On 3 May 2005, at 03:53, Erin Salmon - Unleash Computers Ltd wrote:
I wasn't so much saying that APNIC's fees are high in comparison with the cost of setting up a data centre, which they certainly are not. I was more saying that as a small business, once you have forked out hundreds of thousands for the necessary equipment, you're not likely to be in a position to fork out US$5000 for an APNIC application, and when the alternative of grabbing a handful of /24s from an upstream provider is available at little or no cost, 95% of people will go with that.
If $5000 is enough to break the bank, then the enterprise is doomed anyway. Abandon all hope. To look at it another way, imagine the collective cost of renumbering a data centre full of customers when you find you need to change providers (or, conversely, imagine not being able to change providers to take advantage of new and exciting opportunities because you can't afford to renumber). Any new ISP setting up today who has really weighed these options, and has consciously decided that provider-aggregatable addresses are the way to go is probably operating out of the bedroom of a 12-year-old CEO, and deserves to be avoided at all cost. (Apologies to the capable and intelligent 12-year-old CEOs on the list. I know you're out there.)
In any case Brett, to peer at the exchange you need a BGP capable router, a physical connection to it, a block of addresses to route, and an ASN. Then just go and ask all the big ISPs nicely if they'll peer with you. You'd better have something that it's currently costing them money to get at, or some content that doesn't like going via Australia. :) Get in touch with Citylink, they'll be able to advise how best to get a connection to the exchange, and help you get it working properly.
As an alternative to negotiating bilateral agreements with all the participants at the exchange (or in addition to that) you can just set up sessions with the route servers. There are plenty of big ISPs who listen to routes from the route servers at the APE and the WIX, even if there are some notable exceptions. If you have any content at all to deliver (or if you have any requirement to view content hosted by others in NZ) then peering is a philosophically-sound idea. From a business perspective, you need to compare the cost of getting to the exchange with the immediate and longer-term savings you'll get from being able to exchange traffic at a flat-rate of $0/meg. The last point that seems worthy of mention is that "BGP-capable router" is not the intimidating expense that it sounds like, especially if your requirements for peak packet throughput are moderate. There are plenty of options that cost less than a modern desktop PC. Joe