$author = "Streiner, Justin" ;
it stands to reason that the amount of traffic present at an exchange point should remain relatively constant on average, and probably grow.
someone already mentioned the possibility of traffic that previously traversed the IX now being interprovider due to an acquisition. thinking of other ways traffic might decrease, as service providers (of whatever ilk) fold or are acquired, it might be possible that customers will shift to one of the big X (where X is the current number of major players aka "tier 1") either through churn or acquisition. if that premise holds then traffic that previously may have traversed an IX between a "tier 2" and a "tier 1" (whether it be peering or transit) might now be routed via private peering interconnects between two "tier 1"s. ie. as the market consolidates private interconnects may carry more load at the expense of IXs. my au$0.02 marty -- Skirwan - "And if pigs can fly, and I can ride one, and they fly me to hell, and it just froze over, and we all have ice cream..." [1] talonyx - "I really need to stop reading Slashdot while on codeiene..." [2] [1] - http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=28984&cid=3113144 [2] - http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=28984&cid=3113355