Re: What is a regional exchange point?

On 6 Mar 2003, Scott Call wrote:

>> If you had both the web sites and eyeballs, why would you connect
>> to RenoIX to make it easier for your competitors to steal your 
>> access customers?
> 
> We're in the opposite situation where we are coming into
> a market and trying to win customers away from the
> competitors.  If their access to local sites suffers,
> they'll move back to their old provider.

Presumably your competitors who are losing customers to you 
are less than interested in RenoIX? Who are you able to get 
to connect to RenoIX to keep your recently-won customers 
happy?

>> Or, wouldn't it be more compelling to sell local content off servers in
>> a high-speed colo in the Bay area where it was equally fast for everyone
>> in Reno?
> 
> We sell content hosting as well, and it does come from
> our California operations, but many small/medium
> businesses prefer to host their content locally.

I am frequently amazed at how much impact the "keeping local
traffic local" argument has on network customers in an area
served by a regional exchange.

All things being equal (and a lot, maybe most of
Internet-purchasing businesses and consumers perceive that
to be the case), potential customers will give very serious
consideration to the provider that has local infrastructure,
including things like regional peering and a local data
center. Huge companies may need the marginal performance
increase of being right on "the backbone", but small and
medium (and many large) businesses will often opt for
something closer that's part of their community.

Many national backbones have tried for several years to sell
co-lo in Denver and California to companies in Utah and
surrounding states. While they do have some occassional
success, the companies with local data centers clean up.

Recently some of the CommIX-connected service providers
(including at least one large regional network) have begun
aggressively touting their regional connectivity. They have
found that every customer is intrigued with this
differentiation, and it has several times prompted an
immediate purchase.

Pete.