(Revision 1.4: 2011-06-01)
The policies below were formally ratified by ISPA’s Management Committee on 2011-05-03.
Basic principles
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- INX-ZA is responsible for the administration of the INXes and determines policies relating to the INXes.
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- The host provides resources essential to the operation of the INX facilities, including power, air- conditioning and secure access to the site
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- Each INX
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- participant is responsible for obtaining one or more
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- circuits to the relevant INX facilities
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- (and for all costs associated with those
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- circuits). INX
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- participants are also responsible for supplying any equipment, such as routers, they require to connect their networks to the INX switches.
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- There is no restriction on
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- circuits a participant may terminate at the INXes and participants may use an INX as a key node on their backbone network, provided that they comply with all of
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- the INX policies.
Fees
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There are no joining fees for the INXes.
6. A monthly hosting benefit fee of R40,000 (excl. VAT) applies to the host of JINX, a monthly hosting benefit fee of R30,000 (excl. VAT) applies to the host of CINX, and a monthly benefit fee of R15,000 (excl. VAT) applies to the host of DINX. The amount must be paid by the host and will be a condition of any hosting agreement for each INX. (Hosting benefit fees for any future exchanges will be determined as additional exchanges are established.) Port charges, as set out below, apply to the host in addition to the hosting benefit fee.
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- Monthly port charges apply to connections to the INXes. These charges depend on the speed of each port used by an ISP. The port charges will be reviewed on an annual basis by the INX
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8. For ISPA members, there is a minimum membership requirement for access to some ports. For access to 10 Gbps and 1 Gbps ports, ISPs must be Large ISPA members. For access to 100 Mbps ports, ISPs must be either Medium or Large ISPA members. There is no minimum requirements for access to 10 Mbps ports; Small, Medium and Large ISPA members can all use 10 Mbps ports.
9. For the purposes of the minimum membership requirements above, Honorary ISPA members are considered to be Large ISPA members. Affiliate ISPA members are considered to be Small ISPA members.
10. ISPA members pay port charges as shown below:
Port charges for ISPA members (excl. VAT)
Port speed Minimum membership
10 Gbps Large R4,980.00
1 Gbps Large R2,490.00
100 Mbps Medium R1,245.00
10 Mbps Small R622.50
11. Non-members of ISPA may connect to ISPA’s INXes, and pay port charges as shown below:
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- management committee.
- Port fees may be waived for ports used
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- by Critical Infrastructure (such as DNS
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- Root Servers) located at an INX.
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- The INX
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- management committee remains responsible for determining which services it is appropriate to have hosted at the INXes, and when port fees should be waived
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Allocation of scarce resources
13. ISPA notes that ideally, there will be sufficient ports and other resources to meet all of the demands of users of the INXes. However, in practice there may be a scarcity of a particular resource at an INX. In this case, the policies on the allocation of scarce resources applies.
14. The INX administration team will allocate scarce resources primarily on the basis of demonstrated use. INX users requesting scarce resources may request an allocation above that required for demonstrated use, but in such a case, the INX administration team has the right to reclaim underutilised resources if they are needed for another INX user with demonstrated use. If a scarce resource is reclaimed from any INX user, once the resource ceases to become scarce, that user’s access to that resource should be prioritised.
15. In the case of a dispute in the allocation of a scarce resource at a particular exchange, the matter will be put to all active users of that INX who are ISPA members, with one vote per user.
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Requirement to exchange traffic via the INX switch fabric
17. With the exception noted, all interconnection at each INX must take place via the INX switch fabric. This means that within each INX cage there may be no peer-to-peer interconnection, and all traffic exchanged must be via the switch.
18. The above policy does not apply to any ISP paying the 10 Gbps port charge; this gives that ISP the right to interconnect privately. An INX user is welcome to pay the 10 Gbps port charge to gain this benefit, but make use of a lower speed port on the switch. For the avoidance of doubt, both parties interconnecting privately must be paying the 10 Gbps port charge, in order to have the right to interconnect with each other.
19. The INX working group management committee retains the right to grant additional exceptions to the above clause, where technically necessary. (The specific example was put forward of voice traffic exchanged via SS7. The JINX switch does not support this, and it would have to bypass the switch.)
Rack space
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- The monthly port charge gives that INX user the right to use a maximum amount of rack space depending on the primary port used, as indicated below.
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- ISPA reserves the right to impose additional charges for ISPs using more than this, with appropriate fees to be determined by the INX
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- committee. Rack space may only be available at specific locations.
| Primary port |
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| Max rack space |
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| 10gb/s | 8RU |
| 1gb/s | 6RU |
| 100Mb/s | 4RU |
| 10Mb/s | 2RU |
- The above rack space allocation includes any telco infrastructure associated with an INX user.
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- All equipment hosted at the INXes must be rack-mounted. ISPA reserves the right to disconnect any equipment which is not rack-mounted. The INX
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- management committee may grant exceptions to this rule on case-by-case basis.
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- The above policies on rack space are intended to ensure that each INX remains an Internet exchange, and not an equipment hosting facility. Additional rack space will not be made available to INX
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- participants.
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- Rack space allocations are not transferable. INX
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- participants may not resell, sublet or give away rack space without permission from ISPA.
Cabling
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- The INX host will provide all ethernet patch cabling for the INX facilities. ISPA members may not supply their own ethernet cabling. ISPA members are, however, responsible for their own power cables. These rules are subject to the discretion of the INX host.
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- The host may levy a cabling fee of R1200 (excl. VAT) per port used for connections into the JINX and CINX facilities. This fee is for the cabling between the host’s meet-me room and the INX environment and is a per-cable installation fee, and not a recurring cost.
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- For transparency and fairness, the host must publish a list of prices for other cabling projects within the hosting facility.
Wireless connections and roof access
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- For transparency and fairness, the host must provide up-to-date information on the availability of roof space at the hosting location for the purposes of wireless links. Contact details for further enquiries should also be provided.
Participants’ interconnection policies
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- A connection to an INX is not the same as interconnection with other organisations using that INX. ISPA does not require INX
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- participants to interconnect with all other INX
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- participants. Each organisation connecting to an INX is free to establish its own policy for interconnection. It is up to each user of an INX to negotiate interconnection agreements with the other INX
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30. Each INX user must provide ISPA with a clear policy for interconnection with other INX users and must notify ISPA of any changes to this policy. If an INX user fails to provide ISPA with a clear policy for interconnection with other INX users, then they agree to exchange traffic with all other INX users on a no-charge basis.
31. In cases where disputes arise between members regarding interconnection policy, if both members agree, ISPA will play a mediation role.
- participants.
Hosting of servers
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No servers or other non-standard equipment may be hosted at an INX without the explicit permission of the INX
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management committee. Any requests to host third party equipment (e.g. monitoring devices) will be dealt with by the INX
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management committee on a case-by-case basis.
SNMP access
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No
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participant may have access to the community string for the INX switches unless cleared to do so by the INX
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management committee.
Insurance
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Members are responsible for the insurance of their own equipment.
Liability for outages
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ISPA members using the INXes cannot hold ISPA or other INX
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participants liable for network outages of any kind.
Non-compliance
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ISPA reserves the right to terminate any INX user’s access to an INX for non-compliance with
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INX policies.
Changes to this policy
37. ISPA INX-ZA reserves the right to make changes to its INX policies, following due consultation with ISPA membersthe participants.