IX in France

Thu Feb 23 18:00:51 UTC 2012

On Feb 23, 2012, at 12:39 PM, virendra rode wrote:

> I understand this is not true peering relationship, however its an
> interesting way to obtain exchange point routes and I understand this is
> nothing new.

<mini-rant>

I've found people who use the term 'peering' to mean something different than what I personally interpret it to mean.

eg: "We have peering with 4 carriers at our colocation facility where you can place gear"

Translation: We have blended IP transit from 4 carriers, or you can directly connect to them as needed.

I understand why they call it this, because "I configured peering with Level3/Cogent" on my router, etc.  The difference is in the policy.  What you're speaking of is someone selling transit, which is perfectly fine over various IXes, you generally are prohibited from 'selling next-hop', i.e.: you have to bear the cost on the IX port of the forwarding.

</mini-rant>

Buying transit isn't as dirty as people think it is, sometimes its the right business decision.  If you connect to an IX for $4000/mo at gig-e, you might as well buy transit at $4/meg on that same port IMHO.  You're unlikely to be using the port at 100% anyways at the IX, so your cost-per-meg there needs to properly reflect your 95% or whatnot.

- Jared