The hub.org.za mini-FAQ

1. What will the Hub project offer that ISPA's CINX and JINX don't?

   At this point there are suggestions for a few value added things including ftp mirrors and maybe shared proxy caches.
   We have no problems with JINX, but there are a few reasons we feel we can offer more than CINX does.

2. Why do you want an alternative to CINX ? It has practically no barriers to entry, is well maintained and managed (afaik), and serves the community. It's also already well-established.

   For a while we are happy to let them co-exist, but there are some issues which the members of Hub have with CINX and ISPA. Their fake/equal line fees, and the fact that CINX is very low on ISPA's priority list are the main issues. Jinx is well managed, we agree.. but the Cape Town exchange needs some work.

3. What do you mean by "fake/equal" line fees ?

   'equivalent line fees': it comes down to this, if you are in the same building as an ISPA peering point (so you dont need to pay Telkom), they ask you the same money, (min R4k for 512Kbps) to connect with UTP. The money goes to ISPA not to Telkom. There are a few people in the same building as CINX who disagree with this out of basic principle. Yes, we raised the issue with ISPA, no luck. For example IOL ships >8GB per day and they are in the same building as CINX, but they dont peer (yet).

4. Why would they have this fake line fee policy ?

   As we understand it there are two reasons for these "equivalant" fees:

   • Financial - money for ISPA
   • Discourage people from connecting to high density network infrastructure

   With this country's current telecoms environment, it is natural for networks to avoid geographical distribution costs. As a result many people choose to co-locate parts of their networks. To discourage co-located networks from peering is in our opinion not a good idea.

5. Have you made a real attempt - all of you - at resolving the issues ?

   Yes, we made a big effort to peer at CINX, found out about their policies, the people that run things etc. Individuals from the Hub have contacted ISPA, all with the same results.

6. And have you, as a group, collectively voiced your concerns to ISPA about this ?

   No, not as a group. The group has only been around for a few weeks.

7. Are you members of the ISPA in the first place ?

   No, dont see any reason at this point.

8. What are the groups motivations for building the Hub ?

   • We would like the Cape Town peering to be managed from Cape Town.
   • We feel that it should be cheap/free to connect from servers in the same space as the Cape Town peering point.
   • We feel we can lower the barrier to entry and encourage more people to peer if we provide a well documented solution using Free software.