Are there any common locations in Alaska where multiple local ISPs exchange traffic, either transit or peering? Or is Seattle the closest exchange point for Alaska ISPs?
peeringdb.com lists only SIX (in Seattle) and PAIX Seattle.
Antonio Querubin
808-545-5282 x3003
e-mail/xmpp: tony@lava.net
PCH doesn't know of any. If any exist, we'd very much like to hear about it. Vancouver BC may technically be closer than Seattle, but that's not a significant answer.
-Bill
Hello All ,
Thanks and also thanks to the other folks that replied privately. That matches basically what I had found, but I wanted to check.
Transit is also ok, I'm doing the usual minimum connections/maximum communications in case of (earthquake, volcano, tsunomi, etc) math. Is
there someplace in Anchorage that buying transit or peering from one or a few ISPs is significant enough, or is it going back to Seattle anyway and
the local ISPs already have done the math.
What I've seen is that in smaller markets (in my previous life), eg: Michigan, even when the providers are all in the same facility they
1) Lacked understanding of traffic-patterns to understand peering savings
2) Lacked ability to interconnect (eg: no switch on-site, no bgp/routing capability)
3) CLEC or other colo provider prohibited #2
This meant traffic would regularly be diverted to Chicago or similar for exchange between local ISPs.
The one time I was able to pull off a local facility cross-connect, it was difficult to get it at a speed greater than 10megs (this was 1999 or so).
With the dropping metro-ethernet/ftth type equipment that can do 1G for "cheap", perhaps a short fiber build for x-connect would help faciltiate things these days. (i should model that and post the results).
- Jared
Are there any common locations in Alaska where multiple local ISPs
exchange traffic, either transit or peering? Or is Seattle the closest
exchange point for Alaska ISPs?
peeringdb.com lists only SIX (in Seattle) and PAIX Seattle.
Thanks and also thanks to the other folks that replied privately. That
matches basically what I had found, but I wanted to check.
Transit is also ok, I'm doing the usual minimum connections/maximum
communications in case of (earthquake, volcano, tsunomi, etc) math. Is
there someplace in Anchorage that buying transit or peering from one or a
few ISPs is significant enough, or is it going back to Seattle anyway and
the local ISPs already have done the math.
What I've seen is that in smaller markets (in my previous life), eg:
Michigan, even when the providers are all in the same facility they
1) Lacked understanding of traffic-patterns to understand peering savings
2) Lacked ability to interconnect (eg: no switch on-site, no bgp/routing
capability)
3) CLEC or other colo provider prohibited #2
This meant traffic would regularly be diverted to Chicago or similar for
exchange between local ISPs.
The one time I was able to pull off a local facility cross-connect, it was
difficult to get it at a speed greater than 10megs (this was 1999 or so).
With the dropping metro-ethernet/ftth type equipment that can do 1G for
"cheap", perhaps a short fiber build for x-connect would help faciltiate
things >these days. (i should model that and post the results).
- Jared
We've seen the same issues in Minnesota. Locally referred to as the "Chicago
Problem". Adding on to point 3, there is also a lack of neutral facilities
with a sufficient amount of traffic to justify the next carrier connecting.
In rural areas many times the two ISPs that provide services are enemies at
the business level. A couple of us have started to talk about starting an
exchange point. With transit being so cheap it is sometimes difficult to
justify paying for the x-connects for a small piece of the routing table.
Have you considered starting your own exchange point with some of the local
players? Just having the connectivity in place may help with DR situations
in addition to all of the benefits of an exchange point.
I would also be very interested in seeing any modeling on the subject. There
was a document a couple of years ago that was pretty good talking about when
to peer but if memory serves it was more focused on the larger carriers.
Jay
<snip>
We've seen the same issues in Minnesota. Locally referred to as the "Chicago
Problem". Adding on to point 3, there is also a lack of neutral facilities
with a sufficient amount of traffic to justify the next carrier connecting.
In rural areas many times the two ISPs that provide services are enemies at
the business level. A couple of us have started to talk about starting an
exchange point. With transit being so cheap it is sometimes difficult to
justify paying for the x-connects for a small piece of the routing table.Have you considered starting your own exchange point with some of the local
players? Just having the connectivity in place may help with DR situations
in addition to all of the benefits of an exchange point.
Any interest by other anchor tenants in the area, such as the higher
education facilities? In Madison, we have MadIX[1], an exchange point hosted
by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a presence in one of the
neutral carrier hotels in Madison.
That eliminates the carrier to carrier issues you run into in the smaller
cities, also helps with the "Chicago Problem" which we are very familiar
with here as well.
[1] Madison Internet eXchange Peering Point - MadIX
Andrew
Seattle is the closest practical peering point to Vancouver too, as far as I know, outside of academic/federal networks.
Joe
<snip>
We've seen the same issues in Minnesota. Locally referred to as the
"Chicago
. Problem". Adding on to point 3, there is also a lack of neutral
facilities
with a sufficient amount of traffic to justify the next carrier
connecting.
In rural areas many times the two ISPs that provide services are enemies
at
the business level. A couple of us have started to talk about starting an
exchange point. With transit being so cheap it is sometimes difficult to
justify paying for the x-connects for a small piece of the routing table.Have you considered starting your own exchange point with some of the
local
players? Just having the connectivity in place may help with DR
situations
in addition to all of the benefits of an exchange point.
Any interest by other anchor tenants in the area, such as the higher
education facilities? In Madison, we have MadIX[1], an exchange point
hosted
by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with a presence in one of the
neutral carrier hotels in Madison.That eliminates the carrier to carrier issues you run into in the smaller
cities, also helps with the "Chicago Problem" which we are very familiar
with here as well.[1] Madison Internet eXchange Peering Point - MadIX
Andrew
From the looks of the link it looks like there is a bit of traction at the
MadIX. One of the other interested carriers has talked to the University of
MN and they showed some interest in participating. The trick is getting the
first couple of participants to get to critical mass. Is the MadIX using a
route server or is it strictly layer2?
Thanks,
Jay
We have very similar issues in Kansas City. A couple years ago we set up a
local exchange point but it's had issues gaining traction due to a lack of
understanding more than anything else. In these smaller markets people have
a hard time understanding how connecting to a competitor benefits them. The
key is to get a few solid players on board and cross your fingers that
others will follow.
Aaron
Just L2 w/ PIM snooping.
Dale
Does anybody have some numbers they're able to share? In the "two small ISPs
in the boonies" scenario, *is* there enough cross traffic to make an
interconnect worth it? (I'd expect that gaming/IM/email across town to a friend
on The Other ISP would dominate here?) Or are both competitors too busy
carrying customer traffic to the same sites elsewhere (google, youtube, amazon,
etc)? Phrased differently, how big/small a cross-connect is worth the effort?
Or at the cogent website ($4/meg) do the cost justify peering anymore?
Obviously some of this always depends on the loop costs.
Going to try to write something up that would be useful for smaller ISPs.
The BGP barrier IMHO is quite high in most cases, not all the small ISPs carry their routes out to the edge in the same manner as the larger SPs.
- Jared
[snip]
Does anybody have some numbers they're able to share? In the "two small
ISPs
in the boonies" scenario, *is* there enough cross traffic to make an
interconnect worth it? (I'd expect that gaming/IM/email across town to a
friend
on The Other ISP would dominate here?) Or are both competitors too busy
carrying customer traffic to the same sites elsewhere (google, youtube,
amazon,
etc)? Phrased differently, how big/small a cross-connect is worth the
effort?
Or at the cogent website ($4/meg) do the cost justify peering anymore?
Obviously some of this always depends on the loop costs.
Going to try to write something up that would be useful for smaller ISPs.
The BGP barrier IMHO is quite high in most cases, not all the small ISPs
carry their routes out to the edge in the same manner as the larger SPs.
- Jared
In our efforts, BGP hasn't come up as often as the Cogent (low cost) issue.
I think there are two aspects, one is the opportunity. If you need to build
or bury it gets pretty tough to keep costs below $4/meg. The second is
traffic volume, if you can set up a peering connection for $200 per month
for a full GE you need to stuff 50 Mb/s over the link to break even. That
may be tough unless you have an anchor institution like a college or a
content network. Rural wholesale (delivered to ISP) is going at $50-60 per
Mb in large parts of the US. That brings the breakeven to about 4 Mb which
is much easier for the small guys.
I think the dominate application driving cross connects right now is might
be business VPN between the small ISPs either at L2 or L3.
Also, keep in mind though the cheap Internet is only at a limited number of
metro area and you still need to pay to transport that Internet back to your
network.
jay
Personally I'd rather pay $10 for something that works, than $4 for
something that doesn't....
scott@zaphod:~$ telnet www.cogentco.com 80
Trying 2001:550:1::cc01...
^C
scott@zaphod:~$
(Yes, I know, the cake and all that, but even so...)
Scott.
Joe Abley wrote: