A bunch of us are thinking about multihoming solutions for IPv6. For this
purpose, it is useful to know a bit more about how actual networks (rather
than the ones existing only as ASCII drawings) interconnect. So:
- What are the 12 - 18 most important interconnect locations in the world?
MAE East, the Ameritech, Sprint and PacBell NAPs, PAIX, LINX and AMS-IX
come to mind, but from where I'm sitting it's hard to judge whether
others are important or marginal.
- To how many of them do typical tier-1 and tier-2 networks connect?
- Using private or public interconnects?
Hi Iljitsch,
I would not consider Sprint NAP, a place closed to new customers for several years, an important interconnect location in the US. ATM based IXs are not as participant rich as they were 2-3 years ago.
The fastest growing US interconnect locations are cross-connect enabled. PAIX & Equinix. Equinix-Ashburn, PAIX-Seattle, Equinix-Newark and Equinix-Dallas and others have seen participation grow with a diverse blend of traffic from cable operators, telcos and content providers.
Tier-1 means what? Look for growing sources of traffic.
Your mileage may vary, -ren
What about NYIIX/6IIX?
Being in Telehouse where there are no monthly fees for for cross-connects
gives it a financial advantage over Equinix.
Ralph Doncaster
principal, IStop.com
div. of Doncaster Consulting Inc.
That depends on your corporate needs for power, security, remote hands, etc. The extended services found at Equinix & PAIX are very important for many networks.
-ren
PAIX is a division of MFN (Metropolitan Fiber Networks) as Above.NET is as
well. That means they share MFN's connectivity and peering agreements and as
such are incredibly rich environments. Especially with someone like Paul
Vixie running it, (PAIX that is) my take is that these are number one
providers.
I must admit though that I am a staunch Above.NET supporter and have been
for ages having a single digit customer ID.
Todd
Tier-1 means what?
Lately, 'Tier-1' and '[near] bankruptcy' seem to be interchangable.
-- Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex@nac.net, latency, Al Reuben --
-- Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net --
What about NYIIX/6IIX?
Being in Telehouse where there are no monthly fees for for cross-connects
gives it a financial advantage over Equinix.
While I agree, IIX relatively speaking is small -- aggregating about 450
to 500 mb/s.
Also, you don't find many US-based internation networks there (ie, UU,
Sprint, CW, PSI/Cogent, etc.); however, the participation of Asian and
European networks is very impressive.
Also, the IIX is run the way I like a NAP run (as if my opinion matters on
this); cheap, simplistic, and reliable. I don't know of any other NAP that
can claim all three.
Ralph Doncaster
principal, IStop.com
div. of Doncaster Consulting Inc.
>
> Hi Iljitsch,
>
> I would not consider Sprint NAP, a place closed to new customers for
> several years, an important interconnect location in the US. ATM based IXs
> are not as participant rich as they were 2-3 years ago.
>
> The fastest growing US interconnect locations are cross-connect
> enabled. PAIX & Equinix. Equinix-Ashburn, PAIX-Seattle, Equinix-Newark
> and Equinix-Dallas and others have seen participation grow with a diverse
> blend of traffic from cable operators, telcos and content providers.
>
> Tier-1 means what? Look for growing sources of traffic.
>
> Your mileage may vary, -ren
>
>
> >A bunch of us are thinking about multihoming solutions for IPv6. For this
> >purpose, it is useful to know a bit more about how actual networks (rather
> >than the ones existing only as ASCII drawings) interconnect. So:
> >
> >- What are the 12 - 18 most important interconnect locations in the world?
> > MAE East, the Ameritech, Sprint and PacBell NAPs, PAIX, LINX and AMS-IX
> > come to mind, but from where I'm sitting it's hard to judge whether
> > others are important or marginal.
> >
> >- To how many of them do typical tier-1 and tier-2 networks connect?
> >
> >- Using private or public interconnects?
>
>
>
-- Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex@nac.net, latency, Al Reuben --
-- Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net --
Of which Telehouse seems to better than all the others, on all fronts.
-- Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex@nac.net, latency, Al Reuben --
-- Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net --
If that is true then everybody is a Tier-1 carrier.
alex@nac.net wrote:
Lets see...
Your dead or dieing classics are:
MAE East, MAE West, AADS, SprintNap, PBNap, and with luck any other ATM
exchanges (and may they turn the power off on any remaining FDDI soon).
The biggest exchange point in the US is probably PAIX in Palo Alto, and
the biggest public exchange is probably LINX. Both of these are excellent
places to be.
There are some relatively small regionals like NYIIX where you won't find
many large carriers, but they still have their own little nitch markets.
For example, you won't find many of the Asian or European networks
anywhere else on the east coast, without going to PAIX-PAO or Europe
yourself.
Then we have "the rest". Equinix and PAIX are both trying to take over the
market for exhange points in the US (in similar markets, Equinix = SJC IAD
NYC ORD DFW LAX, PAIX += SEA ATL). But without even comparing the quality
of services offered, I believe Equinix will be the winner for the
following reasons:
* Financial stability - Equinix is fairly close to being cash flow
positive, while PAIX is fairly close to going to the highest bidder.
* Price - In these times of cost conciousness (and transit available
for less than the price of peering), many people are taking a step back
and realizing that PAIX services are OUTRAGEOUSLY priced vs the
competition. Some big carriers are turning down their PAIX switch
ports, even at Palo Alto.
* Carrier choice - The big carriers have clearly all chosen Equinix as
the location for their future peerings (with the exception of
AboveNet, who obviously will not set foot in there :P).
* More diverse market - While PAIX doubles your rack price if you aren't
buying a switch port, Equinix markets to end users looking for carrier
diversity (and they have the facilities to support this). This has
brought the big carriers to sell transit as well as to peer.
Of course each market has their own advantages and disadvantages, for
example in Dallas both PAIX and Equinix sit right beside each other at the
Infomart. In others, one or the other is out of space.
Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 10:50:29 -0400
From: Anthony D Cennami
If that is true then everybody is a Tier-1 carrier.
Well, it seems that most everybody claims to be "Tier 1". Maybe
the bad karma is coming back to bite. 
There are some relatively small regionals like NYIIX where you won't find
many large carriers, but they still have their own little nitch markets.
There's been rumors of NYIIX and PAIX-NY linking up like SIX and
PAIX-seattle.
* Price - In these times of cost conciousness (and transit available
for less than the price of peering), many people are taking a step back
and realizing that PAIX services are OUTRAGEOUSLY priced vs the
competition. Some big carriers are turning down their PAIX switch
ports, even at Palo Alto.
Which is why I was surprised that Paul offered PAIX-seattle connectivity
for a $300 one-time charge for those who are already connected to SIX.
-Ralph
> There are some relatively small regionals like NYIIX where you won't find
> many large carriers, but they still have their own little nitch markets.
There's been rumors of NYIIX and PAIX-NY linking up like SIX and
PAIX-seattle.
True, but PAIX-NY is not exactly anything to salivate over.
> * Price - In these times of cost conciousness (and transit available
> for less than the price of peering), many people are taking a step back
> and realizing that PAIX services are OUTRAGEOUSLY priced vs the
> competition. Some big carriers are turning down their PAIX switch
> ports, even at Palo Alto.
Which is why I was surprised that Paul offered PAIX-seattle connectivity
for a $300 one-time charge for those who are already connected to SIX.
Good point. Folks running the NAPs have to realize that in this day,
you can buy relatively good transit in the $50 to $200/meg range. This
makes getting capacity to, colo'ing at, and paying for NAP port cost more
than transit, in many cases. IIX is the only exchange point that I've run
across that is priced as it should be.
-- Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex@nac.net, latency, Al Reuben --
-- Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net --
I'd like to second that as well. Paix pao1 where I had termination was
very worth while. Several ipv6 peers in there as well including nokea
and a few others. Just as an asside, it was well run as well as having
a lot of people to peer with.
"Incredibly rich environments" indeed:
Is it necessary for you to continually air personal grievances on this
public list?
The question related to places where network interconnect, not who's
friends with who this week.
Flames welcome in private!!
Steve
(Note - I'm assuming here the news story is factual. If not, that's
a whole different spin on things...)
Well... missing a $32M payment *does* say something about whether they
will or will not be around to interconnect with. Although Mitch has
a reputation around here, he *is* on the mark this time - when the "time
to Chapter 11" may be less than "time to deliver circuits to get to there",
you may want to investigate ordering circuits to connect elsewhere....
As I think someone implied earlier, I think filing a Chapter 11 is
becoming quite trendy and everyone will want one soon so as not to be left
out .. status symbol if you like 
I don't think a story detailing a companies fiscal standing and near future liklihood of a Chapter 11 filing would be characterized as a 'personal grievance.' Not until that company pulls the plug on its customers, facilities and network and leaves a lot of companies out to dry.
In any case, I think it's only fair that people are afforded the opportunity to make an informed decision about who they do business with, whether that information is technical or financial in nature would appear to be irrelevant.
That is one of the main purposes of this and other similar lists. If anything, I think it is you who is fending your 'personal' opinion of a company, rather than providing a sound argument in their defence.
steve@opaltelecom.co.uk wrote:
> There are some relatively small regionals like NYIIX where you won't find
> many large carriers, but they still have their own little nitch markets.
There's been rumors of NYIIX and PAIX-NY linking up like SIX and
PAIX-seattle.
It's not a rumour. PAIX is interconnecting with NYIIX as soon as the
fiber engineering people say that the photons will travel end to end.
> * Price - In these times of cost conciousness (and transit available
> for less than the price of peering), many people are taking a step back
> and realizing that PAIX services are OUTRAGEOUSLY priced vs the
> competition. Some big carriers are turning down their PAIX switch
> ports, even at Palo Alto.
Which is why I was surprised that Paul offered PAIX-seattle connectivity
for a $300 one-time charge for those who are already connected to SIX.
We aren't silly, and since it would be silly to fail to recognize that some
peers want/need different service levels than others, we recognized it and
are acting on it.