Download Speed to Japan

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Download Speed to Japan

Do we need to host in Japan?

simplesimon

7:34 pm on May 31, 2008 (gmt 0)

My client has a website with a lot of video and is worried about the speed at which his audience in Japan will be able to stream them. Some of the videos are large, and our domestic shared host has apparently stomped on our bandwidth recently, because they are now downloading slowly here. We are moving to a dedicated server because of this, but think it also might be necessary to have the website hosted in Japan, or possibly Hong Kong, to give the viewers a decent download speed. Any experience with this issue, or thoughts? Are there any services that will test download speed for the Japanese audience at a reasonable price?

Thanks

bill

12:05 am on Jun 1, 2008 (gmt 0)

Even the free online bandwidth tests will show me a much higher transfer rate for hosts inside Japan than those located in Asia or elsewhere. If you're doing video targeted at the Japanese audience then local hosting should be your first consideration.

Visit Thailand

12:23 am on Jun 1, 2008 (gmt 0)

Yes, the download speeds in Japan are nuts. Just ask Bill what he is currently on.....

Nowhere else in Asia (except for perhaps Korea?) will you get such mind boggling speeds.

Am I jealous, you bet!

simplesimon

5:43 pm on Jun 1, 2008 (gmt 0)

Even the free online bandwidth tests will show me a much higher transfer rate for hosts inside Japan than those located in Asia or elsewhere.

Can you suggest a testing methodology? My client is non-technical and would feel more comfortable knowing that a human being in Japan viewed the site fine, than with me giving him ping or traceroute numbers.

If you're doing video targeted at the Japanese audience then local hosting should be your first consideration.

Can you recommend any Japanese hosts that you have had good experience with? Support in english is a consideration, since I don't speak or read Japanese.

[edited by: simplesimon at 5:56 pm (utc) on June 1, 2008]

simplesimon

5:50 pm on Jun 1, 2008 (gmt 0)

Nowhere else in Asia (except for perhaps Korea?) will you get such mind boggling speeds.

Would elsewhere in Asia be a significant improvement over hosting in the U.S. or are there other network considerations that would be limiting? Just looking for a backup plan in case the price tag for hosting in Japan is too high for my client.

DamonHD

8:17 pm on Jun 1, 2008 (gmt 0)

Generally speaking, avoiding expensive and congested international links will keep things fast, ie all other things being equal putting servers in the same country and cities as your users will maximise performance in terms of bandwidth, latency, reliability, etc.

If 50% of your users are in Tokyo, have at least one server hosted in Tokyo if possible, for example.

You can do clever things to push users to the servers 'nearest' them using DNS and so on if you want to.

Rgds

Damon