concern over public peering points [WAS: Peering point speed publicly available?]

Sat Jul 3 17:57:20 UTC 2004

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On Behalf
Of
> Mikael Abrahamsson
> Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2004 10:22 AM
> To: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Re: concern over public peering points [WAS: Peering point
speed
> publicly available?]
> 
> 
> On Sat, 3 Jul 2004, Laurence F. Sheldon, Jr. wrote:
> 
> > Does the person that sweeps the floor do so for free?  And supply
the
> > broom?
> 
> The marginal cost of half a rack being occupied by an IX switch in a
> multi-hundred-rack facility is negiglabe. Yes, it should carry a cost
of a
> few hundred dollars per month in "rent", and the depreciation of the
> equipment is also a factor, but all-in-all these costs are not high
and if
> an IX point rakes in $200k a year that should well compensate for
these
> costs.
> 
> --
> Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se
> 
> 
At the Seattle Internet Exchange a, granted, smaller peering exchange,
you have to account for the following costs (and, mind you, this list is
not exhaustive).

1) 1 Rack
2) Space for the rack in a secure facility
3) AC for the equipment
4) Power for the equipment (including line and UPS)
5) Fiber and Copper runs to the facility for cross-connects
6) Terminations of (5)
7) O&M of space and gear
8) Layer 8 and 9 negotiation of (1) through (7) to keep costs down.

That's not a trivial set of expenses, particularly when there are
limitations in place to recovering costs via non-cash methods, such as
advertising the hosting of the exchange. 

Thankfully, there is some altruism on the behalf of several parties that
allow the exchange to continue providing "zero cost" connections to
participants.  I hardly think the cost of their time and effort is
"marginal".

Mike
NoaNet