Welcome to the next evolution of the "Meet Me In..." research series. The goal of the series has always been to educate, create awareness, and highlight key facts about where, how and why the physical networks that make up the world's information infrastructure meet.
Since this series began in 2003, Internet Exchanges (IXs) have established themselves as an essential element of the greater global network infrastructure landscape. Over the past several years, PeeringDB has built an incredible database for the world’s Internet Exchanges, the facilities that house them, the networks that connect with them, and more. This 2021 research correlates the live PeeringDB data via a custom API populated below with the original 2003-2005 Meet Me In research to create a unique analysis of the North American network interconnection landscape.
Between the where, how and why, the why is the most important. It is the reason behind wanting to know where and how. The "why" is that by aggregating demand to a point, a single physical address or facility at that address, buyers enjoy access to wholesale rates as opposed to retail rates with savings as great as 90% (just like buying at Costco or Sam's Club versus a convenience store). The "why" to seek out an Internet Exchange (IX) goes beyond this wholesale rate. IXs can reduce costs even further by handing off Internet traffic directly to the destination, avoiding ISP transit costs, but more importantly, saving time (just like a direct airline flight versus having to connect). This is referred to as reducing latency. So, in short, neutral meet points and IXs save time and money.
For all of the economic development and elected government officials out there, why is this important to know? It is important because if you do not have a neutral meet point and IX in your community, it means that all of your residents, students, and busineses must leave your community to get to the content and applications they desire on the Internet. This equates to higher costs and longer wait times and specifically means that "the Internet" does not exist where you are. Those that have this network-neutral infrastructure in their community have a tremendous advantage over those that do not. Which one are you?
The original series featured RACO, a neutral colocation facility tenant, at 600 S. Federal Street and the building owned Meet Me Room at 350 E. Cermak Road. Both facilities and buildings have amazing histories, especially 350 E Cermak, which was originally the R.R. Donnelley printing plant, and at 1.1 million square feet it is one of the largest carrier hotels in the world. Over the years both buildings traded and are now both owned by Digital Realty Trust. The original series referenced 30 networks at 600 S Federal, with 8 carriers listed at RACO and 350 E Cermak had 16 networks listed as present in the building MMR. There were no Internet Exchanges listed at either facility.
600 S Federal has faded from prominence with CoreSite’s 427 S LaSalle moving up to take the number two position in the city, but 350 E Cermak has surged and remains at the top of the list with 10 IX’s accessible through 4 facilities within the building.
Chicago Internet Exchanges
Currently there are a total of 12 IX’s accessible from 18 facilities within 14 addresses that appear within PeeringDB. The largest, Equinix Chicago, has 254 ASN’s and the smallest, CyrusOne IX Chicago, has 1. The difference between the largest and 2nd largest, NetIX with 116 ASN’s, is 138.
The Top 5 Networks, by number of IX’s connected to, are Hurricane Electric, CloudFlare, Google, Microsoft, and Meta (Facebook).
The tables below display live data on all IXs in the region highlighted in this map image.
All data is courtesy of peeringdb.com. Live data is refreshed nightly. If you see innacurate data for your organization, or your organizaion is missing, please update or create your profile at peeringdb.com and allow 24 hours for this table to update.
This table is in the process of updating with live data. You are viewing an archived data table from the time of the article. Please check back in a few minutes for live data.
All data is courtesy of peeringdb.com. Live data is refreshed nightly. If you see innacurate data for your organization, or your organizaion is missing, please update or create your profile at peeringdb.com and allow 24 hours for this table to update.
