BandwagonHost CN2 GIA: DC6, DC9 and GIA-E Explained

BandwagonHost CN2 GIA plans come in two main tiers: E-Commerce plans in Los Angeles, San Jose, New York and Vancouver, from $49.99 per 3 months, and Ultra plans in Hong Kong, Osaka, Tokyo and Singapore, from $49.99 a month. In Los Angeles, E-Commerce plans let you choose between two CN2 GIA data centers, DC6 and DC9. BandwagonHost is run by IT7 Networks, and Chinese users call it 搬瓦工 (Banwagong). Our CN2 GIA guide explains what CN2 GIA is, and our CN2 GIA VPS comparison puts BandwagonHost next to other hosts.

BandwagonHost CN2 GIA plans: E-Commerce, Ultra and SLA

BandwagonHost sells CN2 GIA in three of its four VPS tiers: E-Commerce, E-Commerce+SLA and Ultra. The fourth, Basic, has no premium China route. This is how BandwagonHost describes each tier on its plan pages:

Tier	BandwagonHost’s description	CN2 GIA data centers (October 13, 2026)
E-Commerce	“the best possible connectivity, including premium China connectivity in most locations, while still being relatively inexpensive”	Los Angeles DC6 and DC9, San Jose, New York (USNY_8), Vancouver (CABC_6); Amsterdam (EUNL_1) on CTGNet
E-Commerce+SLA	“the best cost-to-performance balance, including premium China connectivity, backed by a 99.99% Service Level Agreement”	Los Angeles DC5 (USCA_5) only
Ultra	“Absolute best, no-compromise connectivity to China, with lowest possible latency.”	Hong Kong (HK_8), Osaka (JPOS_6), Tokyo (JPTY_8), Singapore (SG_8)
Basic	“the most cost-effective. Most locations offer local peering; some locations offer direct cost-effective peering with China.”	None

The tiers also differ in where a server can go. An E-Commerce server “can be migrated between locations anytime free of charge, without data loss”, using the KiwiVM control panel. The order form lists 15 data centers for the E-Commerce plans, including several without CN2 GIA, such as Fremont, Dubai, Osaka SoftBank (JPOS_1) and Tokyo “China Direct” (JPTY_1). Each Ultra plan’s order form offers one data center.

BandwagonHost’s CN2 GIA page says the Hong Kong and Japan plans “are going to cost much more”, and adds: “If latency is not an issue, consider using Los Angeles (eCommerce plans, link above).” The SLA plans include a “Free IP change once every 2 weeks” and no CPU limit.

BandwagonHost CN2 GIA prices by location (搬瓦工 CN2 GIA)

On October 13, 2026, the cheapest BandwagonHost CN2 GIA plan cost $49.99 per 3 months in Los Angeles, San Jose, New York and Vancouver, and $49.99 a month in Osaka and Singapore. Hong Kong and Tokyo started at $89.99 a month. These are full prices in US dollars from BandwagonHost’s order pages, checked on October 13, 2026.

Location	Data center	Tier	Cheapest plan and billing options	What you get
Los Angeles	DC6 (USCA_6) or DC9 (USCA_9)	E-Commerce	20G: $49.99 per 3 months, $89.99 per 6 months or $169.99 a year	1 GB RAM, 2 CPU cores, 20 GB SSD; 1 TB a month at 2.5 Gbit/s
Los Angeles	DC5 (USCA_5)	E-Commerce+SLA	20G: $65.89 per 3 months, $125.99 per 6 months or $239.99 a year	1 GB ECC RAM, 2 dedicated AMD cores, 20 GB NVMe; 1,000 GB a month at 2.5 Gbit/s
San Jose, New York, Vancouver	USCA_SJC5, USNY_8, CABC_6	E-Commerce	The same 20G plan as Los Angeles DC6 and DC9	The same
Hong Kong	HK_8 (Equinix HK2)	Ultra	40G: $89.99 a month, $249.99 per 3 months, $479.99 per 6 months or $899.99 a year	2 GB RAM, 2 CPU cores, 40 GB SSD; 500 GB a month at 1 Gbit/s
Tokyo	JPTY_8 (Equinix TY8)	Ultra	40G: the same prices as Hong Kong	The same, at 1.2 Gbit/s
Osaka	JPOS_6 (Equinix OS1)	Ultra	40G: $49.99 a month, $139.99 per 3 months, $269.99 per 6 months or $499.99 a year	The same, at 1.5 Gbit/s
Singapore	SG_8 (Equinix SG1)	Ultra	40G: the same prices as Osaka	The same, at 1.5 Gbit/s

Notes on the table:

• No monthly billing on the cheapest E-Commerce plan. The cheapest E-Commerce plan you can pay monthly is 80G: $56.99 a month for 4 GB of RAM and 3 TB a month at 2.5 Gbit/s.
• Stock and sales. Every plan above could be ordered on October 13, 2026, and BandwagonHost’s site showed no sale. The product names in its store include “PROMO V5”, but these are the prices on its plan pages, with no end date.
• Moving uses transfer. Data moved when you migrate a server counts against your monthly transfer. When BandwagonHost cut the data each migration moves in May 2024, it said: “As we account for all data transfers, this improvement will result in lower data usage for our customers.”
• CPU limits. Except on SLA plans, BandwagonHost’s terms cap the one-hour average CPU load. On the 20G E-Commerce plan and the 40G Hong Kong and Tokyo plans, the cap is 100% of one core.

BandwagonHost DC6 vs DC9

DC6 and DC9 are BandwagonHost’s two Los Angeles CN2 GIA data centers for E-Commerce plans, and both list the same three China routes. The differences BandwagonHost lists are the building, the hardware and the local peering:

	DC6 (USCA_6)	DC9 (USCA_9)
Building	Digital Realty LAX10	CoreSite LA2
Hardware	Not stated	“AMD+NVMe”: AMD EPYC servers with NVMe storage since July 2025
China routes	China Telecom CN2 GIA, China Mobile CMIN2, China Unicom Premium	The same
Other networks listed	HiVelocity, Cloudflare, Google	ANY2IX, Cloudflare, Akamai, Apple, Facebook, Google, Tencent/ACE
Name on the order form	“US - Los Angeles DC6 CN2GIA (USCA_6)”	“US - Los Angeles DC9 CN2GIA (USCA_9)”

BandwagonHost’s CN2 GIA page singles out DC9: “Datacenter USCA_9 offers the best overall network capacity and stability. All China-bound traffic is sent to three carriers: CN2 GIA by China Telecom (AS4809), CMIN2 (China Mobile AS58807) and China Unicom Premium (AS10099).” The page’s order link goes to DC9. In Los Angeles, it says, BandwagonHost runs “8 x 10 Gbe CN2 GIA/CTGNet links across two datacenters”. CMIN2 was switched on for “all VMs hosted in USCA_6 and USCA_9 datacenters (E-commerce plans)” on November 1, 2024.

The two used to differ more. In an article first published in 2019 and last updated in 2021, the fan site bandwagonhost.net wrote that DC6 reached mainland China over Zenlayer’s CN2 GIA (AS21859) and other destinations over HiVelocity, while DC9 bought CN2 GIA directly from China Telecom. DC6 then had 2.5 to 10 Gbit/s ports and DC9 1 Gbit/s. BandwagonHost’s current pages don’t say who supplies each data center’s CN2 GIA. In a NodeSeek test in September 2026, the network path the tester recorded into DC6 went from CN2 (AS4809) straight to BandwagonHost’s network (AS25820), with no Zenlayer hop.

What independent testers found:

• Off-peak, September 24, 2026 (NodeSeek): from an Alibaba Cloud server in Hangzhou, DC6 answered in 135.8 ms and DC9 in 139.1 ms, both with no loss. Single-connection downloads were 171 and 174 Mbit/s. With 8 connections, DC9 reached 347 Mbit/s and DC6 155 Mbit/s.
• DC9, August 2026 (NodeSeek, no affiliate link): the reviewer said DC9’s main advantage over DC6 is its AMD and NVMe hardware.
• meowvps.com, January 2026 (affiliate link): “DC9性能更强,DC6线路更好”: DC9 performs better, DC6 has better routes.

Because an E-Commerce server can move between DC6 and DC9 free of charge, apart from the transfer the move uses, you can try both.

BandwagonHost CN2 GIA-E: where the name comes from

“CN2 GIA-E” is short for “CN2 GIA ECOMMERCE”, the name of BandwagonHost’s DC6 data center when it opened. It isn’t a China Telecom product. The fan site bandwagonhost.net (Bandwagonhost中文网), an unofficial site whose BandwagonHost links carry an affiliate code, explained it in an article first published in February 2019: DC6’s name in the control panel was “CN2 GIA ECOMMERCE”, “一般我们简写为 CN2 GIA-E”, which means “we usually shorten it to CN2 GIA-E”.

Who uses the term now:

• BandwagonHost’s control panel. BandwagonHost’s public pages don’t use “GIA-E”: the order form says “DC6 CN2GIA”, and the plans are named “CN2 GIA ECOMMERCE”. Its control panel, KiwiVM, does. Customers pick a new data center from a list under “Migrate to another DC”, as a NodeSeek post explains (September 2026). A NodeSeek user reselling an E-Commerce plan in October 2026 posted the list of data centers the plan can switch to. It includes “US: Los Angeles, California (DC6 CT CN2GIA-E, CMIN2, CUP) [USCA_6]”, and San Jose, New York USNY_8 and Vancouver CABC_6 carry the same “CN2GIA-E” tag. CUP matches the China Unicom Premium in BandwagonHost’s data center list.
• DC9 joined later. Posts from September 2025 and January 2026 quote DC9 as “CT CN2GIA”. Posts from August 2026 on quote “CT CN2GIA-E”.
• Chinese bloggers and fan sites. bwg.net, a fan site with the same affiliate code as bandwagonhost.net, lists the E-Commerce plans as “CN2 GIA-E 方案” (CN2 GIA-E plans). 80AJ calls the route “CN2 GIA-E（E-commerce）” and describes it as an enhanced version of CN2 GIA (October 2025, affiliate links). WordPress 果酱 titled its September 2025 test of the E-Commerce plans “搬瓦工电子商务套餐（CN2 GIA-E）” (affiliate link).
• Not China Telecom. China Telecom Americas’ GIA and CN2 pages don’t use “GIA-E” (checked October 13, 2026). China Telecom sells GIA; the “E” comes from BandwagonHost’s plan name.

BandwagonHost doesn’t say that its “CN2GIA-E” sites use a different China Telecom product. On its public pages, all of them list “China Telecom CN2 GIA”.

BandwagonHost CN2 GIA routes by carrier and direction

BandwagonHost lists premium routes for all three Chinese carriers at its US and Canadian CN2 GIA sites, and fewer in Asia. It states a direction for only three sites. This is what its data center list and plan descriptions said on October 13, 2026:

Data center	China Telecom	China Unicom	China Mobile	Direction, in BandwagonHost’s words
Los Angeles DC9 (USCA_9)	CN2 GIA (AS4809)	China Unicom Premium (AS10099)	CMIN2 (AS58807)	“All China-bound traffic is sent to three carriers”
Los Angeles DC6 (USCA_6)	CN2 GIA	China Unicom Premium	CMIN2	Not stated
Los Angeles DC5 (USCA_5, SLA)	“CN2 GIA/CTGNet AS4809/AS23764”	China Unicom Premium	CMIN2	Not stated
San Jose, New York (USNY_8), Vancouver (CABC_6)	CN2 GIA	China Unicom Premium	CMIN2	Not stated
Hong Kong (HK_8)	CN2 GIA	“Direct route”	“Direct route”	Not stated
Osaka (JPOS_6)	CN2 GIA/CTG, both directions	Listed inbound	Listed inbound	“Inbound route: China Telecom CN2 GIA/CTG, China Unicom, China Mobile”; “Outbound route: China Telecom CN2 GIA/CTG”
Tokyo (JPTY_8)	CN2 GIA	“Direct route”	“Direct route”	“CN2 GIA preference on outbound”
Singapore (SG_8)	CN2 GIA	None named	CMIN2	Not stated

BandwagonHost doesn’t define inbound, outbound or China-bound. Read from the server’s side, inbound is traffic from China to your server, which Chinese guides call 去程, and outbound or China-bound is traffic from your server to China, 回程. So DC9’s statement covers the route back to China; it doesn’t say how traffic from China reaches DC9. For Osaka, BandwagonHost names only China Telecom CN2 GIA/CTG as the outbound route. The CN2 GIA guide explains why the two directions can differ.

Two more points:

• The plan text is older than the data center list. The E-Commerce plan description still says “Location1: Los Angeles, China Telecom IDC”, “China Telecom CN2 GIA” and “2.5 Gbps Enterprise grade transport for China Unicom provided by China Telecom”, and doesn’t mention CMIN2 or China Unicom Premium. bandwagonhost.net quoted almost the same text for DC6 in 2019. We went by the data center list and the CN2 GIA page.
• Peering between carriers. BandwagonHost says that “for China–to–USA direction, China Telecom stopped peering with China Unicom and China Mobile back in 2019”, which “resulted in added complexity for network operators”.

BandwagonHost CN2 GIA in Asia: Hong Kong, Osaka, Tokyo and Singapore

BandwagonHost’s Asian CN2 GIA sites are Ultra plans in Equinix data centers, from $49.99 a month in Osaka and Singapore and $89.99 a month in Hong Kong and Tokyo. Each 40G plan includes 500 GB a month, against 1 TB on the E-Commerce 20G plan.

• Hong Kong (HK_8, Equinix HK2): “Direct route via China Telecom (CN2 GIA), China Unicom, China Mobile”. The data center list adds RETN, NTT and China Mobile peering. In September 2025, BandwagonHost put AMD EPYC servers with NVMe storage into service in Hong Kong; new servers go on them, and existing ones can upgrade for free.
• Osaka (JPOS_6, Equinix OS1): the only Asian site with a stated direction: CN2 GIA/CTG both ways for China Telecom, and China Unicom and China Mobile on the way in. meowvps.com (affiliate link) described it in January 2026 as “XTOM下游的三网CN2GIA线路”: CN2 GIA for all three carriers, with xTom upstream.
• Tokyo (JPTY_8, Equinix TY8): “Direct route via China Telecom (CN2 GIA), China Unicom, China Mobile; CN2 GIA preference on outbound”.
• Singapore (SG_8, Equinix SG1): “China Telecom CN2 GIA, China Mobile CMIN2”, with no China Unicom route and no direction.

E-Commerce plans can also move to Osaka JPOS_1 (“Softbank peering”) and Tokyo JPTY_1 (“China Direct”). They are in the same Equinix buildings as the Ultra sites but don’t list CN2 GIA. Tests in September 2026 found heavy evening loss on JPTY_1 and some off-peak loss on JPOS_1 (see below).

BandwagonHost CN2: GT, GIA and CTGNet

None of BandwagonHost’s data centers listed CN2 GT on October 13, 2026; its premium China Telecom routes are CN2 GIA and CTGNet. Its CN2 GIA page describes China Telecom’s four options in its own words:

Option, as BandwagonHost numbers them	What BandwagonHost says
1. AS4134 (ChinaNet/163)	“very cheap”, and large enough to absorb big DDoS attacks, but “congested, especially during peak hours”
2. AS4809 CN2 GT	“since 2019, it has become pretty much as congested as AS4134”, though it saw “significant improvements” in 2021
3. AS4809 CN2 GIA	“the most expensive way to transfer data to/from China”, with “the least amount of problems”; transit “can go as high as $120 per megabit”
4. AS23764 CTGNet	“for practical reasons, equivalent to Option 3 (AS4809 CN2 GIA) in both – pricing and performance”

APNIC registers AS23764 to China Telecom Global as “CTGNet”. BandwagonHost names a second downside of CN2 GIA, “very limited capacity”: “the CN2 GIA network is not tolerant to DDoS attacks, and we have to resort to IP nullrouting in case of attacks.” Its Los Angeles DC2 (USCA_2), on Basic and E-Commerce plans, lists “ChinaNet, China Unicom, China Mobile peering” instead of a premium route.

BandwagonHost also says regular transit to and from China is congested at peak hours, “with packet loss rates reaching 30% or more”. Treat that as a seller’s claim.

BandwagonHost CN2 GIA review: what independent tests found

Tests in 2026 found BandwagonHost’s US and Canadian CN2 GIA sites steady for China Telecom and China Unicom users at the evening peak, with a smaller gain off-peak. These are single users’ tests. NodeSeek is a Chinese hosting forum and an official BandwagonHost partner since December 2024; the NodeSeek posts below have no affiliate links unless noted.

United States and Canada

• DC6, San Jose and Vancouver, evening, posted September 19, 2026 (NodeSeek): on the 20G E-Commerce plan, between 8 and 11 pm Beijing time. DC6 and San Jose had about 0% loss for China Telecom and China Unicom and ran at 500 to 650 Mbit/s; Vancouver ran at 500 to 570 Mbit/s with higher latency. China Mobile showed slight loss. A ping from the tester’s Beijing Mobile line to DC6 averaged 154.4 ms with no loss. A second test script found DC6’s route back to China Unicom in Chengdu on the ordinary 4837 network, and the routes to China Unicom in Shanghai and Guangzhou on CN2 GIA, then 4837. None used China Unicom Premium.
• 15 sites, off-peak, September 24, 2026 (NodeSeek): from an Alibaba Cloud server in Hangzhou, between 9:07 and 10:52 am Beijing time on a weekday. DC6, DC9 and San Jose answered in 134 to 139 ms with no loss, and single-connection downloads ran at 171 to 181 Mbit/s. BandwagonHost’s Fremont site, without CN2 GIA, measured 144.4 ms and 184 Mbit/s: “几乎没有差别”, almost no difference. The author notes the test point is a data center, not home broadband. The script labeled DC6’s route “CN2 GT” because the path used China Telecom’s 163 network inside China, which the author says is common from Alibaba Cloud.
• DC9, posted August 10, 2026 (NodeSeek, no affiliate link): on an Ultra plan the reviewer had moved to DC9 from Singapore, traffic in both directions used each carrier’s premium network: CN2 for China Telecom, 9929 for China Unicom and CMIN2 for China Mobile. China Unicom traffic back to Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing went over CN2 GIA instead. Single-connection speeds were mostly 130 to 200 Mbit/s on all three carriers.
• New York and Vancouver, September 2025 (WordPress 果酱, affiliate link): traffic back to China went through Los Angeles first, adding about 60 ms from New York and 40 ms from Vancouver.

Asia

• Osaka (JPOS_6), published January 29, 2026 (meowvps.com, affiliate link): from its test points on Shenzhen Telecom, Jinan Unicom and Wuhan Mobile lines, latency was 59.7 ms with 1.3% loss, 69.6 ms and 85.6 ms, and iperf3 runs reached 238 to 461 Mbit/s. The review didn’t test the Hong Kong and Tokyo CN2 GIA sites.
• Hong Kong (HK_8), June 16, 2025 (NodeSeek, affiliate link): China Telecom traffic came in over CTGNet, China Unicom over NTT and China Mobile over CMI. Latency from test points in Wuhan, Qingdao, Harbin and Luoyang was 41 to 62 ms with no loss.
• Tokyo JPTY_1, the non-CN2 site, evening, September 2026 (NodeSeek): loss of 10 to 30% or more was common, and the route back to Beijing Telecom ran at 2.8 Mbit/s. Off-peak on September 24, from the Hangzhou data center, the same site had no loss and the fastest downloads of the 15 sites.
• Osaka JPOS_1, the non-CN2 site, off-peak, September 24, 2026 (NodeSeek): from the Hangzhou data center, latency averaged 49.3 ms, and 6 of 150 pings were lost.
• We found no 2026 tests of the Tokyo (JPTY_8) and Singapore (SG_8) CN2 GIA sites.

Routes we traced from BandwagonHost’s network

On October 12, 2026, at 8:01 am China time, we ran traceroutes through Globalping probes on IT7 Networks (AS25820), BandwagonHost’s network, in Los Angeles. The targets were NextTrace’s test endpoints for China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile in Shanghai.

Probe	Date and time (China)	To	Route	Time
IT7 Networks (AS25820), Los Angeles	Oct 12, 8:01 am	China Telecom, Shanghai	CN2 (59.43.x.x) from Los Angeles into Shanghai	126 ms
IT7 Networks (AS25820), Los Angeles	Oct 12, 8:01 am	China Unicom, Shanghai	China Unicom’s 4837 backbone via San Jose	181 ms
IT7 Networks (AS25820), Los Angeles	Oct 12, 8:01 am	China Mobile, Shanghai	Hurricane Electric, then China Mobile International (AS58453)	193 ms

The China Telecom trace crossed the Pacific on CN2: its next hops after Los Angeles were in 59.43.x.x, the block APNIC registers as “CN2-BB”, and from there it entered China Telecom’s Shanghai network. The China Unicom and China Mobile traces didn’t use China Unicom Premium or CMIN2, which BandwagonHost lists for DC6 and DC9. Globalping doesn’t say which data center or plan a probe runs on, so these traces don’t show what a DC6 or DC9 server gets. They are single off-peak runs, and the raw output is kept with our records.

We didn’t trace from China to BandwagonHost’s servers, because BandwagonHost doesn’t publish test IPs or a looking glass. The test IPs passed around online, such as dc6.bwg.net, are demo servers run by fan sites. Once you have a server, the NextTrace guide shows how to check its route in both directions.

BandwagonHost refund policy

BandwagonHost refunds new orders within 30 days if you’ve used under 10% of the month’s transfer and none of the server’s IP addresses is on a blocklist. Its terms of service, last modified on November 26, 2025, list all the conditions:

• the service is “a new order (not a renewal) and was ordered 30 or fewer days ago”;
• the account is in good standing and “there have been no violations of this ToS”;
• no payment has been disputed or charged back;
• “None of the IP addresses assigned to your VPS are on any blacklist or blocklist”, and none was replaced because of blacklisting;
• “The monthly data transfer usage on your VPS is under 10% of your monthly quota”, which is under 100 GB on the 1 TB E-Commerce plan;
• you haven’t asked for refunds excessively.

A refund covers all payments on the account except IP address changes. BandwagonHost then terminates “all services under the account” and deletes “all data, snapshots and backups”. Refunds go only to “the original form of payment”. The terms don’t say whether a block by China’s firewall counts as a blocklist.

BandwagonHost terms on proxies and VPNs

BandwagonHost’s terms ban open proxies and Tor relays but say nothing about private proxies or VPNs. Its site lists “PPP and VPN support (tun/tap)” for every VPS. Among the activities “We do not tolerate”, the terms list:

Open proxy servers (due to abuse committed through open proxies);

Tor relays and exit nodes;

The terms don’t mention China. BandwagonHost “may suspend our services to you indefinitely” for a breach, and “repeat infractions of our policies may incur a $50 administration fee per incident”.

If the server’s IP address gets blocked in China, CN2 GIA doesn’t help. The SLA plans include a “Free IP change once every 2 weeks”. For other plans, BandwagonHost’s public pages don’t give an IP change price; meowvps.com (affiliate link) wrote in January 2026 that a change costs $7.39 and is only allowed once the IP is blocked. While an IP address is blacklisted, the terms say you can’t move the server to another data center until it has been off every blacklist for 7 days in a row.

Before you use a VPS to reach blocked services from China, read what the law says about VPNs in China.

Who needs a BandwagonHost CN2 GIA VPS

For a trip to China, you don’t need a VPS. For a phone, a roaming eSIM that routes your data outside mainland China is simpler. For a laptop, see VPNs that work in China, and eSIM or VPN for China? helps you choose. A BandwagonHost CN2 GIA server makes sense when you run a website, an app backend or a private proxy for people in China. To compare it with DMIT’s Pro line, see our DMIT CN2 GIA guide.