Today, it is almost a wash, and sometimes more expensive to peer that to just buy transit. When you can arrange transit contracts to be as low as $50 a megabit, and to sit in a PAIX facility costs you $150K for the router, plus $7K a month for rack and power, and monthly costs for your OC-48 into the router... What's the true cost of peering?
NYIIX 1/4 rack + 100M switch connection - <$1K/mth fiber cx for Gig-E to high-bandwidth peers: $0/mth small GSR12000 - $20K from the local bankruptcy trustee OC192 from Manhattan to Vienna, VA: $10K/mth SIX is also quite inexpensive. I've been told Equinix can be talked down from ~$3K/mth for a rack/power & a couple cx to <$1500/mth. 2 years ago you couldn't build a coast-to-coast backbone and get peering costs < $50/mbit. Now my rough calculations put it at ~$20/mbit if you do it on the cheap. -Ralph