163 Backbone
Country road, gridlocked at peak hour
China Telecom's ordinary international egress, shared by everyone. Most cheap American boxes run on it: blazing fast by day, a coin flip at peak. Usable — but never worth paying a premium for it.
Who it suits
Learning, simple sites, bulk downloads — anything where latency does not matter.
How to verify it
Run mtr during 20:00–23:00 peak. Above 5% packet loss, do not rely on it for public-facing traffic.
Questions
Is 163 simply bad?
No — you just should not buy it expecting an optimised route. For learning, personal use and downloads it has the best value of any option.
Why is daytime speed testing so fast?
Because speed charts are shot during the best hours. 3 a.m. and 10 p.m. are two different networks.
Vendors on this route
RackNerd
See live pricingThe official price page returned a bot check when we looked, so no numbers here. Their promo stock turns over fast, so the live page is the only meaningful one.163 Backbone
The byword for cheap and generous; a Black Friday annual plan is the classic first box for learning. The route is ordinary 163 — do not treat it as your peak-hour workhorse.
CloudCone
See live pricingThe homepage does not list prices; you have to open the product pages. No numbers here.163 Backbone
Same tier as RackNerd, Los Angeles locations, frequent flash sales. Fine for learning, simple sites and a spare machine. They run a public affiliate programme and publish API docs.
Vultr
See live pricingThe official pricing page returned a bot check when we looked, so no numbers here.163 Backbone
A large provider billing by the hour, create and destroy at will, many locations worldwide. The safe default for sites and throwaway tests; expect an ordinary route.
HostHatch
See live pricingWe did not get a price page from the official site, so no numbers here.163 Backbone
The large-disk specialist: promotional plans reach absurd unit prices. Keep a second copy of anything important off-site — a promo box is not a safe.
The shortlist also lists 1 more operator on this route, without a page of their own. See the full shortlist →
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