On Wed, 17 Apr 2002, Paul Vixie wrote:
While acknowledging that a data center may make any rules it likes, I am asking nanog how common this practice is.
"data center" is too amorphous a term to be used here.
someone like exodus or qwest or at&t or uunet or abovenet would be very likely to prevent their customers from directly cross-connecting. mae-west (55 s market) won't allow it either. paix, equinix, switch and data, and other "neutral colos" won't allow it to occur without a fee but the fees are reasonable (unlike, say, the cross connect fees at mae-west.)
there's no answer to the question, as posed. "can you be more specific?"
To be specific, it is UUnet Cape Town. The Internet Service Providers Association of South Africa have two Peering points in South Africa - JINX (large, in Johannesburg) and CINX (small, in Cape Town) which is hosted (for free) by said UUnet data center. They (ISPA) set the rules, which are appended below, which we are unhappy with. Since the Cape Town exchange is small, we figured that there is an opportunity to start our own. The natural place to put it is in the same building as the major local content providers, which, not coincidentally, is where CINX is currently located, at said UUnet data center. There are not that many good commercial hosting environments in Cape Town, and UUNet have the biggest. We do not compete with UUnet for transit. We certainly do not compete with them as a hosting environment, though a couple of ISPs host some servers at our location. We merely wish to provide peering unencumbered with fees that we feel prevent Cape Town from competing internationally in the ICT arena. Large commercial concerns host in the USA, unless their target audience is primarily South African, in which case they pay extra and host locally. Costs-based connectivity (cheap peering) would reduce that cost, and enable South Africa to keep its foreign currency for other purposes. So - that is the larger picture, but was not my question to NANOG. We wish to be able to provide this peering, but we find that UUnets cross-connect policy interferes with our aims - as it requires potential peers in the data center to separately purchase connectivity to us (in the same building) instead of hopping onto our link by cross-connecting to another cabinet in the data center, which (of course) they waive for connections to the CINX cabinet. My question was if this was common practice. Cheers, Andy! --------------------------------------------------------- ISPA peering policy - extracts below. http://www.jinx.net.za/links.html has useful information, including :- http://www.jinx.net.za/dinxprop.html has JINX requirements for a third party setting up a Durban exchange. * In particular, potential DINX hosts should note carefully that they will be required to pay the "equivalent line charge" fees currently being implemented. This states :- Background: * At present, some companies connecting to ISPA's INXes enjoy an unfair advantage over others. Whereas most participants must lease data lines to connect to an INX, ISPA members located in the same building can connect to the INX at minimal cost. * The equivalent line charges detailed below are intended to ensure that all INX participants will enjoy equitable and fair access to ISPA's INXes. Participants affected: * Any participant not connection to an INX via a tariffed data service will be liable for an equivalent line charge. * If necessary, the INX sub-committee will determine whether or not a particular connection meets the above description. Proposed charging mechanism: * The charging scheme below is based on the estimated data line costs for lines capable of carrying monitored traffic levels. * Estimated installation costs for these lines have been amortised over 36 months and added to the monthly cost. INX equivalant line fees Traffic Monthly fee < 512 kbps R 4,000 (US$333) =< 2 Mbps R 7,000 (US$583) =< 4 Mbps R 14,000 (US$1167) =< 6 Mbps R 22,000 (US$1833) =< 8 Mbps R 29,000 (US$2417) =< 34 Mbps R 35,000 (US$2917) per 34 Mbps R 35,000 (US$2917)