September 30, 2021

During the month of August, as lockdown commenced, the traffic through the exchanges started soaring. Incredibly, both AKL-IX and CHC-IX hit new records, with AKL-IX peaking at 341Gbps with plenty of room to spare.

The peaks have continued throughout lockdown, with weekday highs ranging between low to mid 300Gbps. We could not be more proud of our network as it continues to carry that amount of traffic without breaking a sweat!

Earlier this month, as a thank you to all our fantastic members, we sent out our custom NZIX masks. With the recent mask mandates here in New Zealand, your mask will definitely be put to good use. Made from milk fibre and cotton material with PM2.5 filters, they are comfortable, breathable, and definitely one of the better-looking masks out there!

If any of our members would like additional masks, please email us and we’ll see what we can do.

We hope you enjoy your mask (but not for too long!), and if you feel like sharing, take a mask mugshot and send it in to us at admin@ix.nz

The plan to launch the much-anticipated WLG-IX was unfortunately pushed back due to lockdown restrictions affecting important work needed to get the new IX up and running. We would thank all the members who have pre-ordered their services and are now waiting patiently for the impending launch.

We are pleased to announce the soft launch of WLG-IX on Friday, October 1, 2021, and advise that we will be accepting cross connect orders from this date. The twelve-month free period will commence shortly after on Monday, November 1, 2021.

We would like to remind all members that you can pre-order your services through the members portal, or if you would like to speak with one of our team to find out more, please get in touch with us at peering@ix.nz

After the last NZIX AGM, our membership discussed a decline of incoming talent and an aging incumbent population. It was noted that the membership believed tertiary education institutions were not currently teaching the skills needed for the field, and historically, people learned by making mistakes on residential ISP’s. Unfortunately, the tolerance around faults has reduced in recent years, and all ISP’s, residential and business alike, strive for the best uptimes.

NZIX finds itself in an interesting position as a well-connected organisation within New Zealand with relationships with some LFC’s, many RSP’s as well as some CDN’s/Clouds, as well as being a neutral not-for-profit with capital to invest in initiatives that will better New Zealand’s Internet.

We are proposing to build an educational environment connected to actual, full table transit, real Internet Exchanges, and participating LFC’s. Users of the environment will be able to deploy switches, routers, and Linux containers to construct a working ISP. Further, users will be able to connect to VISP at their homes/offices using standard UFB connections as ‘customers’ of the ISP they build or adapt.

The initial target of the educational environment is the NZIX membership, with longer-term potential relationships being developed with tertiary education providers. If all goes well, we could also extend the learning to high school students online or within schools via the NZCA unit standard.

We are very excited about this prospective project and what this would mean for the future of our Internet; however, please keep in mind that we are in the beginning stages of speaking with vendors and testing the general viability of the project. Rest assured, we will keep you up-to-date with the project as developments happen.