RE: Alaska IXP?

["Jay Hanke" <jhanke () myclearwave net>]

On 3/4/10 8:57 AM, "Jay Hanke" <jhanke () myclearwave net> wrote:
<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] http://kb.wisc.edu/ns/page.php?id=6636
>
> 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