First, let me offer a public THANK YOU to Dave Taht for reaching out to us about the specifics of our Wichita IXP project, and for inviting me to join this group.  It’s been disheartening to see folks talk about us & the project on public forums like LinkedIn without first engaging us in conversation to learn the specifics of what we’re actually doing.  I’d like to think that those who have been disparaging have only done so because they don’t understand what we’re trying to achieve. 

To begin, I think there is confusion in the terminology being used.  When we say “IXP,” we mean the facility (building, venue) where interconnection & peering occurs.  The “IX” is the ethernet switch in the building.  When someone says an IXP can be built for $8k, that’s apples-to-oranges with what we’re doing.  Yes, a switch can be procured for $8k.  But where does it go?  What if there is no safe, secure, neutral place for it to go?  Then such a place must be built.  That’s what we’re building in Wichita.

Saying an IXP can be built for $8k is enormously confusing to many policymakers who do not understand the issue or how interconnection & peering actually work, yet have enormous power to set policy and spend money that will affect the future of the Internet for generations.

We began this whole initiative by asking a series of questions to help us arrive at our model for IXP (building) proliferation.  I’ll use Wichita as the context for these questions, but these could just as easily apply to any other similar city that is home to a large public research university:

• Should Wichita, with a regional metro population of 600k+, be literally dependent, from an interconnection standpoint, on Kansas City and Denver forever?  No.
• Okay, then what type of facility does Wichita need?  Ideally, something that can meet current needs and scale to meet future needs.
• What are the attributes of such a facility?
• Does it need to be carrier-neutral?  Yes.
• Does it need to be secure?  Yes.
• Does it need to provide a level-playing field for networks of all types?  Yes.
• Does it need to be able to convey rights to, and protect the rights of, its tenants?  Yes.
• Does it need to be a facility that networks can rely on to remain “up” in the wake of adverse events?  Yes.
• Resilient from power outages?  Yes.
• Resilient from cooling equipment failures? Yes.
• Resistant to wind damage?  Yes.
• Resistant to vandalism or ballistics damage?  Yes.
• Does it need to be financially sustainable?  Yes.
• Is “best effort” good enough?  No.
• Then does it need to be professionally managed?  Yes.
• Is there an existing facility in Wichita that can meet those needs?  No.
• So one must be built?  Yes.
• Where should it be built?  Where a concentration of eyeball traffic already exists that can grow a peering ecosystem faster than it might otherwise, and that is also proximate to existing fiber plant, and where diverse manholes can be placed on the edge of public right-of-way.

In the case of Wichita, that’s at Wichita State University.

Creating a secure, neutral, resilient interconnection facility with proper cooling, power systems, lockable cabinet space, diverse manholes and POE isn’t cheap.  The whole project is actually more than the $5M grant we received.  We’re putting in over $800k in cash, plus additional in-kind match.

We’ve done the data analyses necessary to determine which communities need such facilities, and that’s how we came up with our list of 125 target communities.  Most of them are home to public research universities, but have no IXP or IX.  Not all of those communities are equal in terms of priority, but all of them have a need, and we’re actively seeking pathways to scale that preserve our core principles and avoid the need for grants.  But that’s a big challenge.

I really appreciate the opportunity to provide clarity on the project and I’m happy to answer your questions.  Surely we agree on much more than we disagree.

--Brent Legg, Connected Nation