Montreal now, Winnipeg and Calgary very soon.

More Canadian IXPs are coming online this year, and that should mean faster Internet service and cheaper prices for Web users in Canada.

An Internet Exchange Point (IXP) is a brinks-and-mortar facility where multiple networks, like commercial Internet service providers (ISPs), connect directly to each other, so we can get our know, e-mails, texts, videos and web articles.

The whole Internet is really a network of independent networks that have agreed to transmit their customers’ data between each other; that exchange happens at an IXP.

IXP users include major content providers, universities, large corporations, governments – and all of you!

So more is definitely better – especially when you consider that among the world’s 350 or so IXPs, Canada had only two (!!) until Montreal opened last month.

Last spring, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA, the organization that manages the .CA Internet domain) made a call to users and stakeholders across Canada to help build a stronger domestic Internet infrastructure to boost service, reliability, security and reduce the costs that we all ultimately pay for online access.

“Canada is not keeping pace with other OECD countries,” said Byron Holland, president and CEO of CIRA. “[T]his is not acceptable.”

Not having a robust and internal Internet infrastructure means that much of Canada’s domestic data traffic flows outside of the country before eventually reaching its destination. Circuitous routes through the U.S., and boomerang paths that send data out-of-country before seeing it come right back, have been well-documented here.

A lack of IXPs means longer distances and slower traffic, with data lag and latency issues; it means higher costs, with more transit and transit operators involved in even the most simple of transmissions; and it leads to jurisdictional issues over control, access and monitoring of the  personal and business data that makes such multi-national trips.

So more exchange points in Canada would ensure that local traffic stays local more of the time, and that’s one reason behind QIX. CIRA directly supports QIX with acquired networking equipment and a seat on the Exchange’s board of directors.

“The launch of the Montreal Internet Exchange, also known as QIX, is a critical step towards creating a faster, more robust Internet, not just in Quebec, but across all of Canada,” said Sylvie LaPerrière, Chairperson of the Montreal Internet Exchange and Program Manager for Peering and Content Distribution at Google. “With eight million residents, and over two million households with fixed line broadband subscriptions, we’re delighted that Montreal is home to the new QIX.

“Thanks to our sponsors’ participation, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, Cisco and our major partner, Cologix, the launch of the Montreal Internet Exchange is a critical step towards creating a faster, more robust Internet, not just in Quebec, but across all of Canada,” added LaPerrière.

LaPerrière speaks of “partners” and that is an important aspect of the new IXP – it is operating as a vendor-neutral, not-for-profit organization, with many volunteers contributing to its operation, as well as professional engineers and technologists on staff.

QIX was established with the active involvement of Montreal-area Internet companies, including Fibrenoire, Cogeco Data Services, Metro Optic, Réseau d’informations scientifiques du Québec (RISQ), optic.ca, Groupe Teltech Inc., and Google (yes, Google!), as well as CIRA and Cologix.

Community-driven IXPs are proven to be successful models for these nodes, LaPerrière says, by encouraging vendor, business and user participation and generating membership-related revenue for on-going operations and upgrades.

As momentum builds to more ‘cloud-based’ computing services, business opportunities abound for those environments that have the infrastructure and capacity to grow with demand. Hosting, storage, VPS/N (virtual private server/networking) and related offerings could boost the country’s IT sector, particularly among those companies and individuals who wish to keep data “out of the hands of the Patriot Act”, a reference to the risks inherent in the multi-jurisdictional nature of cross-border data traffic.

QIX deployed its core node in Cologix’s facility on René Lévesque Boulevard in Montreal, with a secondary node just down the street. Cologix operates some six data centres in Montreal, with over 80,000-square-feet of operational space serving more than 70 networks and hundreds of clients already; estimates of the

QIX rate card indicate a port access fee of around $1000/month for 10 Gigs.

That is not as an attractive price as offered here by some international hosting and exchange providers, but it indicates the downward direction that pricing can take as the country’s infrastructure grows, and as we leverage the growing economies of scale that continued network development can bring.

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submitted by Lee Rickwood