IXP in the British Virgin Islands

According to the TRC (Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) The British Virgin Islands should be hosting its first IXP (Internet Exchange Point) within a month of the deadline of the public consultation which will be June 22 2010.

According to PCH (Packet clearing house) currently (the minute this post was posted) there is 88 countries with IXP, and 159 countries without IXP.

You can check the up to date list at any time here.

An IXP stands as an Internet Exchange Point, and it is a physical point where ISP's such as (Cable and Wireless, DigiCel, and CCT) exchange their local traffic instead of using means of sending the traffic off island to an IXP outside the territory, and then routing it back to island.

I will give a simple example on how an IXP can help in lower the cost on ISP's (Thus on the end user).

1-

Lets say i have 10 camera's installed at my office, i am viewing these camera's locally using a different ISP (in the office i have WiMax, and at home i have LIME DSL).

Instead of having the traffic routed from my cameras to CCT , and then remotely lets say Miami or NY IXP then back to Cable and Wireless). With an IXP it will be routed like so

Cameras , CCT , IXP (Locally) , Cable and Wireless, My home laptop.

thus we saved connecting via the internet to the USA and saved some bandwidth by using our local cheap in cost infrastructure relatively compared to other connecting media to the USA.

2-

The Second Benefit would be the privacy, lets think about it as our governmental documents and Emails, and remote connections .. etc.

We don't want such traffic to travel so long to foreign countries.

3-

Smaller distance of traveling and less number of hoops for a packet to travel would provide faster connection, especially when we are not using the backbone bandwidth provided by our ISP's as local traffic is not intended to be routed through the backbone.

4-

Having our own IXP, means contributing more in decentralizing the internet and providing a less dependent internet experience, with more routes to be taken.

That is all the benefits i could think off right now on such a hot Sunday.

I will post another post later demonstrating if the BVI market is suitable for an IXP or not.

Note: In case something was mis-typed or mis-explained, or missed. please feel free to comment.

PS: This is a link to the TRC (Telecommunication Regulatory Commission) in the BVI