CloudFlare just turned up our newest data center in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand and a very popular destination with travelers in Southeast Asia. This expands our network to span 32 cities across Asia, and 79 cities globally.
The floating market at Damnoen Saduak, just outside Bangkok (Photo source: CloudFlare's very own Martin Levy)
Thailand, with a population of 65 million, is the fourth largest country in Southeast Asia. As the central interconnection point for all Internet communications within the country, Bangkok was the natural choice for our newest deployment.
Southeast Asia expansion
Southeast Asia commonly includes the countries of Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Following Singapore and then Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Bangkok is the third location for CloudFlare in the region. We have more deployments in the works in the region; however our next data center beginning with the letter 'B' is roughly 6,000 miles away.
Online, in a massively mobile way
While only 40% of the population is online, Thailand has become a majority-mobile country very quickly, with 70% of its users accessing the Internet predominantly via smartphones. Through CloudFlare’s implementation of encryption using the ChaCha20-Poly1305 cipher suites, mobile users see a better experience with less battery usage for the same content. Add into that our recent release of HTTP/2 Server Push, and we expect that Thailand will feel the difference in performance instantly.
JasTel
We're proud to announce the first of a series of agreements with carriers in Thailand. JasTel Network Company is the partner for our first Bangkok data center. By moving JasTel customers’ access to the CloudFlare network from Singapore and Hong Kong into a local datacenter in Bangkok, we’ve helped build a better Internet experience for their users across the country.
Thailand Internet Networks and their Interconnection
While these diagrams from the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC) may look complex, their progression over the years provide a window into the evolution of Thailand’s domestic and international interconnection. Each Internet network operates its own method of interconnecting with other networks in the country. This isn’t efficient; however, as the video shows, it has been how Thailand has operated.
There is now a new Internet peering point - the Bangkok Neutral Internet Exchange (BKINX). CloudFlare is optimistic that it will improve the country’s interconnection.