Re: Middle Eastern Exchange Points

[bmanning () vacation karoshi com]

On Wed, Feb 08, 2006 at 10:45:47AM -0800, Bill Woodcock wrote:
>       On Wed, 8 Feb 2006, Martin Hannigan wrote:
>     > Guys, are you being semantic? 
>
> Yes, we're doggedly insisting that words mean what they're defined to 
> mean, rather than the opposite.
>
>     > You keep saying EMIX
>     > and you're confusing me. Peering or no? "IX" naturally insinuates
>     > yes regardless of neutrality.
>    
> Exactly.  "IX" as a component of a name is _intended to insinuate_ the 
> availability of peering, _regardless of whether that's actually true or 
> false_.  Which is why we keep analogizing to the STIX, which was _called_ 
> an IX, but was _not_ an IX, in that it had nothing to do with peering, 
> only with a single provider's commercial transit product.  The same is 
> currently true throughout much of the Middle East.
>
>                                 -Bill

        the CIX & STIX (as originally designed) models architecturally slightly different than
        what seems to be the case for EMIX and a few other tricks (PLDT comes to mind) where
        a telco is offering transit over its infrastructure.  In the first two cases, all
        the participants (customers) fateshare ... the design was "layer 3" peering, eg.
        everyone terminates on a port on a common router, managed by the friendly, neutral
        telco/cooperative association.  

        Nearly everyone these days equates IX with a neutral "layer 2" fabric.  In a wide-area,
        you are still "captive" to the transmission provider to "knit" the disparate bits
        into a single, cohesive whole.

--bill