Britain becomes top data swapper

[Henk Elegeert]

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  Britain becomes top data swapper
Britain is now home to the internet's biggest data hub.

In total more than 55 gigabits per second of data are
regularly passing through the London Internet Exchange where
the UK's net firms swap traffic between each other's networks.

This huge volume of traffic puts the UK net hub ahead of
similar exchanges in the US and Japan.

The peak daily volume of traffic flowing across the network
run by Linx is more than 40 gigabits per second.

Flow control
The non-profit London Internet Exchange handles the
"peering" systems that link all the networks of the UK's net
firms to each other. About 150 net firms swap traffic via
Linx hardware located in London's Docklands.

Linx arrived at the figure of 55gbps by adding all the data
passed between the UK's net service firms across its core
network to that travelling over private peering systems.

Private peering systems are data cables that directly
connect two net firms. Typically Linx owns and manages the
link on behalf of the two net providers involved.

Linx estimates that, at the busiest times, 40gbps second
passes between UK net service firms across Linx and 15gbps
across the private peer connections.

The data flowing across the Linx network includes e-mail
messages, data from web browsing sessions as well as
content, such as images and video, from organisations such
as the BBC.

Linx said that more traffic than it handles may flow in and
out of co-location firms, where big net firms site their
hardware, but its flow of data is the biggest handled by a
single organisation.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/3700290.stm

Published: 2004/09/30 11:28:25 GMT

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