Re: Current street prices for US Internet Transit

["William B. Norton" <wbn () equinix com>]

Patrick -

The other thing that I found interesting when factoring in the equipment 
costs into the cost of Peering, was that the used equipment market remains 
vibrant.

From my conversations with folks in the Peering Coordinator Community, 
round numbers here, one can pick up a used 7500 series router equipment now 
for about $9K ! The configuration was with an OC-3, and FastE for peering, 
for about 25% of the new cost. Pretty amazing - from my research I cited 
one guy who built his whole test lab from used 7500's. On eBay folks can 
get used Juniper M20s as well, some still shrink wrapped. Caveat: When I 
walked the Cisco and Juniper contacts through the research paper ("Do 
ATM-based Internet Exchanges Make Sense Anymore?") they pointed to the 
software license as being non-transferable, and therefore requiring a new 
license from the vendor to be legitimate. There is also a re-certification 
process if you want to get the gear under service contract. There are some 
used equipment vendors that claim to take care of these issues for you.

So, used equipment is one way that some are deploying low cost networks, 
and yes, the packets get there. If their negotiating is as strong as their 
scrounging, they may be able to compete in today's market.

Bill