History in the Making: Connected Nation Breaks Ground on Kansas's First Internet Exchange Point | Connected Nation Podcast

On today's podcast, we take you to Wichita, Kansas for an historic event — the groundbreaking of the first internet exchange point in the state.

We talk with those who have been working toward this moment for years about what an internet exchange point is, why it's important to individuals, businesses, and communities, and the effort to bring this same infrastructure to 125 towns across the country.

Podcast Audio:

Source:

Connected Nation Podcast

Related links:

CNIXP Website - https://connectednation.org/ixp/

Wichita State University Innovation Campus - https://www.wichita.edu/about/innovation_campus/

Transcript:

Jessica Denson, Host (00:06):

This is Connected Nation, an award-winning podcast focused on all things broadband from closing the digital divide to improving your internet speeds. We talk technology topics that impact all of us, our families, and our neighborhoods.

(00:21):

On today's podcast, we take you to Wichita, Kansas for an historic event, the groundbreaking of the first internet exchange point in the state.

(00:31):

We talk with those who have been working toward this moment for years about what an internet exchange point is, why it's important to individuals, businesses, and communities, and the effort to bring this same infrastructure to 125 towns across the country.

(00:49):

I'm Jessica Denson, and this is Connected Nation.

(00:54):

I am in Wichita, Kansas, standing right across from Wichita State University's Baseball Stadium and Innovation Campus, and I'm standing outside a big white tent. There are, there's dirt, there are shovels. There's a big event. Happy day. It's a, it's an important day for Connected Nation. And I am standing with Tom Ferree, our chairman and CEO. Welcome, Tom.

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (01:15):

Great to, great to be here, Jessica. What a day.

Jessica Denson, Host (01:17):

Yeah, what a day. The sun is shining. It's a little cool. Thank goodness it's not so hot. Tell us what we're doing here today.

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (01:26):

Well, we have quite a few activities this week planned for Wichita. We just concluded our spring meeting of the Board of directors, and I have great fortune to have a lot of them here in attendance today for this very special moment for Connected Nation and our partner, Hunter Newby. You know, as an organization, we have a long history of many firsts. In 2004, we produced the country's first broadband availability map. We did that in Kentucky, and that map would actually go on to steer over a hundred million in public and private investment. So today is another kind of big moment like that where we think that we're gonna give birth to a brand new segment of the industry. For too long, rural America and some of the non-suburban communities have lacked the same quality internet experience that the more urban and metropolitan areas have.

(02:09):

So today's event is not only special for a first, but it's also special for what it means for the rest of America. We're gonna be breaking ground on an internet exchange point — important to note that it's a carrier neutral internet exchange point, faithful to our mission to make sure that we are providing a neutral venue for all comers of a technology solution to come and participate in this and hopefully result in a very vibrant, affordable and reliable economic internet landscape here in central Kansas.

Jessica Denson, Host (02:45):

And this internet exchange point, Connected Nation internet exchange point — if you want to learn about it, it's connectednation.org/ixp. Now, it's kind of unique because we are partnering with a for-profit company and we're a non-profit. Talk a little bit about the joint venture and what's special about that.

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (03:05):

Well, what's special about that is we have found an incredible partner in Hunter Newby. This is the space that he knows well. It has up until this point been the treasures of some of these high density metropolitan areas. We met Hunter probably about seven or eight years ago. And I think we were both a little intrigued with one another — not from how we are looking at the opportunity, but from our different experiences. To have a nonprofit come together with his company, aligned in the mission to begin to do the things that have always empowered and enabled metropolitan areas and bring that to our neck of the woods, where we've done a lot of our work. That is to raise up some of these areas of America that aren't in those big suburban and metropolitan clusters. So it's not at odds. I think he feels very drawn to helping see the other areas of America prosper as much as some of the areas that he's worked in over the course of his career. And so I couldn't be more pleased with the partnership and certainly for the future that our partnership holds.

Jessica Denson, Host (04:08):

Yeah. If anybody ever has time with Hunter Newby, he can bend your ear on the technology and his love of it. He is excited about this.

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (04:16):

He really is. Yeah, he really is. And there's no shortage of words.

Jessica Denson, Host (04:19):

No, it's great though, 'cause I feel like I understand things like I never understood before, like GPU versus a CPU and things like that. But I'm watching right now, and Brent Legg is one of the people that's really been critical in this effort. Talk about Brent's role, what he's done.

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (04:37):

Yeah. Well, Brent has a long history here at Connected Nation. He's one of our more tenured employees here. And by the way, I think that speaks to how impassioned our employees are —

Jessica Denson, Host (04:49):

It is a great place to work.

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (04:50):

A lot of them come and they stay, because the work is rewarding. And Brent's been a big secret to that success. He's formally trained in government affairs and the policy world.

(05:06):

Part of the work that we're asked to do as part of this partnership is to really begin to work on the education curve that some of these communities might not understand — the significance or the opportunity that locating an internet exchange point in their area would bring. And so that's one of the things that Brent has done so well, is to help educate the local communities, help them understand that some of the progress they've made can only be made better by enriching the interconnection landscape of their respective communities. So up to this point, it feels like we've been at this for a number of years, even though today is the breaking of our first facility. We've been at this from an education perspective for a number of years. And so in many ways, we've laid the groundwork now to hopefully have this thing become a very public event, a very public facility, and one that will only enhance our ability to reach new communities outside of Wichita who similarly could benefit from such a facility.

Jessica Denson, Host (06:08):

And really, the goal is 125, is that right?

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (06:11):

125. We've done diligence on the whole country to see where are the different Wichitas that kind of look like they may be ripe for this type of venture. And so a lot of it is in partnerships with some of the major land grant universities, which has the benefit of getting a captive audience, or what they call eyeballs in our respective industry. Most universities are very keen on driving economic development and bringing research and development dollars. And so it becomes a great place to nurture and develop these, that really will benefit more than just the campus. It has wide reaching impact for the community, the region, and even the states. In fact, there are 14 states in America that don't have an independent, carrier neutral internet exchange point. So they are certainly high on that list of 125.

Jessica Denson, Host (06:59):

I find it very striking that the first is in a place that is growing because of innovation. There's construction all over the campus, they're focused on technology. And this is the first place. Do you feel like it's serendipitous really, that we're gonna be in a place like that?

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (07:23):

Well, it's no accident whatsoever. The innovation campus — first credit to Dr. Rick Muma, he's a very forward-thinking president of a university. He has made Wichita State one of the leading institutions now for this type of public-private investments and private research dollars that have come in. That's what makes the distinction from other universities. He has really courted industry and brought them to the fore. And he has certainly aided it with the great talents of Tanya Witherspoon. You say serendipity — Tanya reached out to us. She says, I need an internet exchange point, and you've raised your hand that you're going to be doing that. Let's make this our first site. And so it is poetic. It is the middle of America. It's about as center a point as you could put in the United States, and we are just thrilled to have such an impassioned and energetic partner in Wichita State and Tanya Witherspoon to make this our first, our maiden launch.

Jessica Denson, Host (08:25):

Well, congratulations on getting here, and I'm excited to see what the next several years holds. Tom Ferree, CEO and Chairman of Connected Nation.

Tom Ferree, Chairman & CEO, Connected Nation (08:32):

Thank you, Jessica.

Jessica Denson, Host (08:34):

I am sitting here with Hunter Newby, who is the owner and CEO of Newby Ventures. And your company is partnering with Connected Nation on this project that we're here about today. Tell me a little bit about what we're doing and what we're building.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (08:49):

Yeah, so Newby Ventures is my personal holding company that I make directed investments out of. I set it up in 2017 after a few different exits in this industry, in this space. I've made several directed investments out of the fund and the CNIXP joint venture is one, so that's actually through one of the holding companies. So not directly from Newby Ventures, but one of the subs. What are we doing here? We are building a carrier neutral interconnection facility. That's a big, long wordy sort of thing. So we try to compress that to internet exchange point. And there are some people in the internet exchange industry that don't delineate between internet exchange point and internet exchange. They actually are different things to us. One is the building or room, the IXP, that the switch — the IX — goes into.

(09:49):

And an IX, internet exchange, is essentially an ethernet switch that facilitates the interconnection between disparate internet protocol networks or IP networks. Very basic. It's how the internet works optimally and efficiently. So we're creating a building within IT rooms. In one of the rooms will house this switch and it will facilitate physical interconnection between different fiber networks. And then the virtual VLAN interconnection over the ethernet switch, or the IX, between IP networks. Basically, it's sort of like an internet airport. State of Kansas doesn't have an internet airport. Kansas City, Missouri, which is a different state — I know the name Kansas is in the name of the city. It's the same city, the state line runs through the middle. I used to be one of the owners of 1102 Grand, the carrier hotel in Kansas City, Missouri.

(10:45):

So I'm very familiar with this area. This is the first purpose-built building in the state of Kansas to house an internet exchange switch. For this purpose of interconnection specifically, it's not a data center. I'd also add that data centers are pretty specific. They could be single tenant. We're obviously building a multi-tenant facility for lots of different fiber networks to meet, sort of like a crossroads, a junction point. But yeah, the purpose of that is to help reduce costs for internet access, generally speaking, but also transport, which is a layer below internet protocol. That's ethernet basically, point to point and whatnot. And then, lower latency, which is super important. Which is to reduce the time it takes to actually send and receive or call and retrieve data.

(11:43):

And then that's the very foundation of how the internet works today, and upon that now today is AI. And there's a certain flavor of AI, which is called training model, or large language model, LLM, that's generally speaking, not very latency sensitive. But then there's another part, again many neighborhoods here in AI, and there's a part of AI which is called inference. In certain iterations of inference and agentic AI, which are very, very latency sensitive. Like it needs to be super low latency. The only way to do that is to have local interconnection between the disparate networks that are trying to communicate with each other. So this facility, which is being purpose-built on the campus of Wichita State University, is to create a point in the city of Wichita for that low latency interconnection, which also reduces cost at the same time.

(12:38):

Then there's network diversity, very important routing diversity. So in case of fiber cuts along the way, this place becomes a hub, a junction point in the state, in this city, geographically located sort of in the middle. Which really helps to bifurcate all the IP traffic that leaves the state of Kansas today and goes to either Kansas City, Missouri, 1102 Grand, or 910 15th. And in Denver mostly, some goes to Dallas, I guess, and maybe a little bit to Oklahoma or Minneapolis, but it leaves the state entirely. Keeping it in the state, keeping the data local — data sovereignty. There's a lot of requirements coming for records, data sovereignty records at the state levels. The only way to really do that is to have an exchange point in the state that the data centers in the state can all connect to. So this serves a lot of purposes.

Jessica Denson, Host (13:33):

So you mentioned latency several times, especially in relation to AI, and I think really the thing that helps people understand what that is and why it matters is when you talk about how far the data has to go and come back right now. Explain that — why that's critical to AI right now, and why more people are not talking about that.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (13:52):

Well, people are starting to talk about it more. The reason they haven't thus far is that the first real iteration of AI that people got to know was based upon large language models, which came out of machine learning, generally referred to as training or training model. Which is just a very large repository of information. And now deploying that, putting it into use with the public — effectuating it — means that the public needs access to it. And then the public isn't just people, it's also machines. And then there's a lot of machine to machine, which is all very local. 'Cause all the people in the world that use AI don't all live in the same city as the data center the AI is in.

(14:38):

Very simply. So the reason why people are starting to talk about it now is because AI as an actual application or technology that businesses and individuals can use — it's just rapidly expanding. It's being incorporated into life. So that's great, but that means that it needs to be available wherever you are all the time. And just like with a cell phone, where some places you're in a city, you have 5G, and then when you move sort of outside of the city, it goes to LTE, then 3G and then 2G. The further you move away from the core, which is all about where capital can be deployed and get a return, the lower the service performance and availability is. Same thing with this — flavors of inference and agentic AI. So the training model, AI basically chased power. They went and looked for places where there's lots of power.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (15:37):

And they said, AI doesn't care. It could be in the middle of nowhere. We just need lots of power. Well, training AI doesn't care necessarily.

(15:44):

But inference AI needs to be in the center of every city, and lots of different inference nodes from all these different companies that are running their own AIs. That's what this is about. So we're just at that stage of evolution where it's become massively relevant and important for the deployment so that businesses and people can use it.

Jessica Denson, Host (16:03):

So on that note, when we talk about internet exchange points, or what you called meet me rooms earlier —

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (16:11):

Yeah. That's actually one of my original terms, that I pioneered — the meet me room. The term out here in rural America doesn't translate as well as internet exchange point. 'Cause people have heard of the internet and they think, oh, if I have one of those, the internet will be faster and cheaper. If I say meet me room, then people's eyes sort of glaze over and they're like, whoa. Is this a dating thing? Or you're building rooms where people can meet online. It's just like Tinder. I'm like, no. So I don't say that. Although anyone in our industry in the network, carrier fiber network — if you say meet me room, they're gonna know what that means. It's an industry term.

Jessica Denson, Host (16:50):

So one of the things that I think is interesting is that really you and Brent Legg — you two led this effort with the CNIXP — were talking about something two, three years ago that no one else was talking about. And now here we are three years later, we're starting our first one. Why were people not talking about putting these in rural areas or smaller cities or mid-sized cities sooner?

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (17:23):

It's not that they weren't that timeframe ago.

(17:27):

There was this phenomenon that sort of came and went, called the Edge, and everyone said the edge and edge and edge. But if they completed that phrase, that thought, it was usually edge computing. And then they would say, well, edge data center. And again, I don't build data centers.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (17:43):

Right. I build interconnection facilities. So one of the reasons why edge computing didn't happen, has not happened yet — it will — is because in the OSI model, open systems interconnection model, which is the hierarchy of how all networks function, anyone can go look it up. There's seven layers. If you count layer zero, there's eight. And I'm basically a layer zero guy. And that's the physical layer. That's the dirt that we are standing on right here now.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (18:10):

Funny thing about the network architecture of the OSI model is they don't count dirt. They take dirt for granted. See, so interconnection and dirt relates to simple things like manholes and conduits and ducts and entry points to buildings. And these are things that I obsess over because of the physics of how fiber needs to get into a place. Where most people that operate in the networking stack, their minds don't turn on until there's telemetry, which is basically continuity of a circuit light, frames and packets. They don't know. And they take for granted the dirt, the manholes, the conduits, the ducts, the points of entry. And because of that, which I call edge interconnection, they all tried to jump to edge computing. But you can't have computing unless you have interconnection first. Anyone could build a modular edge data center.

(19:06):

And put servers in it, but what is it connected to and how and where? And those are the things that no one thought of — couldn't answer those things. So the whole concept kind of didn't really go anywhere. There was a while ago this idea that these edge data centers would be built in place at the base of every cell tower. And I could tell you a bunch of reasons why that isn't really gonna happen. But for certain mobile network operators or others that are single tenant purpose-built, yeah, sure. And you could call that a data center if you wish. Since I, and CNIXP, build multi-tenant neutral interconnection facilities, there's a lot of reasons why they can't be at the base of every cell tower.

(19:48):

And you really need the diligence to determine where they need to be. Starting at the rural cities of a population size of minimum X, which is around 200,000 people, with a public state university like Wichita State, population and student body of Y, which in the case here is around 15,000, no internet exchange in that city today, and a distance of greater than a hundred miles to the next closest internet exchange. This city checked all those boxes. There are 125 cities like this one in the United States that lack an internet exchange in it. And it wasn't that long ago that the internet exchange community thought it's unnecessary. Those cities don't need them. They can be served by the next closest internet exchange, which is several hundred miles away, to your point about distance. And that was sort of tolerable and acceptable, even though it was a lesser, lower class experience for those people. It was not of the concern of the internet exchange community at large because they were like, we're good. 'Cause to them it's more cost. Right?

(21:00):

Well, again, we've evolved. AI is here. And there's some pros and cons to the time that it's taken us to get the land here perfected. We had to deal with some restricted covenant issues and land use issues, which we were unaware of, that we became aware of and we had to resolve, which took us a while. It's not uncommon, it's unfortunate, but not uncommon. But in that year, this past year of 2024, when all that was known, addressed and resolved, AI happened — inference AI happened. And now it's not okay. It's not satisfactory to serve a city, a greater metropolitan area, population size Wichita of around 700,000 people, from Kansas City, Missouri, which is almost 400 miles away. It's an 800 mile round trip delay. And one millisecond equates to 50 optical miles. And optical mile is not as the crow flies.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (21:58):

It's slack, and sag for fiber on poles and whatnot, which adds up to a lot of miles. So to get to some of the millisecond roundtrip delays, RTDs, required by some of these AI inference applications, the millisecond delay needs to be below five. Actually, some of them below three. And I talk about often fraud detection.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (22:21):

The big banks want to do fraud detection at the keystroke on the phone as it's occurring. To capture a keystroke as it's occurring requires three or sub-three milliseconds. That's 150 optical miles. So in an RTD sense, that's 75 optical miles one way and back to get to a point where data can be processed, translated, interrelated to other sources, and then a response sent back for the next step of that, which would be fraud protection. So fraud detection, fraud protection.

(22:56):

This is what the big banks are working on. And I happen to know someone that's doing this global architecture at a big bank. And we had a discussion about this when I showed him the map in the United States, and I showed him where the internet exchanges are and aren't, and then the CNIXP map of 125 of these, where we're going to build them because they don't exist. And he looked at it and he was horrified to know that they didn't already exist, because his whole deployment plan is predicated on neutral points of interconnection existing so that he can move into them, connect and exchange all the data and achieve three milliseconds. Because if he can't capture it that fast, he can't stop it. And there's a lot more that happens behind the scenes with the interrelation of checking with every other bank.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (23:42):

Because of financial protection of individual records. You can't disclose things. So they have to constantly ask, Hey, are you seeing this? Are you seeing that? What is this? What is that? And then they make their own determinations. There's processing time with that too.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (23:57):

But it all relates to this.

Jessica Denson, Host (24:00):

You just gave a really good example of how this could affect people's lives. And that's with fraud detection with your bank account. What, really, in your mind — when this is built and it's running at high capacity, you're feeling good about it — what does that mean for people in Wichita, Kansas?

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (24:19):

Well, the bottom line, just generally better end user experience. Experience is all encompassing. That could be lower cost, that could be better performance, that could be safer transactions. It will be that things work. Certain applications that are deployed that they see on TV or hear about somewhere or whatever, their friends are using — they'll be able to use it here too.

(24:44):

The further you get away from places where low latency performance can be effectuated, the fewer applications you'll be able to use, the fewer options you'll have to do things. Again, this is a very simple analogy. Most of us live on our phones. Most of us do everything. Flights, we're booking things, hotels. I mean, I'm on my phone. I think through, I do 30 things. I put the phone down and I go, oh, I forgot this. Pick the phone back up again. I have to do more. While you're checking messages while you're doing this, whatever. Okay. Take away the network, take away connectivity. You have no phone. That's obviously pretty extreme. There's a gray area in there where certain applications require low latency, like —

Jessica Denson, Host (25:29):

Video.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (25:30):

If you're trying to do full motion, that's called duplex, full duplex. Video and see the other person where it isn't choppy and there's no delay and there's no lag, that requires low latency. Well, if you live in a place that doesn't have that kind of connectivity, there's certain places — there's plenty of them. People try to do work from home on Zoom or whatever, Teams — they can't 'cause they just don't simply have the connectivity. They don't have the throughput.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (25:57):

So what does it mean for people that live in this city when everything's clicking away? I would hope that all the local networks, fixed line and mobile at that point, have all established interconnection presence in the facility. It's not the only one, but one because it's neutral and they have a lot of route options. And as a result of that, they'll be able to serve their customers better locally here, businesses and consumers. And they'll be able to offer more capacity at a lower cost and better performance with all the applications. Again, generally speaking, experience — better experience.

Jessica Denson, Host (26:32):

You know, we heard a little bit of kerfuffle behind us, a little bit of excitement. People are setting up for this groundbreaking, and every time I talk to you, you're excited about technology and like you said, you're excited about the manholes of this, the dirt of this. What does this mean to you today to finally be here?

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (26:51):

Wow. That's a great question. I've been thinking a lot about that since last night and today. It's special and I'm just grateful to be here and very appreciative of all of you. Everyone at Connected Nation, just a marvelous team. I love the way Tom runs his organization. I love the way he runs a board meeting.

(27:10):

I was telling him that when we were walking over here. Just so professional, so polished, so smooth, communicating thoughts and ideas at multiple levels. And of course, Wichita State and in particular Tanya Witherspoon, who's been the leader, the visionary, the champion, for this concept before we ever met. She knew she wanted an internet exchange here, and she tried to get the carriers to build it and was unsuccessful. So when she heard about us, thanks to Brent — she knew exactly. She was like, I wanna have that meeting. I wanna meet them, tell them yes, we want it. And it's rare. I don't come across people like that often in places where this doesn't already exist. I spent a lot of time educating people when I first started doing this, and nobody had ever heard of it. But in the big cities today, it's like, yeah, sure. Oh yeah. Everybody's like, oh, we know what that is. When you come out to Wichita and they're like, never heard of that. What is that? So she's been great. Obviously, the relationship with Wichita State University is wonderful. And yeah, just so happy to be here and look forward to — groundbreaking for me is not the end, it's the beginning.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (28:28):

Relatively speaking it took a while to get here. And this is just the start. So the execution is everything. It's not just the idea, it's the execution. So from this point forward, the fun begins. We're building the modular facilities being built right now actually already in Florida by IM. And we'd like to get through everything we need to do in the civil engineering and everything else on site so that we're prepared for the deployment as soon as possible. It'll probably take, let's call it until next year. I don't know exactly what month. There's a lot of work to do — manhole work, prep work with the carriers, bringing the fiber. But it's just really great to be here. It's really great to get started finally.

(29:09):

And I just really look forward to the ribbon cutting and sitting here again, not under a tent, but actually at the building.

(29:17):

And to have all the network operators here present and hear it from them, hear it from them — what they love about it, why they're here, why they're using it. Because that same story's been told many times over before.

(29:31):

Anytime I ever did a, bought a carrier hotel and built a meet me room, it was like they didn't know what it was. Then after they came and they did it, they all said, oh, it's so great, and here's why. The same thing will happen here. And it's always great to hear those stories and listen to the people locally that were not aware of this become aware of it and talk about how it's impacted everything that they do.

Jessica Denson, Host (29:52):

Well, Hunter Newby, Newby Ventures, thank you so much.

Hunter Newby, CEO & Founder, Newby Ventures (29:55):

Thank you very much.

Jessica Denson, Host (29:57):

Again, we've been bringing you in Wichita, Kansas for the groundbreaking of Connected Nation's first internet exchange point. I'm Jessica Denson. Thanks for listening to Connected Nation. If you like our show and wanna know more about us, head to connectednation.org or look for the latest episodes on iTunes, iHeartRadio, Google Podcast, Pandora, or Spotify.