North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Links between cabinets at commercial datacentre

  • From: Andy Rabagliati
  • Date: Thu Apr 18 07:56:35 2002

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)