Argentina, Uruguay, Internet and Covid-19

Once upon a time, Uruguay did not have a country code and Argentina lent its own (+54). If you were abroad and would like to call someone in Uruguay, you had to dial the Argentine country code (+54) and the Argentine telco would re-route the call that had entered into Argentina to Uruguay.

Once upon a time, Uruguay was hardly connected with the outside world and Argentina provided most of the internet connectivity to all Uruguay.

Once upon a time, Uruguay did not have any PoP for internet connectivity outside Uruguay and Argentina lent Uruguay a space inside its own space at one of the internet core datacenters in US.

Then, Uruguay got its own country code ( +598), made sure that submarine cables touch its territory (e.g. Bicentenario and Tannat) and got its very own big PoP not only in the core internet datacenter in the US for Latin America IP traffic, but also in the most important one for world internet connectivity.

In the meantime, Argentina while having an internet traffic, population and telco companies several times bigger than Uruguay, got smaller (but definitively not more efficient) and domestically centric. Then, the black swam (aka the Covid-19) appeared and Argentina realized that it was poorly connected with the world.

In the peering world, there is an old saying that says: “once a customer, never a peer”, Argentina once again is raising the stakes and making history, in the wrong way of course, because a former customer, Uruguay, is about to become a provider.

According to the Zen Buddhism, the small mind it is where the ego resides, filled with delusion and restless, useless, everyday thoughts; the small mind is limited, seeking gratification for the short term and the big mind is the mind of wisdom.

So, I can say that Uruguay is a small country with a big mind and Argentina is a big country with just a small mind.