LINX Response for the Scottish Infrastructure Commission

Author: Jo Fereday

Date of this issue: 03 May 2019

Contents

1. Introduction ...... 3 2. LINX ...... 3 3. LINX Response ...... 4 4. Short term focus for infrastructure growth (5 years) ...... 5 5. Longer term focus for infrastructure growth ...... 6

Document change history Version 0.1 Initial draft Version 0.x (details of changes to be added) Version 0.x (details of changes to be added) Version 1.0 (to be the final release version of the document)

1. Introduction The London Internet Exchange (LINX) is a leading global Internet exchange. Building on their success in London LINX has successfully established regional internet exchanges (IXPs) in Scotland, Manchester and Cardiff in the UK and Northern Virginia in the US.

Internet exchanges an important part of regional digital infrastructure and it is for this reason that LINX are responding to this request. Internet traffic is passed between service and content providers through Internet exchanges. A regional Internet exchange can provide faster and more resilient interconnectivity in the region, especially if local access network providers take part in the exchange of traffic.

The Internet exchange market is a global business, and LINX’s strategy is to target the global interconnect market across all segments including, Internet traffic, Enterprise traffic and cloud services, whilst remaining local to the UK and operating as a mutual member owned organisation.

2. LINX LINX was established in 1994, as a membership organisation by a group of local Internet service providers (ISPs). The organisation is owned and run by its members on a not for profit basis, with the aim of providing services for its members and working for the good of the Internet. In this document LINX refer to members, most organisations would refer to them as customers, or service users.

LINX now has a large membership with almost 900 connected networks from more than 80 different countries. It has a presence in 16 London data centres providing a connected capacity of 26 Tb/s and has peak traffic of in excess of 4 Tb/s.

Peering is the main service offered by LINX to its members . LINX members in London consist of almost all of the UK ISPs, content creators such as BBC, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, content delivery networks such as Akamai, Edgecast, Cloudflare, and large access networks, such as Zayo, Level 3 and NTT.

Being the oldest IXP in the UK, and one of the oldest in the world LINX has vast experience in running successful Internet exchanges as well as a reputation for reliability and leading edge technology. These are all experiences that LINX has benefited LINX in establishing and executing its regional peering strategy.

Having established a strong London based Internet exchange, LINX set about building regional exchanges within the UK with the aim of promoting geographically distributed peering which keeps traffic local and less dependency on London. These factors enable Internet services with less latency regionally, make the national network more resilient by not being dependent on a single UK exchange (London) and potentially save costs of back haul for network operators. Combined this help to grow digital services outside of London. In line with this strategy LINX first established a regional IXP in Manchester, and later established LINX Scotland in 2013.

While LINX IXP in Manchester has grown to over 100 connected networks at three different datacentres, there is less current demand in Scotland. LINX IXP in Scotland operates from 2 sites (Edinburgh and Airdrie) and has approximately 30 connected members.

3. LINX Response The definition of infrastructure as outlined by the commission does encompass the elements that are required to ensure digital growth. LINX are not in a position to comment on the individual elements and have limited their response to the requirements needed for a successful Internet exchange and interconnect eco system. This includes how to attract the different interest groups to the exchange and how to remain relevant over a longer time period.

The Internet is a network of networks around the world. For Internet Exchanges, especially regional ones, to be successful they need to attract a critical mass of networks to ensure there is enough value for a network to connect, but they also need the right mix of networks. An IXP with only content networks connected for example does not provide any value as they will have no one to exchange traffic with. Therefore attracting both access providers and content providers is key to the success of an IXP. Furthermore, as the key value proposition of a regional IXP is to keep local traffic local the presence of the access providers that are dominant or active in the local market is crucial.

As the interconnect market transforms, other players are becoming more important for example Cloud service providers and local enterprise solution access providers as well as government networks and content. The types of networks can be classified as

1. Large national network providers, often incumbent such as BT in the UK and France Telecom in France 2. Large mobile networks such as Vodaphone or O2 3. Global network providers 4. National players serving specific markets such as education networks or providers targeting business parks 5. Large national content providers such as the BBC or Sky 6. Global content providers 7. Local Internet service providers 8. Local content providers such as reginal governments 9. Local Enterprise networks 10. Local hybrid companies often providing managed content and network services for others 11. Market specialists, providing online services such as gaming companies like Sony or comparison websites such as booking.com 12. Large Global service providers often referred to as hyperscales such as Amazon web services and Microsoft.

Attracting these different groups to Scotland would help further build the digital infrastructure in Scotland. LINX together with the support from Scottish Futures trust and the Scottish Government have been successful in attracting local as well as large global content providers to LINX Scotland.

4. Short term focus for infrastructure growth (5 years) Critical to the operation of an internet exchange is the ability to attract the groups listed above. As noted, LINX Scotland has much of the content networks connected and present in Scotland which means that focus should shift to the access providers that serve consumers and enterprises in Scotland.

Improved resilience of Internet and telecommunications infrastructure as well lower latency for services will provide for a better environment for a digital services economy to grow.

Scotland’s population is relatively small compared to other countries in the global market but it is concentrated in two main central locations, Edinburgh and Glasgow, where LINX Scotland already has presence. Working with the access networks in these locations to connect to LINX Scotland would improve the services for a large number of Internet users in Scotland. For the more remote areas, Scotland has an active market of smaller or community run access providers who to some extent are connected to LINX Scotland. While the larger access networks have arrangements with content providers including access to content in their networks in Scotland which already helps the Scottish Internet users, the small and medium sized access networks should be encouraged to connect to LINX Scotland.

Scotland also already has good media hubs and a specialist oil and gas community which could further nurture a specialist digital community. Organising and understanding these groups communication and collaboration needs would help identify the types of Internet traffic that can be kept in Scotland and how to improve the digital infrastructure.

Additionally, Scotland could offer support to encourage large content providers and hyperscale organisations to the region. These organisations have a complex set of requirements for their high quality data centres, including planning permissions, access to low-cost power and multiple redundant connectivity options. Just below the hyperscale installations there are also need for large datacentre space in existing datacentres with access to redundant connectivity. Lack of choice of connectivity to the data centres will also deter content providers and hosting service providers. When deciding upon data centre locations organisations will need multiple redundant routes to the data centre to give resilience to the service. Recently when building the second site for LINX Scotland two diverse dark fibre connections were needed between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Only one was available, with the second route offered via Manchester. Whilst LINX were able to use an alternative second route, other organisations may not have such flexibility.

Support for community broad band initiatives that reach out to the wider population and connecting these to the exchange, help build reliable digital infrastructure, and remove the need for travel thus supporting low carbon growth.

25 years ago, the initial business case for connection to an Internet exchanges was built around cost savings as the main alternatives (transit and direct connection) were expensive and also slow. Secondary business cases were around speed and resilience of the service.

These business cases still apply in Scotland. For example, competition for deploying broadband infrastructure is limited and as a result makes the business case for new infrastructure providers to break out in Scotland difficult to justify. Decentralising of broadband infrastructure with more of it being fully deployed in Scotland would encourage more local ISPs. More local ISPs will generate more local competition and create a better environment for attracting digital industries.

As Internet services have grown, prices of the alternatives to Internet exchanges have dropped, the business case for connection has become about resilience and speed of service. Key to the function of a regional Internet exchange is the ability to keep internet traffic local to the area, where it is generated and consumed.

Any government infrastructure project involving the use, or creation of, a network should mandate the connection of the network to the exchange. This has proved difficult in the past because of a lack of understanding on the part of the provider. This is further compounded by the hesitation to change network architecture by the provider. These providers see Internet services are crucial for almost every organisation, and they are often supporting several hundred organisations on a single network, but the provider might have little experience with interconnects. These concerns can be mitigated with a structured approach to peering facilitated by LINX or other third-party providers.

Similarly, existing local network providers will continue to use London as their main exchange point and the Scottish infrastructure commission needs to work with these organisations to help build the business case and then prioritise the connection to the exchange.

Increasingly our members are telling us that they have an issue gaining access to highly skilled digital workforce. Specifically, network designers and managers.

5. Longer term focus for infrastructure growth In broad terms the only certainty of Internet traffic is that it will grow. More devices and applications will be enabled by the Internet.

Business cases for industry to build connect to and use digital infrastructure will also change over time. Pricing models will change depending upon use and competition, so it is difficult to predict

Building a successful Internet exchange will have many layers, the first stage is attracting local users, local content providers and local network providers. The second stage will be to attract the larger country players such as BT, Vodaphone and the BBC. This is a long term goal and will to attract international organisations to the region, such as Netflix, Microsoft and Alibaba.

Finally there is the option to provide an environment for new and innovative industries, often referred to as ‘the Internet of things’ and typified by examples such as driverless cars.

Giving a meaningful view of technology infrastructure requirements over a 30 year term is challenging for our organisation. This is because the fast moving nature of technology makes it very difficult to predict long term trends, and therefore the long term requirement for technology infrastructure is for it to be flexible and agile, and easily adaptable to changing demands.