenges and a special brand of unpredictability. Paul Brodsky
The global bandwidth market is navigating price erosion and the limits Senior Analyst
of cable capacity. International call traffic has continued to decline  Connect on LinkedIn
across the voice market, with falling carrier traffic becoming a fact
of life. Internet bandwidth and traffic growth has gradually slowed in
recent years, but remains brisk.
Patrick Christian
Principal Analyst
This is the environment in which we take our annual snapshot.
 Connect on LinkedIn
That’s right—as we say every year—this annual reflection is simply a
snapshot of the telecom market right now. The challenges, the trends,
the regional stories, the shifting profile of cable owners—this is where Jon Hjembo
we start in 2020. Senior Manager
 Connect on LinkedIn
As always, this analysis is created by TeleGeography data. It was
collected throughout 2019 and you can find even more of it within our
full suite of research apps.
Alan Mauldin
— The TeleGeography Team Research Director
 Connect on LinkedIn

Anahí Rebatta
Senior Analyst
 Connect on LinkedIn

Tim Stronge
VP of Research
 Connect on LinkedIn
2

GLOBAL WHOLESALE
BANDWIDTH MARKET
The global bandwidth market is marked by change and uncertainty.
New network builders shape changes in traffic flows, operators race
to keep revenue margins ahead of constantly eroding prices, and
the industry now faces the very limits of cable capacity as we know
it. Our Global Bandwidth Research Service assesses the state of the
global telecom transport network industry and evaluates the factors
that shape long-term demand growth and price erosion.

Demand Trends
If demand is the key factor in assessing the health of the global
bandwidth market, then the market is thriving. Between 2016 and
2018 international bandwidth used by global networks more than
doubled to reach 963 Tbps.

Let’s break this demand growth down to a more granular level. If we

look at used international bandwidth growth by region, two observa-
tions jump out. The first is that demand growth has been strongest
on links connected to Asia, which experienced a compound annual
growth rate of 53% between 2014 and 2018. The second is that
growth in the most developed markets in the world—Europe and
North America—wasn’t far behind. While mature markets typically
grow slower than developing markets, that’s not the case here.
 3

The Role of Content

Who’s driving all this demand growth for international capacity?
Historically, it’s been carrier networks, provisioning public internet
services. More recently a handful of major content and cloud
service providers—namely Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Micro-
soft—have become the primary sources of demand. In 2018 these
companies became the dominant users of international bandwidth,
accounting for 55% of all used international capacity.

But their capacity requirements vary extensively by route. Content

providers concentrate network planning on linking their data cen-
ters and major interconnection points. As such, they often take
tremendous capacity on core routes, while focusing much less on
secondary long-haul routes than traditional carriers. To get a sense
of this contrast, note that in 2018, content providers accounted for
85% of used capacity on the trans-Atlantic route but just 5% on the
Europe-Middle East & Egypt route.

While the share of content provider capacity on some routes may be

much lower than on others, the growth in their demand across all
routes has been relentless. Across all world regions, content pro-
viders added capacity at a compound annual rate of at least 65%
between 2014 and 2018, compared to a rate no higher than 43%
for others.

Meeting Demand Requirements

Demand for international bandwidth is more than doubling every
two years. To meet this demand, companies are investing in existing
networks and in new infrastructure.

The lit capacity on major submarine cable routes continues to soar,

keeping pace with demand. Between 2014 and 2018 lit capacity
more than tripled on many routes. The pace of growth was the most
rapid on Europe-Sub-Saharan African routes, where lit capacity
increased over five-fold between 2014 and 2018.
4

Aside from lighting new capacity, new systems are coming online
Used International across all routes. The year 2016 ushered in a period of significant
global investment in the sector. Cables with a combined construc-
Bandwidth Growth tion cost of $7.9 billion entered service between 2016 and 2018.
By Region, 2014-2018
Based on publicly announced planned cables, an additional $6.9
billion worth of new cables will be launched between 2019 and
Africa
2021. Notably, every major subsea route saw new cables deployed
between 2016 and 2018, and investment is poised to continue
Asia across all routes. The trans-Pacific route leads the way with $2
billion of new cable investment expected from 2019 to 2021.

Europe Pricing
Abundant supply and increasing competition have led to robust
Latin Ameica price erosion throughout the global bandwidth market. New 100
Gbps equipped submarine cable systems and upgrades to existing
networks have further lowered unit costs. And this has driven down
Middle East both 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps wavelength prices. Across critical
global routes, weighted median 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps prices fell
an average of 27% and 24% compounded annually since 2015.
Oceania
Yes, bandwidth price declines are widespread. But significant
differences in price still exist depending on your destination. In Q4
U.S & Canada
2018, 10 Gbps monthly lease prices ranged from just $795 on
the Frankfurt-London route to $22,766 between Los Angeles and
Global Total Sydney. This is largely a reflection of differences in available supply
and competition—on both international and domestic segments.
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Although differences remain, prices are converging in general. Price
declines on high growth and underserved routes are outpacing
those in established markets. And new cable systems and techno-
logical advancements have narrowed the unit cost of capacity.

With falling prices, the incentive to buy larger versus smaller circuits
increases. In Q4 2018, the average multiple of 100 Gbps over 10
Gbps service among key routes was 5, down from 6.4 in 2015.
Individual route multiples ranged from 4.2 on the shorter connection
between London and New York to 5.8 on the route between Miami
and São Paulo. Capacity multiples for 100 Gbps tend to be lower
when sellers compete aggressively for 100 Gbps business but not
for 10 Gbps. That is, a low 100 Gbps to 10 Gbps multiple can arise
both from a relatively low 100 Gbps price or a high 10 Gbps price.
 5

Outlook
Percentage of Potential
What does the future hold for the global bandwidth market? The Capacity Lit on
two most predictable trends are persistent demand growth and
price erosion. Beyond that, operators will have to navigate major
Major Routes
2018
uncertainties in continuing to move forward in an evolving sector.
Here are a few of the key trends, among many, that will affect the
long-haul capacity market beyond 2020.
Trans-Atlantic
Expanding Frontiers by a Limited Group

Content providers’ cable investments have largely focused on

trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific, U.S.-Latin American, and intra-Asian Trans-Pacific
routes. As their demand for capacity continues to grow across all
routes, other paths are likely to draw content provider-backed cable
construction in the near future. In particular, India-Singapore, In- U.S.-Latin
dia-Europe, and Europe-Africa may attract content provider interest America
in new systems.

Content provider demand dominates the development of certain Intra-Asia

routes; will new content providers follow suit? Our assessment is
that a very limited group of players will continue to dominate content
and cloud network demand. It seems unlikely that many more such
networks, even the Chinese content providers, will reach sufficient Europe-Asia via Egypt
demand volumes in the near-term to warrant their emergence as
full-fledged owners of subsea cables.
Europe-Sub-Saharan
Rising Utilization Africa

Even with the introduction of many new cables and the ability of
5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
older cables to accommodate more capacity, the growth of potential
capacity has failed to outpace that of lit capacity. This means that
the percentage of capacity that is lit on major routes has begun to
rise. The one exception is the U.S.-Latin America route, where the
recent launches of the three high-capacity cables has caused lit
capacity to decline as a share of total potential capacity.

Looming Cable Retirements

Cables are engineered to have a minimum design life of 25 years,

but what really matters is the economic life. The economic life
depends on a cable’s revenue exceeding the costs. If the costs of
operating a cable continually exceed the revenues, an operator may
6
“
consider retiring the cable. This could happen well before a cable
runs of out capacity. Many older cables laid in the late 1990s and
early 2000s may soon become candidates for retirement.

Addressing the Shannon Limit

Notably, every major In moving beyond 100 Gbps wavelengths, the industry faces a
subsea route saw major challenge in that it will reach the very edge of the Shannon

new cables deployed Limit—the theoretical channel capacity limit given a specified chan-
nel bandwidth and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
between 2016 and
2018, and investment So how is the industry tackling this problem? It’s taking a multi-
pronged approach.
is poised to continue
across all routes. The A few of the major strategies include increasing the number of fiber
pairs, introducing multi-core fiber, and continuing to introduce more
trans-Pacific route powerful processors.
leads the way with $2
One interim technique to add more capacity on transoceanic sys-
billion of new cable tems in the short term will be to implement spatial division multiplex-
investment expected ing (SDM), which lowers the total output power per fiber pair and
from 2019 to 2021. uses less power-intensive modulation to enable the addition of extra
fiber pairs. Current transoceanic systems generally deploy six to
eight fiber pairs, but Dunant, which is slated to launch in 2020, will
have 12. Future systems could have even more.

As a long-term growth strategy, adding fiber pairs has limitations.

The general consensus in the industry is that once systems reach
somewhere between 24 and 32 fiber pairs, mechanical complica-
tions will increase to the point where the trend is unsustainable.
 7

Wholesale Market Challenges

The rapid expansion of major content providers’ networks has

caused a shift in the global wholesale market. Google, Microsoft,
Facebook, and Amazon are investing in new submarine cable sys-
tems and purchasing fiber pairs. Although this removes large swaths
of bandwidth from the managed wholesale bandwidth market, it
also drives scale to establish new submarine cable systems and
lower overall unit costs.

Many submarine cable business models actually rely on this capital

injection, allocating fiber and network shares to the largest consum-
ers to cover initial investment costs, then selling remaining shares of
system capacity as managed wholesale bandwidth.

Unit cost savings of large investments are a great investment in-

centive for operators, but they don’t want to be left with too much
excess bandwidth. It’s often a race to offload wholesale capacity
before a new generation of lower-cost supply emerges. Carriers
most likely to succeed are those with massive internal demand and
less dependence on wholesale market revenues.

Both content and telco network operators are reckoning with

massive bandwidth demand growth, driven by new applications
and greater penetration into emerging markets. The sheer growth
in supply will drive lower unit costs for bandwidth. In the face of
unrelenting price erosion, the challenge for wholesale operators is to
carve out profitable niches where demand trumps competition.
8

ALL THINGS INTERNET

Our Global Internet Geography Research Service provides analysis
and data on internet capacity and traffic, IP transit pricing, and
backbone operators. The trends we’ve observed in recent years
have largely continued. International internet bandwidth and traffic
growth has gradually slowed in recent years, but remains brisk.
IP transit price declines continue globally, but significant regional
differences in prices remain.

Internet Traffic and Capacity

Global internet bandwidth rose last year by “only” 26%—the lowest
annual growth rate seen in at least 15 years—and at a compound
annual rate of 28% between 2015 and 2019. Total international
bandwidth now stands at 466 Tbps. The pace of growth is slowing,
but it still represent a near tripling of bandwidth since 2015.

The pace of new international internet capacity deployments varied

by region. Africa experienced the most rapid growth of international
internet bandwidth, growing at a compound annual rate of 45%
between 2015 and 2019. Asia was just behind Africa, rising at a
42% compound annual rate during the same period.
 9

Since we began tracking international internet capacity in 1999, the

highest-capacity inter-regional route had always been Europe-Unit-
ed States & Canada. This route has been eclipsed by the Latin
America-U.S. & Canada route, which has seen an explosion in
bandwidth. Capacity on this route first exceeded that on the Europe
route in 2013. Six years later, this route has more than double the
capacity of the Europe-U.S. & Canada route. In 2019, operators
turned up an additional 9.5 Tbps of bandwidth, a 27% increase
from the year before, to reach nearly 43 Tbps of bandwidth.

Why such a dramatic shift?

First, Latin America’s international internet bandwidth is almost

completely connected to the U.S. & Canada, whereas Asia and Eu-
rope have a greater diversity of connectivity. Second, large content
providers have deployed massive trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific
links, which appears to have dampened the growth of internet
capacity on these routes. By contrast, these content providers have
only recently begun sticking their toes in the water in Latin America.

Prices
While IP transit prices vary across the globe, they all decline. Some
of the highest rates of price erosion occurred in markets with the
greatest competition and the largest amount of international internet
traffic exchange—namely, global hubs.

• In Europe, London is a primary destination for regional traffic,

as well as internet bandwidth from sub-Saharan Africa and the
Middle East. Prices in the British capital dropped at an astonish-
ing rate of 36%.

• The price for a 10 GigE port in Miami fell at a rate of 33%. Miami
is a global hub in its own right, host to traffic exchange from
Latin America.

• In East Asia, Singapore has emerged as a hub for intra-regional

traffic exchange. Even with a 31% rate of price erosion, ports in
Singapore remain more expensive than in Western Europe and
major U.S. destinations. For example, a 10 GigE port in Singa-
pore is about 3.8 times the price in London.
10

• The price for a 10 GigE port in Johannesburg dropped 32%.

10 Highest Capacity This largely reflects falling transport prices linking South Africa to
Europe, especially on the WACS cable.
International
Internet Hub Cities • The price for a 10 GigE port in São Paulo fell 27% to reach $2
Domestic routes omitted, 2019 per Mbps. After the launch of three new cables connecting
Brazil to the United States (Seabras-1, Monet, and BRUSA), it’s
Frankfurt, Germany no wonder transport prices dropped.
Bandwidth: 86.2 Tbps
Provider Connectivity
London, U.K.
Our rankings of provider connectivity includes analysis based on
Bandwidth: 61.8 Tbps
BGP routing tables, which govern how packets are delivered to their
destinations across myriad networks as defined by autonomous
Amsterdam, Netherlands
system numbers (ASNs). Every network must rely on other networks
Bandwidth: 55.6 Tbps
to reach parts of the internet that it does not itself serve; there is no
such thing as a ubiquitous internet backbone provider.
Paris, France
Bandwidth: 54.5 Tbps
If you want a single, simple number to identify the best-connected
provider in the world, you may come away disappointed. There are
Singapore, Singapore
several ways to measure connectivity, and each highlights different
Bandwidth: 37.0 Tbps
strengths and weaknesses of a provider’s presence. One basic
metric is to count the number of unique Autonomous Systems (AS)
Hong Kong, China
to which a backbone provider connects, while filtering out internal
Bandwidth: 25.3 Tbps
company connections.

Miami, U.S. We’ve seen little change amongst the top providers based on this
Bandwidth: 25.1 Tbps ranking system. Hurricane Electric and CenturyLink have swapped
the top spot for several years. Hurricane edged out then-Level 3 in
Stockholm, Sweden 2017 as the best-ranked ISP in terms of overall connections, but the
Bandwidth: 23.2 Tbps CenturyLink merger with Level 3 moved the combined entity back to
the top in 2018. The two companies are now locked in a virtual tie.
Marseille, France
Bandwidth: 21.9 Tbps In addition to examining overall number of connections, we also
used our analysis of BGP routing tables to look at the “reach” (a
New York, U.S. measure of the number of IP addresses an upstream ASN has been
Bandwidth: 21.3 Tbps given access to from downstream ASNs) and “share” (which com-
pares an upstream provider’s reach to all other upstream providers
of a downstream ASN.) The results of this analysis paint a different
picture. In some cases, an ISP might end up with a high ranking in
terms of number of connections, but a low one in terms of share or
reach when the number of IP addresses passed from its customers
is relatively small.
 “ 11

Outlook
The combined effects of new internet-enabled devices, growing
broadband penetration in developing markets, higher broadband
access rates, and bandwidth-intensive applications will continue
to fuel strong internet traffic growth. While end-user traffic require-
ments will continue to rise, not all of this demand will translate While IP transit
directly into the need for new long-haul capacity. A variety of factors prices vary across
shape how the global internet will develop in coming years: the globe, they all
• IP Transit Price Erosion. It’s not a bold prediction that IP transit decline. Some of
prices will continue to fall globally, as they always have. The rate the highest rates
of decline will be greatest in emerging markets. In these mar-
kets, high prices have greater potential to fall due to increases
of price erosion
in volume and local traffic exchange that improve economy of occurred in markets
scale. In established global hubs, prices will also fall, largely a with the greatest
result of escalating volume and declining unit cost.
competition and the
• CDNs and Caching. While the increase in broadband users largest amount of
and access rates will continue to drive traffic growth in access
networks, much of this growth may be managed locally within
international internet
a network and may not lead to proportional increases in traffic traffic exchange—
on international links. Thus, CDNs and caching will continue to namely, global hubs.
have a localizing effect on traffic patterns and dampen interna-
tional internet traffic growth.

• Content Providers. Beyond the impacts of CDNs and caching,

the largest content providers’ private networks are having a ma-
jor impact on the growth of internet capacity requirements. As
the content providers extend their networks into new locations,
the traditional backbone operators are adjusting the networks
in response. In some cases, backbone operators may reduce
capacity on some routes or shift capacity to new locations.
12

DATA ON
DATA CENTERS
More workplaces worldwide are moving to the cloud. That means
that the demand for global interconnection infrastructure is increas-
ingly diffuse.

All that to say: it’s an exciting time to examine the colocation mar-
ket. This chapter uses information from our Data Center Research
Service to provide an overview of the data center space.

Metro Capacity
As of 2019, Tokyo is still the world’s largest retail colocation market,
with 10 million square feet of gross capacity. Arguably a far more dy-
namic global market, Washington has moved into the second position
and is closely followed by London, which is nearly tied with Tokyo as
the market with the most retail data center sites.

A number of sizable regional markets have cropped up around the

globe in recent years. Madrid, Moscow, and Stockholm in Europe;
Atlanta, Boston, and Montreal in North America; and Osaka and
Mumbai in Asia have become critical secondary markets with around
1 to 2 million square feet of retail space.

Only a fraction of total data center space is used for customer server
equipment. Proportions of fitted colocation space vary by market
 13

and operator and average 56% of gross capacity. In Dallas, only an

estimated 46% of gross colocation space is actual colocation server
capacity, while 70% of gross space in Tokyo is fitted for colocation
clients.

Market Growth
Between 2015 and 2019, the median compound annual growth rate
in retail colocation capacity among the 55 markets highlighted in the
study was a modest 8%. Major hubs outpacing the median growth
rate include Amsterdam and Washington, each with at least 15%
compound annual growth.

On the other end of the spectrum, Tokyo, New York, and Los Angeles
have experienced slower growth, between 2% and 6% compounded
annually.

Vacancy
Among the metros with sufficient reporting samples, Sydney, London,
and Dallas have relatively high space availability between 40% and
50%. In each of these metros, a few large sites and numerous smaller
sites combine to report relatively high aggregate vacancy levels. On
the opposite end of the spectrum, respondents indicate that fitted
colocation capacity in Johannesburg and Taipei is largely filled.

Providers
Equinix has soared past the NTT Group in the past three years to
reclaim the title of world’s largest retail colocation provider. After a
30% surge in capacity growth in 2017 following its asset purchase
from Verizon, Equinix grew another 40% over the next two years to
surpass 22 million square feet of capacity.

When considering the number of operational sites, NTT edges out

Equinix with 220 sites. In comparing both gross capacity and number
of sites, Equinix and NTT dwarf all other retail colocation providers in
scale.

Digital Realty remains the largest operator in the wholesale data cen-
ter market, but several other operators have aggressively expanded.
CyrusOne has increased its gross capacity by 40% over the past year
14

to reach 7.6 million square feet, and it has at least 10% further growth
Largest Wholesale in the immediate pipeline. The STT Group of companies will soon
breach 10 million gross square feet of capacity.
Providers by Gross
Floor Space Among the operators tracked in our database, at least 90 data center
2019 sites are known to be in the pipeline right now. This construction will
be quite evenly spread across global regions, with North America
1. Digital Realty edging out EMEA for the biggest percentage of new deployments.
23,771,964 sq ft
Data center operators are investing both in edge and core markets
2. STT GDC
for future development. Retail colocation providers are doubling down
9,612,156 sq ft
on new metro area deployments in Washington, Amsterdam, and
3. CyrusOne Singapore, but smaller markets like Helsinki and Mumbai are well-rep-
7,579,670 sq ft resented too. Planned wholesale construction spans the gamut from
4. Quality Technology Services (QTS) the largest markets like Washington and Frankfurt to relatively nascent
6,711,069 sq ft Brazilian locations.

5. Global Switch
4,789,602 sq ft Proprietary Data Centers
6. PointOne
Among the proprietary data center operators tracked in the Data
3,160,000 sq ft
Center Research Service, all are rapidly expanding into new mar-
7. Iron Mountain kets. Collectively, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have
2,658,000 sq ft deployed 15 new data centers globally (many of which come in the
8. H5 Data Centers form of cloud service availability zones) in the last year alone. Their
2,111,000 sq ft growth is expected to accelerate over the near term with at least 21
more proprietary sites and cloud region deployments in the immedi-
9. Sabey Data Centers
ate pipeline.
2,093,890 sq ft

10. Keppel Data Centres Facebook currently operates nine proprietary data center campuses
1,750,739 sq ft with 9.1 million square feet of operational capacity and room for
further growth. That’s up more than 80% from their reported oper-
11. SINNET
ational capacity just one year ago. In the pipeline, the company is
1,744,236 sq ft
planning six further campuses with more than 6 million square feet
12. Vantage Data Centers of capacity in the initial phases alone.
1,579,500 sq ft

13. SUNeVision
1,480,000 sq ft

14. Stack Infrastructure

1,466,000 sq ft

15. Netrality
1,301,981 sq ft
 15

Power
As of 2019, an overwhelming majority of respondents, nearly 80%,
indicate that their site density levels exceed 100 watts per square
foot (W/sq ft). At the highest levels we track, only about 22% of
operators currently provision site density levels exceeding 200 W/
sq ft. That proportion isn’t dramatically higher than it was even five
years ago, when the response rate was about 17%.

Around 65% of operators support only density levels of up to 10

kilowatts per rack (kW/rack). The share of sites offering the highest
density levels exceeding 20 kW/rack is nearly 13%.

The average site density levels in Washington, Dallas, and Am-

sterdam all exceed 200 W/sqft. This puts their average density
levels into the very highest range that we track. Dallas also has an
above-average rack density level of 13 kW/rack. On the other end of
the spectrum, Hong Kong has relatively low density provisioning for
a major market at around 140 W/sqft and 5 kW/rack.

As of 2019, our survey indicates that most sites don’t operate at a

very low PUE level. A significant minority of sites (38%) operate be-
low 1.5, but that percentage hasn’t shifted over the past two years.

Connectivity
As in the previous year, 2019 respondents indicated that Centu-
ryLink, Verizon, and Zayo are the most prominent carriers in their
facilities. These three operators are especially widespread in North
America. AT&T and Cogent are also common in North American fa-
cilities, while Colt, GTT, and BT are heavily represented in European
data centers. Telstra, China Telecom, China Unicom, Tata, and NTT
are among the most ubiquitous carriers across Asian sites.

By our estimates, Equinix FR5—the former Ancotel site at Kleyer-

straße 90 in Frankfurt—is the most carrier-dense colocation site
in the world. Critical facilities run by TELEHOUSE in London and
CoreSite in Los Angeles are also among the most connected sites
globally.
16

Individual Pricing Components

As of H2 2019, the European median price per kilowatt for a
4-kilowatt colocation cabinet is about 22% higher than the North
American rate. And as of H2 2019, we’re also able to include an
assessment of Asian colocation rates, due to a growing sample of
markets in that region. The current average price per kilowatt there
is nearly identical to that of Europe.

Hub metros from Asia continue to top the list of most expensive
colocation markets, but six major markets in the analysis—repre-
senting three global regions—all have median colocation rates of
around $400 per kilowatt or more.

Reported per-kilowatt rates for high-density cabinets (cabinets with

10-kilowatt density) are an average of just 4% lower than those
for standard 4-kilowatt cabinets, although relative premiums or
discounts vary extensively. Among 27 markets reporting high-den-
sity prices, all of the Asian markets indicated the same or higher
costs for high-density colocation, while nearly all North American
and European markets indicated price discounts per kilowatt for
high-density cabinets.

Large-scale retail colocation leases (100 kilowatts) are consistently

discounted relative to single 4-kilowatt cabinet leases. Discounted
rates are on average 10% lower than per-kilowatt rates for single
cabinets.

Average monthly fiber cross-connect fees fell below $300 in North

America in H1 2017 and have generally moved between $250
and $265 since then. European rates have always been drastically
lower, but are creeping upward, now averaging more than $100 per
cross-connect. As a result, the price multiple for a North American
fiber cross-connect relative to one in Europe is at its lowest that
we’ve seen on record, at just 2.3. In Asia, cross-connect rates fall
directly between the European and North American averages.
Historically, operators in North America have charged more for fiber
“ 17

cross-connects than for Ethernet, whereas European operators

typically charged more for Ethernet cross-connects. Now, most Eu-
ropean operators have largely swung in the direction of discounting
Ethernet cross-connect fees relative to the cost of fiber cross-con-
nects, with the exceptions of those in Frankfurt and Amsterdam.
Data center operators
Cost Expectations are investing both
Current expectations are mixed across all metro areas with suffi- in edge and core
cient data to report. Of note, operators in Tokyo and Singapore are markets for future
divided as to whether prices will remain flat or rise significantly, while
those in Frankfurt and London are torn between stable expectations
development. Retail
and bracing for a fall in rates. colocation providers
are doubling down
Regional trends persist, but they only tell part of the story.
on new metro
Each market contains operators that report significant variance in area deployments
base rates and cross-connect prices. So in any of these locations, in Washington,
relative deals can be found. But in order to access the most carri-
er-dense and highly-sought ecosystems, customers can expect to
Amsterdam, and
pay a premium, regardless of the geographical location. Singapore, but
smaller markets like
Helsinki and Mumbai
are well-represented
too.
18

MISHAPS
IN THE VOICE
MARKET
The international voice market doesn’t bring a lot of joy these days.

2015 marked a turning point in the international voice market—the

first time since the Great Depression that international call traffic
declined, even if only by one half percent. It’s been downhill ever
since, as the slump in voice traffic has turned into a fact of life. Carri-
ers’ traffic fell a further 9% in 2017 and 4% in 2018, to a total of 465
billion minutes.

The OTT Effect

A new market dynamic—social calling that replaced business com-
munications as the primary driver of ILD usage—fueled a long era of
international call traffic growth that began in the 1990s. In 1990, U.S.
international call prices averaged over one dollar per minute(!) and
business users accounted for 67% of ILD revenue. A wave of market
liberalization in the subsequent decade brought new market entrants,
causing prices to tumble, and making international calling ever more
affordable to consumers. In the early 2000s, the introduction of
low-cost prepaid phones made it possible for billions of people in
developing countries to obtain their own telephones, and to keep in
touch with friends and family abroad easily. Call volumes soared, and
by 2015, calls to mobile phones in developing countries accounted
 19

for 65% of global ILD traffic.

The transition to mobile and social calling drove a 20-year boom
in voice traffic, but it has also left the industry uniquely vulnerable
to the rise of mobile social media. While Skype was the dominant
communications application for computers, a veritable menagerie of
smartphone-based communications applications, such as WhatsApp,
Facebook Messenger, WeChat (Weixin), Viber, Line, KakaoTalk, and
Apple’s FaceTime, now pose a greater threat. Both WhatsApp and
Facebook Messenger topped 1.3 billion monthly active users in 2019,
and WeChat is not far behind, with just over an estimated 1 billion
active users in September 2019. TeleGeography estimates that just
seven communications apps—WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger,
WeChat, QQ, Viber, Line, and KakaoTalk—combined for over 5 billion
monthly users in September 2019. These estimates exclude apps
for which directly comparable data is unavailable, including Apple’s
FaceTime, Google Hangouts, and Skype (the latter two of which have
over 1 billion downloads from Google’s App Store).

It’s hard to pin precise numbers on the volume of international OTT

communications. However, a simple thought experiment helps to
illuminate its likely scale. Between 1983 and 2007, international
phone traffic grew at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of
15%, and traffic grew an even faster 21% CAGR between 1927 and
1983. It’s hard to believe then that the recent decline in traffic means
that people have lost interest in communicating with friends and
family abroad. Rather, it suggests that they are turning to other means
of keeping in touch.

TeleGeography has fairly reliable estimates of Skype’s traffic through

2013, when the company carried 214 billion minutes of on-net
(Skype-to-Skype) international traffic. Telcos terminated 547 billion
minutes of international traffic in 2013, and OTT plus carrier traffic to-
taled 761 billion minutes. If we assume that total international (carrier
plus OTT) traffic has continued to grow at a relatively modest 13%
annually since 2013 (with a drop to 9% in 2018 due to texting, video,
and email), the combined volume of carrier and OTT international
traffic would have expanded to 1.35 trillion minutes in 2018, and to
1.47 trillion minutes in 2019. This calculation suggests that cross-bor-
der OTT traffic overtook international carrier traffic in 2016, and would
top 1 trillion minutes in 2019, far exceeding the 432 billion minutes of
carrier traffic projected by TeleGeography.
20

International Wholesale
Services
Many retail service providers, such as mobile operators, MVNOs,
and cable broadband providers, rely heavily on wholesale carriers to
transport and terminate their customers’ international calls. Wholesale
carriers terminated approximately 327 billion minutes of traffic in
2018, down 3% from 2017. While wholesale traffic declined in 2018,
over the last 10 years it has seen a compounded annual growth
rate of 3%. Consequently, the ratio of international traffic terminated
by wholesale carriers increased from 59% in 2008 to 72% in 2018.
Traffic to mobile phones in emerging markets has historically spurred
expansion of the wholesale market, and that demand continues to
drive wholesale’s relative growth. In 2018 wholesale carriers termi-
nated 86% of traffic to Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia, and South
America, but only 54% of traffic to western Europe. Revenues on
calls to sub-Saharan Africa grew 26% between 2011 and 2018, $2.4
billion to $3.0 billion. Conversely, revenues on calls to western Europe
fell substantially from $1.2 billion to $900 million.

Declining wholesale prices stabilized in 2015 and have inched up

ever since. This resulted in a modest increase in wholesale revenues
between 2016 and 2017. But 2018’s drop in wholesale volumes
wiped away that gain. As a result, revenues dropped last year to $13
billion, below the 2014 peak of $14.4 billion.

Wholesale operators make the bulk of their revenues in only a handful

of regional markets. Africa, for example, received 9% of the world’s
wholesale traffic, but accounted for 34% of wholesale revenues
($4.4 billion.) Countries in the Middle East accounted for 6% of world
wholesale traffic, but 12% of wholesale revenues ($1.6 billion).

Wholesale revenues are bolstered by a select set of low-traffic routes

with stubbornly high prices. For example, the France to Tunisia ac-
counts for just 0.3% of international traffic, but, at $0.37 per minute,
it provides 3% of all revenues. Thanks to low termination prices in
Mexico, the U.S.-Mexico route serves as a converse example: that
massive route represents 7% of all international traffic in the world,
but only 0.4% of wholesale carrier revenues.
Who’s carrying all this traffic? In 2018, eight carriers in TeleGeogra-
“ 21

phy’s ranking transported more than 20 billion minutes of traffic, down

from eleven in 2015. Among the nine largest carriers in the world, only
two terminated more traffic in 2018 than in 2017.

Prices & Revenues Declining wholesale

Until 2015, international carrier voice traffic had increased in each prices stabilized in
of the previous 60 years. In each of the past four years, paid call 2015 and have inched
volumes have slumped, with no end in sight. International carriers had
already suffered from revenue stagnation due to slow traffic growth
up ever since. This
and falling prices. The unprecedented occasion of outright traffic resulted in a modest
decline, however, marked a new and depressing turning point. increase in wholesale
In reviewing developments from the past year, three major trends
revenues between
stand out: 2016 and 2017. But
2018’s drop in whole-
1. Retail international call revenues peaked in 2012, and have
been on the decline ever since. Retail revenues have decreased from
sale volumes wiped
$99 billion in 2012 to $70 billion in 2018. away that gain.
2. Retail prices were essentially unchanged in 2018, at about
$0.15 per minute. Unfortunately, we anticipate that traffic loss will
As a result, revenues
overwhelm this recent price stabilization, and that revenues will dropped last year to
decline by a forecasted 9% in 2019. Perhaps a puppy isn’t enough. $13 billion, below the
3. At current run rates, international service revenues will fall to
2014 peak of $14.4
$50 billion by 2024. If that trend holds true, revenues will have de- billion.
clined by nearly half of the $99 billion total in the 10 years after 2012.