Transit and Paid Peering Exchanges

Thu Oct 9 07:18:00 UTC 2003

Woody,

Actually I'm pretty well aware of IXPs in general, having been a peering
coordinator - I'm doing some specific research for enterprises on exchanges
that are along the lines of Equinix Direct, XPE, or Band-X, to name a few.

In general, enterprises are not willing to peer the way that ISPs are - that
is, show up, and try to get some peering in a speculative fashion. Most are
more comfortable showing up at a site with the expectation to pay, and a
good idea of exactly who they can pay to get the services they need
(basically, transit, not peering). They also tend to want centralized
accounting, and sometimes a route server and a high degree of technical
assistance are helpful. The average IXP does not even come close to meeting
these requirements, sadly.

We are starting to see more and more enterprises move into colocation spaces
that have been traditionally ISP or carrier - the telcom hotels. Many of
these enterprises want an easy way to pick up transit while they are there
with minimum fuss. 

So far, I'm a bit surprised about how few folks are doing this. London seems
to be a bright spot, having several providers of this sort of service.
Equinix is also leading the way in Ashburn and San Jose. If anyone know of
any providers offering this services in the NYC area, it would be helpful...

- Dan

> From: Bill Woodcock <woody at pch.net>
> Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 07:51:54 -0700 (PDT)
> To: Daniel Golding <dgolding at burtongroup.com>
> Cc: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Re: Transit and Paid Peering Exchanges
> 
>     On Wed, 8 Oct 2003, Daniel Golding wrote:
>> Anyone have a list of Transit and Paid Peering exchange fabrics?
> 
> Very few exchanges place any restriction upon the private commercial
> arrangements between participants, any more.  There are a few which
> actively promote transit use, like ExchangePoint.
> 
> You might be better served by simply compiling a list of exchanges you'd
> actually like to be at, and then checking to see if they have any policies
> which preclude what you want to do, and then checking those to see whether
> they're actually enforced, or whether those policies are on their way out.
> 
>                               -Bill
> 
> 
> 