Google Cloud announced they're doubling egress rates for CDN Interconnect, Direct Peering, and Carrier Peering. Effective May 1, 2026. North America, Europe, and Asia all affected.
This isn't just a price increase for Google Cloud customers. It ripples through the entire ecosystem—CDNs, carriers, ISPs, and ultimately their customers. Here's who's actually affected and what it means.
What's Changing
Starting May 1, 2026, Google Cloud is increasing list prices for three peering products:
- CDN Interconnect — reduced egress rates for GCP customers whose traffic goes to supported CDN providers
- Carrier Peering — reduced rates for carriers and ISPs who peer with Google
- Direct Peering — reduced rates for large networks with direct BGP sessions to Google
The increase roughly doubles current rates. Google's stated reason: "significant investments in global infrastructure." The practical effect: peering discounts that made Google's egress tolerable are shrinking.
CDN Interconnect: GCP Customers Using CDNs
This one's automatic and affects more people than you'd think.
If you're a GCP customer—GCS bucket, GCE instance, whatever—and you use Cloudflare, Akamai, or Fastly as your CDN, your egress to that CDN is automatically billed at CDN Interconnect rates. No configuration needed. Google recognizes traffic to allowlisted CDN IP addresses and applies reduced pricing.
That reduced pricing is now increasing.
Who's affected:
- Anyone serving content from GCS through Cloudflare, Akamai, or Fastly
- GCE instances with CDN in front
- Any GCP workload where a supported CDN pulls from your origin
The math for a 100TB/month video library served via CDN:
| Scenario | Monthly Egress Cost |
|---|---|
| GCS via CDN Interconnect (before May 2026) | ~$2,000–4,000/month |
| GCS via CDN Interconnect (after May 2026) | ~$4,000–8,000/month |
| GCS via standard internet (unchanged) | ~$8,000–12,000/month |
| ZERO-Z3 | €500/month ($540) |
The CDN Interconnect discount was the reason GCS was viable for CDN origin workloads. That gap is closing.
Carrier Peering: The Downstream Effect
This is where it gets broader than just GCP customers.
Carriers and ISPs peer with Google to deliver traffic efficiently. Your ISP probably has a peering arrangement—when you watch YouTube or access Google services, that traffic often flows over peered connections rather than the public internet.
Google is raising what they charge carriers for this egress. Carriers will pass this on.
Who's affected:
- Carriers and ISPs who peer with Google
- Customers of those carriers, indirectly
- Anyone whose traffic to Google services flows through a peering arrangement
This isn't about GCP specifically. It's about Google taxing the infrastructure that delivers their services.
Direct Peering: Large Carriers Only
Direct Peering has strict requirements:
- Minimum 10 Gbps sustained traffic to Google
- 100G physical port provisioning
- Public ASN and IRR objects
- Physical presence at Google peering locations
- Redundant connections (2+ in same metro)
Google is actually tightening this further—deprecating PNIs under 10 Gbps and decommissioning bilateral IX peering. They're pushing everyone toward their Verified Peering Provider (VPP) program.
Who's affected: Large carriers and ISPs with massive Google traffic. Not typical enterprises—they'd use Carrier Peering or VPP instead.
Google Was Already Expensive
Context matters. Before this increase, here's how the hyperscalers compared for standard egress:
| Provider | Standard Egress Rate | 50TB Egress Cost |
|---|---|---|
| AWS S3 | $0.09/GB | $4,500/month |
| Azure Blob | $0.085/GB | $4,250/month |
| Google Cloud Storage | $0.12/GB | $6,000/month |
| ZERO-Z3 | €0.005/GB ($0.0054) | €250/month ($270) |
Google Cloud Storage standard egress costs 22x more than ZERO-Z3. AWS and Azure cost 17x more. The peering discounts were how sophisticated users avoided some of that pain. Those discounts are now shrinking.
For a detailed breakdown across 25+ providers, check s3compare.io.
The Alternative: Own Your Egress
The pattern here: Google controls the infrastructure, Google sets the prices, and those prices trend up. Peering was supposed to be mutually beneficial—both parties save on transit. Google is unilaterally changing that deal.
There's another model: infrastructure where egress costs are predictable because you're not dependent on Google's pricing decisions.
ZERO-Z3 Object Storage
S3-compatible object storage with flat €5/TB egress. No CDN Interconnect pricing tiers, no peering complexity. Same rate whether you're pulling to your office, a CDN, or anywhere else.
- STANDARD_IA: €7.50/TB/month (backup, archive, video libraries)
- STANDARD NVMe: €60/TB/month (log ingestion, real-time analytics)
- Egress: €5/TB everywhere
- API requests: unlimited, included
Full S3v4 API. Works with Veeam, rclone, AWS CLI, Terraform—drop-in replacement.
Dedicated Infrastructure
For compute workloads, the same logic applies. On dedicated infrastructure, there's no per-GB egress. Your servers, your bandwidth allocation.
- GPU Servers: NVIDIA A2000/A6000 for AI/ML. No GCE egress fees. View configurations →
- Managed Proxmox: VMware alternative with predictable costs. View options →
- Managed Kubernetes: ZKE clusters on dedicated nodes. View options →
When GCP Still Makes Sense
Hyperscalers aren't going anywhere for certain workloads:
- Global edge presence: Storage in Singapore, Sydney, and São Paulo simultaneously
- Native integrations: Cloud Functions triggered by GCS, BigQuery on GCS data
- Burst capacity: 10,000 VMs for an hour
But if your workload is in Europe, egress-heavy, and doesn't need Google-specific services? The math increasingly favors alternatives.
The Bottom Line
Google is raising prices on peering—the mechanism that made their egress tolerable for high-volume users and efficient for carriers. CDN Interconnect customers pay more. Carriers pay more and pass it downstream. Standard egress ($0.12/GB) was already the most expensive among hyperscalers.
If you're moving serious data volumes, it's worth doing the math. s3compare.io can help.