What countries do you want to see added in 2017?

[greenclaydog 6]

Let's hear it: what countries should be added to the list of servers this year?

[pr1v 36]

If it's possible: Iceland, and some others in Spain.

[Casper31 73]

Iceland or Norway but perhaps a server in Brazil would be nice.

Brazil because its not a related country to the so called "western world".

 

Wish everyone a healthy and secure 2017

 

Gr,Casper

[LZ1 672]

Hello!

I think Air should definitely go ahead and add in Nigeria, why not?

 

1. Nigeria is fairly centrally located, meaning lots of under-served African users can get access.
2. 
3. Nigeria isn't (even) on PIAs list of server locations it seems, which is frankly incredible in and of itself if you know PIA .
4. Nigeria is, as of 2015, the worlds 20th largest economy, so there's plenty of room for expansion!
5. Nigeria would be AirVPNs first African server no?, so why not!
6. Nigeria because... Nigeria? The shock factor alone would be something to watch.

Jokes aside haha...

 

Cheap answer: I think Air should add the server locations that Air deems to be best for their mission and current budget and options.

 

But otherwise I agree Iceland would be a nice to have - but I definitely don't expect it, as it seems totally unrealistic. Perhaps we should see about getting the French servers back first, if possible . More Asian servers would be really cool as well, but again, reality hits back hard. It would seem Air already has lots of things planned. Of those that I know of: IPv6 support, Eddie 3, updating client software section, re-assessing France as a server location, EFF & FSF funding, getting back to some of the other projects after Eddie is updated and probably lots more. Australia would be cool, since Australians are

always underserved in networking-related matters haha. But personally, I don't mind if no new servers are added. I'm content.  We shouldn't forget that Air, despite being Italian, also actually still

doesn't have any Italian servers either! So perhaps they'll be adding that again, if they can get around the legal hurdles .

 

Happy New Year to you all ! I hope everyone, including AirVPN & Staff will have a good 2017 .

[FromtheWalls 83]

I second Norway and Iceland, but I'll love you guys even if it doesn't happen   Happy New Year to everyone!

[ma65547 7]

Finland, of course.

Hyvää uutta vuotta / Happy new year!

[Guest]

Would be lovely if AirVPN can reevaluate whether a server in Japan is possible or not. Singapore is great. Definitely a country of the international internet hub, but I must say the reliability is not perfect. It is unstable at times with fluctuating speeds and ping. Mostly works well though, I'm glad Youtube is working almost flawlessly from South Korea. Japan is a well connected hub internationally and for people located in East Asia with great ping and speeds. I do understand that AirVPN has privacy goals to meet and it's really too bad if Japan's legislation cannot meet the standards  , but laws change and it would be nice if AirVPN could take a look again.

[Ricnvolved1956 51]

Russia... though I know that's very unlikely. 

 

Iceland... Finland... Japan... Luxembourg... Belarus... India... Ireland... Venezuela... Bolivia... Greece... Portugal and France again?

 

I'm with LZ1 here-- We already have a pretty good selection with the current lineup of servers. So if it isn't in the budget or the cards for Air to have servers in the countries listed in this post, I'm perfectly okay with that. This is a great place to be.

[Biloulou 3]

France ! For french speaking people, there are a lot of sites there for film, music, and so on.

[tom7812 5]

As said before, Iceland would be great. France for french speakers would be nice too although recent local laws might complicate things in term of anonimity.

[serenacat 83]

The single Singapore server 1Gbps at Leaseweb Asia often shows the highest number of users, and highest load above 50% in regional evening. Singapore is an efficient regional hub, with Content Delivery Network servers such as Akamai and Amazon and good undersea cable links.

<p>

Notably traffic to Europe often transits via ME rather than via NSA/USA like HK and JP. But in matters like islamic militancy and drugs and of importance to state level agencies one would expect close cooperation with Australia/China/India/USA etc due general geopolitical strategy and authoritarian internal politics. A VPN cannot protect against man-in-the-middle and monitoring for other clues in the routing from VPN server to an IP address "of interest" after the end of the tunnel.

<p>

Air does not seem  to have much takeup in Asia, but it is a growing/large Internet presence, and commercial and political conflict and corruption should drive a need for VPNs and other security measures. Even just in  say Thailand, there is chronic conflict between military and students etc, and many expats wary of insulting the system. One can find a majority presence of Indian peers in bittorrent swarms for popular pirate stuff like Game of Thrones, which may be an indicator of part of the load on Singapore.

<p>

Singapore is the smallest latency from east coast Australia now my ISP is using a supplier that routes Sydney-Japan-HK, but the Perth-Singapore cable has a history of being broken for days a couple of times a year by fishing trawlers or earthquakes.

[mrmojo73 0]

I would second the nominations of Norway and Australia, however I'm very satisfied with the offering so far. Keep up the great work.

[333_half_evil 6]

I would want to see Japan, Brazil, Korea, and/or Australia. Too bad Russia is way too risky, i'd love to see one there.

[Shobi 1]

I would like to have server located in Poland. 

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

Instead of posting what you want, better post why it's a good idea. Help us understand and provide mission-compliant datacenters (it does not include price, we can look at it afterwards). If you only want to watch streaming services there is no need for a server you can connect to. If enough people need certain streaming sites to work in a country, a 100 MBit rerouting/double-hop server will do just fine. Kindly ask for it via support ticket.

 

Some of the suggestions were already discussed earlier. There are reasons against Russia, Australia, Japan and a few others so far.

Also, Air already had servers in some of the suggestions, including France and Korea.

 

If you need more info, feel free to search the forums for those countries.

[greenclaydog 6]

Instead of posting what you want, better post why it's a good idea. Help us understand and provide mission-compliant datacenters (it does not include price, we can look at it afterwards). If you only want to watch streaming services there is no need for a server you can connect to. If enough people need certain streaming sites to work in a country, a 100 MBit rerouting/double-hop server will do just fine. Kindly ask for it via support ticket.

 

Some of the suggestions were already discussed earlier. There are reasons against Russia, Australia, Japan and a few others so far.

Also, Air already had servers in some of the suggestions, including France and Korea.

 

If you need more info, feel free to search the forums for those countries.

Most of the countries Air operate in are fully US compliant with only a handful of exceptions. Some users may wish to use servers in non-US compliant countries. Switzerland, for example as much as it is bragged about for it's privacy and torrent laws is also known as the espionage capital of the world, with the NSA running their own operation in Geneva according to Edward Snowden. Countries that harbor whistleblowers may be more favorable for privacy minded users.

 

I get that servers in these types of countries are expensive, but perhaps some can be found that are worth the price tag.

[serenacat 83]

Different users have different threats of course. I have already commented a few times about using Hong Kong to avoid 5eyes as national security is the domain of China, but has local laws and commercial interests. People like Turkish bloggers may also beware of China looking for agents of influence. Makes me wonder about Taiwan - in a triangle between China, USA and autonomy, and would be well connected for Japan and S Korea and to USA etc.

 

Those corporate facade, tax haven, money laundering hotspots such as Bermuda and Panama are used by some VPNs, so some industry experience for insiders is around. Maybe the Trump vs Mexico thing will heat up, and if NAFTA is scrapped, the Mexicans might delight in counterattacking with file sharing sites and VPN servers and "offshore banking" across The Wall, rather than trying Russian nuclear missiles.

[greenclaydog 6]

Personally i would support a server in Iceland for a start. One of the few things i miss about IVPN.

 

Not to mention a poll taken shows 100% support for an Icelandic server, although it was only voted on by 33 people.

 

IVPN is a smaller provider and they are able to manage a server in Iceland. With the growth of AirVPN's userbase post UK-IP bill i think Iceland would be an ideal solution for those in North America, Western Europe and UK citizens.

[nvrau 0]

+1 for Australia.

[serenacat 83]

Although I live in Australia, and have read up on some reporting and whirlpool forum comments, I am not an expert, and this response is a bit half-baked.

The issues to be considered in Australia include:

 

- Although some VPNs have servers in Australia, the new laws and requirements are only partially rolled out and interpreted and enforced, and paced to keep a low profile in the mainstream media.

 

- The metadata retention and know-your-customer laws were broadly worded for organizations providing "internet services", and the category of "internet service provider" has been blurred by the NBN terminology of "retail service provider" and "wholesale provider". This comment travels via NBN Fixed Wireless to cell tower, by NBN fibre, to an ISP point of presence 200 Km away, then by a backhaul provider to my "ISP" who then uses a wholesale reseller for various  overseas cables. So many legal and organizational and technical tap points for traffic interception.

 

- The data gatherers such as ISPs, contractors, etc are under very punitivelegal gag orders to not disclose to the public or without-due-cause exactly what they are instructed to do by the Attorney Generals department, Federal Police or other secret agencies. 10 years prison for disclosure of "operational matters". Staff or agents of VPNs beware !

 

- The access to retained metadata of phone and sms calls, websites visited, email correspondents etc (open to be expanded in future) and from where and when, is desired by many government departments and other organizations such as the RSPCA (!?). The government has retracted some plans, but not prohibited, instead at present the Federal Police (not the judiciary) are the "gatekeepers" or "information brokers". I have worked as  a contractor for government, and understand the bureaucrat ambitions for empire building, power and influence, promotions and IT budgets. All the incentives are toward grabbing Big Data and Bigger Data.

 

- Old guard media such as Murdoch (Fox, Sky), Foxtel (Telstra) are very influential with the government, and are aggressively pushing ISP blocking blacklists of "piracy enabling sites". This could be expanded to include VPNs, or possibly by police persecution for "terrorism" or "child pornography". It seems likely that organizations like Fox lobby the US Justice Dept to prosecute in US courts the main man of KickassTorrents who is then seized by police in Poland for extradition to US prison even though a Ukrainian citizen just visiting.

 

- As a technical matter, I do not trust "no logging" promises, there are various ways of capturing data from running processes in realtime. An optical fibre can be split into 2 mirror streams without degradation and analyzed elsewhere.

 

- Hosting and n Gbit bandwidth is apparently comparatively expensive in Australia, and the rates of bittorrent piracy are very high due to restrictive and expensive media distribution. The whirlpool forum comments related to VPN use in Australia seem to have many users complaining if they cannot get their 100Mbps NBN subscription running at full rate via the VPN, even though as likely due to ISP or NBN congestion, or collisions with the wifi of neighbours. So a problem for a flat global rate to recoup costs.

 

Sorry this is a rushed pile of points, and there is more, but time to go.

[greenclaydog 6]

Although I live in Australia, and have read up on some reporting and whirlpool forum comments, I am not an expert, and this response is a bit half-baked.

The issues to be considered in Australia include:

 

- Although some VPNs have servers in Australia, the new laws and requirements are only partially rolled out and interpreted and enforced, and paced to keep a low profile in the mainstream media.

 

- The metadata retention and know-your-customer laws were broadly worded for organizations providing "internet services", and the category of "internet service provider" has been blurred by the NBN terminology of "retail service provider" and "wholesale provider". This comment travels via NBN Fixed Wireless to cell tower, by NBN fibre, to an ISP point of presence 200 Km away, then by a backhaul provider to my "ISP" who then uses a wholesale reseller for various  overseas cables. So many legal and organizational and technical tap points for traffic interception.

 

- The data gatherers such as ISPs, contractors, etc are under very punitivelegal gag orders to not disclose to the public or without-due-cause exactly what they are instructed to do by the Attorney Generals department, Federal Police or other secret agencies. 10 years prison for disclosure of "operational matters". Staff or agents of VPNs beware !

 

- The access to retained metadata of phone and sms calls, websites visited, email correspondents etc (open to be expanded in future) and from where and when, is desired by many government departments and other organizations such as the RSPCA (!?). The government has retracted some plans, but not prohibited, instead at present the Federal Police (not the judiciary) are the "gatekeepers" or "information brokers". I have worked as  a contractor for government, and understand the bureaucrat ambitions for empire building, power and influence, promotions and IT budgets. All the incentives are toward grabbing Big Data and Bigger Data.

 

- Old guard media such as Murdoch (Fox, Sky), Foxtel (Telstra) are very influential with the government, and are aggressively pushing ISP blocking blacklists of "piracy enabling sites". This could be expanded to include VPNs, or possibly by police persecution for "terrorism" or "child pornography". It seems likely that organizations like Fox lobby the US Justice Dept to prosecute in US courts the main man of KickassTorrents who is then seized by police in Poland for extradition to US prison even though a Ukrainian citizen just visiting.

 

- As a technical matter, I do not trust "no logging" promises, there are various ways of capturing data from running processes in realtime. An optical fibre can be split into 2 mirror streams without degradation and analyzed elsewhere.

 

- Hosting and n Gbit bandwidth is apparently comparatively expensive in Australia, and the rates of bittorrent piracy are very high due to restrictive and expensive media distribution. The whirlpool forum comments related to VPN use in Australia seem to have many users complaining if they cannot get their 100Mbps NBN subscription running at full rate via the VPN, even though as likely due to ISP or NBN congestion, or collisions with the wifi of neighbours. So a problem for a flat global rate to recoup costs.

 

Sorry this is a rushed pile of points, and there is more, but time to go.

 

As someone who lives in Australia, do you think it would be beneficial to have a server somewhere in Hawaii? Right now it seems that you are limited to Asia and the US West coast, but Hawaii is between you and California. However it may be comparable in performance to Asia i would suppose.

 

Not to mention hosting costs in Hawaii are probably expensive. Oh well i tried.

 

Just trying to come up with new ideas.

[zhang888 1066]

There are no hosting providers in Australia that can currently provide the demands vs. costs.

Every ISP should buy bandwidth from a list of 6 IXPs. And that is beyond any imaginable cost, unless you are a CDN or a similar company.

Take a look:

https://www.ix.asn.au/peering/

 

I don't know how such a big and economic country doesn't go to the streets because of that. This basically leaves Australia behind most

of the world in terms of affordable internet quality, quite similar to Latin America where internet is still an expensive privilege.

I am sure some Australian users can comment on their high-bandwidth experience better.

[rustintimberlake 13]

Iceland and Finland.

[serenacat 83]

@AgentSmith

Running a few traceroutes from Antares Singapore and from my ISP it appears traffic to Hawaii goes via California - a bit like a high speed motorway has restricted access and a big expensive interchange far away even if it passes your backyard.

Actually latency does not bother me that much if I am just web browsing, news video watching at 720p etc - using ImageBlock, uBlockOrigin and NoScript addons in Firefox makes the biggest difference to page load times and just disable selectively. Any bittorrent I usually do with my off-peak data quota while I sleep, and often use Netherlands VPN servers for peering efficiency "good netizen" reasons. But most of the crap in 2016 from the studios is not worth watching even if you get it for free - cuts down piracy if they just sell junk for childminds.

@zhang888

Internet connectivity has now a long and ugly history in party political warfare. There are some similarities to the story of healthcare in the USA.

A "free market" bias toward oligopy and cherry-picking for restricted expensive services with many excluded. A "leftist" push for national infrastructure for economic benefits, social equity, ethical sort of reasons. A "rightist" campaign by vested interests denouncing such "socialist" activity. A change of government to the "rightists" and an ideological fanaticism to destroy any legacy of the "leftists", and benefits for the sponsors.

So a highly political situation, with little constraint from logic or common sense or advice of economists.

See https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2593300

"Federal Coalition "NBN"/MTM policy - Part 92" for more than you want to know.

 

But it is really mainly about moving electrons for work or entertainment, whereas the healthcare politics in the USA are about how many hundreds of thousands of Americans will be tortured and murdered by denial of access to healthcare when they must eventually become sick or old.

"I don't know how such a big and economic country doesn't go to the streets because of that." - indeed.

[foks 2]

I want Poland  it is no less democratic than any other country in Europe, so no worries