Yes you are absolutely correct. Smaller players doing this for fun and experimentation if not only a good idea, I believe it is critical for the internet to grow and change. Ask UUNET how long it takes them to get approval to implement something big....or even small. Two pts thought. First, the cross connects at most of these locations are still going to be a major monthly INVESTMENT unless the colo provider gets involved. As was stated earlier $500 MRC has to be justified be costs savings or other benefits. Second, I have heard a lot of talk about SIX over the last year or so and there is no guarantees that situation won't change. Telx and others can do a fine job. I have not heard Any2 mentioned and their traffic levels have been very good while keeping ports cost effective. Can that model scale? Basically it's about the community deciding to support something. Perhaps it's more about the players then the best model. This business is still run significantly on trust and reputation of the people running the infrastructure. No? David On Tue, Aug 12, 2008 at 10:11 AM, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick@ianai.net>wrote:
On Aug 12, 2008, at 9:58 AM, David Diaz wrote:
Love the Borg comment.
Thanx.
Great thread. Old topic. It recycles every couple of years. Not to
speak for telx or Mike L but I do not think anyone was motivated to Borg anything but to support AIX. 10Gig ports are expensive.
I like the idea of more exchange points in that they usually provide more recovery pts and redundancy, allow the sharing of skills and knowledge in the local community, and provide flexibility for growth and change of the internet. How many COs do we have? There has long been the argument of how many IXs are needed, would it be 1 per state? What happens with Voip, IPtv etc.
As for coops I think the argument is would the larger traffic players feel comfortable connecting and making it a part of their networks? Who are the anchors and 1st movers? What are the guarantees that any investment in infrastructure needed to get there will be recovered over X years... Will the coop fold before that pt? Wll it have the resources to upgrade.
Who said anything about larger traffic players? What's wrong with a bunch of little guys getting together to trade traffic, for fun and profit?
The smaller guys might have a better focus on performance in the local area (gamers anyone?), plus they tend to pay more per Mbps because they don't have scale, which makes moving a little traffic off more economical.
All that said, Akamai is a pretty big network and they're present at a lot of these "small" IXen. Ditto for local eyeball networks, e.g. Shaw @ SIX, Rogers @ TorIX, etc.
I so not think a poison pill is needed. Perhaps just a group or company
championing Coops and giving them booth-space at events, sponsoring conference travels, providing rack space etc. But if it's in the BEST interest of the members to have a larger group come in and take over then what is the harm? What is the alternative, have members pay membership fees? Corp Sponsorship?
I agree on much of this. But as with most things it comes down to money. Do members have a financial incentive to join and what is the financial model to keep the Coop moving forward as a success.
Several small IXes have grown quite a bit with no or very small membership fees. Look at the ones I mentioned. I think SIX is the largest, but they're all not that tiny.
-- TTFN, patrick