Calgary Internet Exchange

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Short description: Internet exchange point in Calgary, Alberta

Template:Infobox Internet exchange point

YYCIX Internet Exchange Community Ltd, commonly known as the Calgary Internet Exchange or YYCIX, is a not-for-profit Internet exchange point in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It operates an open Ethernet switching fabric through which participating networks exchange traffic locally using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).[1][2]

The exchange was founded on 21 November 2012 by Calgary network operators seeking to reduce reliance on long-distance traffic exchange through other cities, including routes that left Canada.[3][4][5][6] The exchange is incorporated as a Canadian tax-exempt not-for-profit corporation.[4][7] By 2022, the Internet Society reported that YYCIX had grown from 14 members in its first year to more than 70 peers, including Internet service providers, network service providers, content delivery networks, and other Internet users.[4]

Background

An Internet exchange point allows networks with their own autonomous system number to exchange traffic directly rather than sending it through upstream transit providers. CIRA describes Canadian IXPs as infrastructure that can make Internet service faster, cheaper, and more resilient by allowing governments, universities, content providers, Internet service providers, and businesses to interconnect at Canadian hubs.[2] CIRA argues that local peering can reduce the need for Canadian traffic to travel through the United States when both endpoints are in Canada.[8]

Before YYCIX was established, Calgary had fewer local interconnection options than Toronto and other larger peering markets. A 2012 report prepared by Packet Clearing House for CIRA listed Calgary as one of eight high-priority Canadian cities for a new IXP, alongside Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Quebec City, Vancouver, Windsor, and Winnipeg.[9] The report argued that additional Canadian IXPs could reduce transit costs, shorten routes, improve latency, and reduce the practice of routing Canadian-to-Canadian traffic through the United States.[9]

History

YYCIX was conceived in 2010 to keep Calgary Internet traffic local, reduce costs, and improve performance.[4] The organization was formally founded on 21 November 2012.[3][7] In June 2013, Theo de Raadt, then listed as the exchange's network manager, presented YYCIX to the Calgary Unix Users Group as "an Internet Exchange for Calgary"; the meeting announcement described YYCIX's objective as providing a not-for-profit infrastructure for Alberta-based Internet traffic among Internet service providers, network service providers, content service providers, and other users.[10]

The exchange initially operated without a single dominant Calgary carrier hotel comparable to the physical concentration that supports exchanges such as TORIX. YYCIX therefore developed across multiple data centres and interconnected those sites over optical fibre, with some members separated by distances of around 25 kilometres.[4] The City of Calgary later donated fibre that connected YYCIX data centres and allowed the exchange to consolidate during an early stage of its development.[4]

YYCIX was part of a broader Canadian IXP expansion during the 2010s. In 2016, CIRA reported that five new IXPs had been established in just over two years, naming exchanges in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Montreal, and Halifax.[11] CIRA described this work as part of an effort to develop Canadian peering communities and reduce dependence on north–south transit links through the United States.[8]

Network and operations

YYCIX operates a shared Layer 2 switching fabric for networks that have an autonomous system number and connect a router to one of the exchange's switch ports.[1][8] The exchange supports both IPv4 and IPv6 peering, and provides Network Time Protocol service and optional BGP route reflectors for multilateral peering alongside the route servers.[12] Traffic exchange is handled by BGP, and a looking glass is available to show carried routes.[1] YYCIX also operates route servers; the published peer list identifies two YYCIX route-server entries using ASN 53339.[13]

YYCIX peering switches are located in several Calgary facilities, including Arrow DC1 and Arrow DC2, City Hall, Cologix CGY1, Equinix CL1 and CL3, Qu (Rogers) DC2, and eStruxture.[1] Packet Clearing House lists YYCIX as an active Ethernet exchange in Calgary managed by YYCIX Internet Exchange Community Ltd.[3] PeeringDB lists the exchange as a best-effort service with non-recurring fees only.[14] YYCIX itself has no mandatory recurring membership or port fees, although participants may need to provide optics or pay a one-time installation fee.[1]

Growth in membership and traffic led to upgrades in the exchange fabric. The Internet Society reported that YYCIX traffic grew from 9 Gbit/s peaks in November 2017 to peaks of about 50 Gbit/s by 2022, and that the exchange upgraded links among its data centres to 100 Gbit/s after receiving donated switches.[4] YYCIX news posts also record individual network upgrades, including a City of Calgary circuit increase from 1 Gbit/s to 10 Gbit/s in 2019 and later 100 Gbit/s links and new switch deployments.[12]

Participants and peering

The exchange's participants include regional access networks, national carriers, content networks, cloud and hosting providers, public-sector networks, and DNS infrastructure operators. The YYCIX peer list includes entries for Amazon, Beanfield Metroconnect, CANARIE, CIRA, the City of Calgary, Cloudflare, Fastly, Hurricane Electric, Meta, NETAGO, PCH, RIPE K-root, Starlink, TekSavvy, TELUS, and other networks.[13]

The Internet Society case study used NETAGO, a rural-focused Alberta ISP, as an example of the exchange's effects on smaller regional providers. NETAGO joined YYCIX in 2013 and the study estimated that 20 to 30 percent of its traffic volume was passing through the exchange, producing savings of about 20 percent.[4] The same study reported that YYCIX had attracted content delivery networks and large networks that gave local providers options they did not previously have.[4]

Governance and funding

YYCIX describes its corporate objectives as benefiting Alberta's Internet community, providing not-for-profit infrastructure for Alberta-based Internet traffic, improving local access to content, and increasing the speed of communications among Alberta companies and residents.[7] The exchange is run by a board of directors and volunteer network operators listed on its website.[7]

The Internet Society describes YYCIX as volunteer-operated and donation-funded. Its case study reported that the exchange operated on an annual budget of about C$4,500 before major donated-switch upgrades, and quoted network manager Theo de Raadt as saying that charging recurring fees would make it harder for the exchange to compete with free peering options in Seattle.[4] YYCIX's own website similarly states that the exchange was built by volunteers and donations and does not charge mandatory recurring membership or port fees.[1]

Role in regional resilience

YYCIX supporters have described the exchange as infrastructure for local resilience as well as for performance and cost. In a 2020 CIRA question-and-answer article about Canadian Internet usage during the COVID-19 pandemic, Theo de Raadt said networks should build redundancy and capacity, use diverse long-haul paths, and consider peering at Internet exchanges to establish local paths that are less vulnerable to catastrophic events.[15] In the same article, de Raadt said that latency-sensitive services such as VPNs and videoconferencing can be degraded when two Alberta networks exchange traffic through distant points in Canada or the United States rather than through a local path.[15]

The Internet Society case study cited Calgary's 2013 flooding and a 2017 rockslide in British Columbia as examples used by YYCIX participants to explain the value of local interconnection. The case study reported that NETAGO stayed connected through YYCIX during the 2013 flood when some incumbent-connected members went down, and that the 2017 rockslide disrupted fibre routes in western Canada while some regional traffic continued to operate through the exchange.[4]

See also

  • List of Internet exchange points
  • Internet in Canada
  • Peering
  • Toronto Internet Exchange

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "YYCIX: Calgary Internet Exchange". https://yycix.ca/. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Internet Exchange Points (IXPs)". Canadian Internet Registration Authority. https://www.cira.ca/en/net-good/network-resilience/ixps/. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "YYCIX Calgary Internet Exchange". Packet Clearing House. https://www.pch.net/ixp/details/1461. 
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 Growing Tech Hub in Canada—With the Help of an IXP (Report). Internet Society. 2022. https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2022-Calgary-IXP-Case-Study.pdf. Retrieved 14 May 2026. 
  5. ↑ Jackson, Brian (30 September 2013). "Canada must build routing infrastructure to skirt US snooping, CIRA says". ITBusiness.ca. http://www.itbusiness.ca/news/canada-must-build-routing-infrastructure-to-skirt-us-snooping-cira-says/43789. 
  6. ↑ Schick, Shane (2 October 2013). "The quest to keep Canada's Internet traffic in-country". Yahoo! Finance. https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/dashboard/quest-keep-canada-internet-traffic-country-181355425.html. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "About YYCIX". https://yycix.ca/about.html. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Williamson, Rob (26 June 2015). "Building a stronger national Internet part 1 – Local Peering". Canadian Internet Registration Authority. https://www.cira.ca/en/resources/news/cybersecurity/building-a-stronger-national-internet-part-1-local-peering/. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Woodcock, Bill; Edelman, Benjamin (12 September 2012). Toward Efficiencies in Canadian Internet Traffic Exchange (Report). Packet Clearing House for the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. https://web.archive.org/web/20130825111225/http://cira.ca/assets/Uploads/Toward-Efficiencies-in-Canadian-Internet-Traffic-Exchange2.pdf. Retrieved 14 May 2026. 
  10. ↑ "YYCIX – an Internet Exchange for Calgary". June 2013. https://www.cuug.ab.ca/past-meetings/meetings.12-13.html. 
  11. ↑ "IXPs in Canada – Building a community, working together". Canadian Internet Registration Authority. 27 September 2016. https://www.cira.ca/en/resources/news/cybersecurity/ixps-canada-building-a-community-working-together/. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "YYCIX news". https://yycix.ca/news.html. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "YYCIX peers". https://yycix.ca/peers.html. 
  14. ↑ "YYCIX". https://www.peeringdb.com/ix/639. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Q&A: IXP Managers explain how COVID-19 has changed internet usage in Canada". Canadian Internet Registration Authority. 20 April 2020. https://www.cira.ca/en/resources/news/about/qa-ixp-managers-explain-how-covid-19-has-changed-internet-usage-canada/. 



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