[88510] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Middle Eastern Exchange Points
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Joe Abley)
Wed Feb 8 01:12:45 2006
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.0.20060207225600.01ab18c8@renesys.com>
Cc: Bill Woodcock <woody@pch.net>,
"Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@gettcomm.com>,
Nanog list <nanog@merit.edu>
From: Joe Abley <jabley@isc.org>
Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2006 22:11:50 -0800
To: Martin Hannigan <hannigan@renesys.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
On 7-Feb-2006, at 20:50, Martin Hannigan wrote:
>> As Joe's pointed out, what's available in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and
>> Kuwait are governmental monopoly incumbent transit services, a la
>> STIX, as
>> opposed to Internet exchanges where peering takes place. There are
>> several private colocation facilities which sell transit, but are not
>> IXes, in Dubai and Kuwait.
>
> ISC has equipment out here. 192.228.85.0/24 is being announced out
> of emirates.net
> can't be that bad. :-)
The F-root node in Dubai is facilitated by Emirates Telecom/Etisalat/
EMIX, as per <http://f.root-servers.org/>. At the time we installed
there was no facility available for peering or other multi-point
interconnect with operators in UAE. I am not aware that this has
changed. Woody's comparison with the STIX is spot on, as far as I know.
In pragmatic terms, due to the local regulatory environment and in
the absence of a neutral exchange point, obtaining transit from EMIX
in Dubai is the best approximation to a comprehensive set of
bilateral peering arrangements with local ISPs. However, it's not
peering in a topological/routing policy sense. The fact that F-root's
covering prefix doesn't propagate beyond the region is due to special
handling of that prefix by our colleagues in AS 8966.
ISC's intention in Dubai, as in all regions, was to provide the best
access possible to F-root within the immediate surrounding region. I
believe we achieved that goal.
Joe
