Are NTL obliged to be connected properly into INEX?

meglome

Well the title says it all. Currently if you go through NTL to another ISP in Ireland it goes via the UK, which is less than ideal. If you go to an ESAT or IOL site it goes through Lynx in London. Bizarrely Eircon sites appear to route via Manchester/Amsterdam atm. This is a ridiculous situation but what can we do about it?

(Notwithstanding I wouldn't exactly trust the British government not to be reading everything that goes through from Ireland... and I'm not paranoid)

cmkrnl

Its quite possible that peering at LINX could be quicker.


greg

meglome

I believe they have or are upgrading INEX so it shouldn't be slow.

meglome

*bump* someone must know what the regs are when joining INEX?

MiCr0

info re joining INEX here
http://www.inex.ie/INEX-Joinprocedures-3.0.html

from what i can see on the site NTL are already members.

MiCr0

Snowbat

http://www.inex.ie/

meglome

I know they are already connected but are they following the rules by connecting via the UK, it seems to defeat the purpose of having local connectivity.

"Structure of the INEX

The operation of the INEX is governed by the Memorandum and Articles of Incorporation of the Internet Neutral Exchange Association, Ltd. The governing law for the INEX and this MoU is that of Ireland.
This Memorandum of Understanding describes the requirements for new Members to join the INEX, and the ongoing requirements for members.
The final authority over the INEX is the Executive Committee, which comprises one representative of each INEX member. The Executive Committee shall operate and abide by the Rules and Constitution of the INEX. The Executive Committee shall have final authority to interpret this MoU."

So?

The Cigarette Smoking Man

Originally posted by meglome
Well the title says it all. Currently if you go through NTL to another ISP in Ireland it goes via the UK, which is less than ideal. If you go to an ESAT or IOL site it goes through Lynx in London. Bizarrely Eircon sites appear to route via Manchester/Amsterdam atm. This is a ridiculous situation but what can we do about it?

The only thing you can do is phone NTL up and complain and if enough people complain they might fix it. There's no obligation for any Irish ISP to use the INEX.

It's likely that the routers for their Internet access are controlled from the UK and they just have the Dublin network connected directly into their UK network.

BTW I agree with greg, it is possible that peering through the LINX could be quicker.

Anybody know if the INEX has gone to gigabit ethernet yet?

SkepticOne

I don't see how INEX can force NTL to use their services. If that was the case and it did not suit NTL financially to use them, NTL would simply withdraw from INEX. IIRC, NTL have had their own infrastructure connecting their Irish Operations with the UK for some time prior to the operation of INEX. If they are unable to sell on this cross-channel connectivity to other companies, then it may well be the case that it is cheaper to treat the UK and Ireland as one big network and do their interconnecting in the UK. This may not suit people here, but then I imagine most people use them for their weekend flat-rate scheme rather than their local connectivity.

bonkey

Originally posted by meglome
I know they are already connected but are they following the rules by connecting via the UK, it seems to defeat the purpose of having local connectivity.

One of my mates was involved in setting up the NTL networking.

IIRC, the reason they go through the UK is simple. All of their upstream systems are located in the UK. Ireland can be viewed as a spur off their UK network. All DHCP, internal proxies, and so on, are all located in the UK.

IIRC, your IP gets NAT'ed across a private address space on their networks, and then re-NAT'ed to get back to the outside world.

To set up a connection to INEX would require purchasing cable in Ireland, and probably duplicating some of their kit over here.

Basically, its not a simple job of just plugging in a cable. It would cost them a large chunk of cash, and possibly require a complete reworking of their Irish networks. And all for what? A *small* increase of performance for Irish machines accessing Irish resources.

Bear in mind the amount of bandwidth ESAT (for example) have running to LINX. In theory, NTL to Esat thru LINX is as fast as it would be through INEX. When I had my NTL line in Dublin I was getting 45 ping to the Radox server, which was in Esats web farm. I really doubt that INEX connectivity could better that significantly.

Cant say about Errorcom, cause I have no clue about their bandwidth to LINX.

The only major problem is that LINX (and the Amsterdam exchange) are so big, that there is always upgrade work going on, which can result in bad weeks of dodgy connections and ping times as well as good weeks of good connectivity.

jc

jc

The Cigarette Smoking Man

Originally posted by bonkey

To set up a connection to INEX would require purchasing cable in Ireland, and probably duplicating some of their kit over here.

According to the INEX Website they already have a connection, it's just not configured for their home users.

Since there are only a couple out in west Dublin using the service, it's probably not worth the effort to change it.

There's info on the eircom links here:

http://business.eircom.net/about/networkdiagrams.asp

bonkey

AFAIK, they signed up for INEX, and so are technically a customer. They do not, however, have a connection set up.

I remember we checked into this when we got NTL in. They signed up for it initially, and then realised that it didnt really serve them any use because of their configuration...

jc

meglome

What I'm trying to establish is now that they ARE connected to INEX are they following the INEX rules by routing via the UK. ???

The Cigarette Smoking Man

Not really, the only one I could see is:

15. Each member must maintain a peering relationship with at least the greater of 4 other members, or 10% of other members, where each peering session normally includes the advertisement of at least one route by at least one of the peers. New members will have six months from acceptance of their membership application to comply with this requirement.