4 ms·

> you can basically reach every network in Europe by connecting to a few large exchanges for a fraction of what you'd pay for tier 1 transit Erm. No. No and,

> you can basically reach every network in Europe by connecting to a few large exchanges for a fraction of what you'd pay for tier 1 transit Erm. No. No and, erm, NO ! Members at peering exchanges can be split into two categories "old boys club" and "everyone else". The former category are mean as mouse shit. They won't peer with "everyone else", in many cases they won't even peer with you even if you have a decent amount of traffic related to their AS. They certainly won't publish ANY routes on the exchange route servers. For example, BT (incumbent UK telco for those who don't know) are famously restrictive about who they will peer with at LINX. There is an old joke between LINX members, "Q. How do you know you've made it as an internet network ? A. BT agreed to peer with you over LINX". Basically the template answer when you ask BT for peering is "NO. Go away now you silly little man, you should be ashamed for asking." That's not to say European exchanges are worthless. They are great for interconnecting with other mid/small networks. They are great for connecting to CDNs, the hyperscalers, and the Facebooks, Googles etc. of this world.

tiernano 6y ago
in all fairness, the original op did say "basically"... I am peering in a few different IXes in Europe for personal stuff, mostly learning, and i get Apple, Google, Cloudflare, Facebook (even though i dont use them), Netflix and a lot of other places included... I do also agree about the whole "old boys club". My main ISP is Liberty Global (Virgin Media Ireland) and anyone i have talked to about getting a link with tells me its paid peering... would be handy, but too expensive... Also, they dont peer with Cloudflare direct either... Ahh well...
- exikyut 6y ago
  Huh, that sounds interesting. How does this peering work? Is it mostly just a bunch of intangible configuration and routing, or do you actually have equipment racked in a colo that offers peering arrangements? I'm also curious how the pricing side of things works out. Sounds like it's not that expensive...
  - tiernano 6y ago
    So... It's mostly though vms from companies who run smaller educational IXes and the likes of Vultr who have bgp offerings... I have some details on https://as204994.net https://as204994.net about it. Costs are currently in around $150 per month including v4 and v6 leasing... Details of the IXes I'm in are up there too...
    - kylegordon 6y ago
      That certainly takes me back. In the early days of my career, I tinkered with BGP and VPNs amongst friends and cities, over radio and internet. The legacy lives on. https://lodge.glasgownet.com/2015/10/26/the-old-backnet/ https://lodge.glasgownet.com/2015/10/26/the-old-backnet/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050421022318/http://wiki.backnet.org/BANANA/Addresses https://web.archive.org/web/20050421022318/http://wiki.backn... We even had BGP over AX.25 for a very short while if memory serves.
      - tiernano 6y ago
        Sounds very like what dn42 does now. That's how I started with bgp... Then got my own v6 and then v4 space and ended up on the real internet. Dn42 defiantly helped in learning. This is cool that it's been around that long!
        kylegordon 6y ago
        It does indeed! Had never heard of dn42, although I've been out of the loop with regards to this stuff for years now. Will certainly be having a look at dn42 :-)
t0mas88 6y ago
Several of the big incumbent ISPs in most European countries are not as eager to peer because they also have a B2B side of their business that sells you the bandwidth you would otherwise need. But for most smaller end-user networks it's great to be able to peer with Netflix, GCP/Youtube, AWS, Azure easily in the exchanges, because that's where the majority of their user traffic comes from.

tiernano 6y ago

in all fairness, the original op did say "basically"... I am peering in a few different IXes in Europe for personal stuff, mostly learning, and i get Apple, Google, Cloudflare, Facebook (even though i dont use them), Netflix and a lot of other places included... I do also agree about the whole "old boys club". My main ISP is Liberty Global (Virgin Media Ireland) and anyone i have talked to about getting a link with tells me its paid peering... would be handy, but too expensive... Also, they dont peer with Cloudflare direct either... Ahh well...

exikyut 6y ago
Huh, that sounds interesting. How does this peering work? Is it mostly just a bunch of intangible configuration and routing, or do you actually have equipment racked in a colo that offers peering arrangements? I'm also curious how the pricing side of things works out. Sounds like it's not that expensive...
- tiernano 6y ago
  So... It's mostly though vms from companies who run smaller educational IXes and the likes of Vultr who have bgp offerings... I have some details on https://as204994.net https://as204994.net about it. Costs are currently in around $150 per month including v4 and v6 leasing... Details of the IXes I'm in are up there too...
  - kylegordon 6y ago
    That certainly takes me back. In the early days of my career, I tinkered with BGP and VPNs amongst friends and cities, over radio and internet. The legacy lives on. https://lodge.glasgownet.com/2015/10/26/the-old-backnet/ https://lodge.glasgownet.com/2015/10/26/the-old-backnet/ https://web.archive.org/web/20050421022318/http://wiki.backnet.org/BANANA/Addresses https://web.archive.org/web/20050421022318/http://wiki.backn... We even had BGP over AX.25 for a very short while if memory serves.
    - tiernano 6y ago
      Sounds very like what dn42 does now. That's how I started with bgp... Then got my own v6 and then v4 space and ended up on the real internet. Dn42 defiantly helped in learning. This is cool that it's been around that long!
      - kylegordon 6y ago
        It does indeed! Had never heard of dn42, although I've been out of the loop with regards to this stuff for years now. Will certainly be having a look at dn42 :-)

t0mas88 6y ago

Several of the big incumbent ISPs in most European countries are not as eager to peer because they also have a B2B side of their business that sells you the bandwidth you would otherwise need. But for most smaller end-user networks it's great to be able to peer with Netflix, GCP/Youtube, AWS, Azure easily in the exchanges, because that's where the majority of their user traffic comes from.