Hutchison Global Communications (HGC) and Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) have jointly launched a new internet exchange in Hong Kong.
Under the partnership, HGC will be an exclusive worldwide sales and marketing arm for the new AMS-IX Hong Kong for two years.
The AMS-IX Hong Kong, touted as the first of its kind in Asia between an Asian carrier and a Europe-based exchange, will serve as a neutral and independent peering platform with both private and public peering services at carrier-grade level to ISPs, internet content providers and telecom carriers from all over Asia Pacific.
Through AMS-IX Hong Kong service, users in Asia can connect to more than 470 international networks. The new service also enables internet, mobile, telecoms and content providers already connected with AMS-IX Amsterdam to have direct access to Asian networks.
Andrew Kwok, HGC’s president of international service said the exchange will be located in one of the company’s data centers in Hong Kong, and the service will be charged based on bandwidth.
He said the carrier-grade platform will be supported by HGC’s fiber network, data centers, and international network, allowing customers to connect with the platform via dedicated ports with speeds of 1Gbps to multiple 1G.
Customers can benefit from increased speed, diversification and backup, as the new platform enable resourceful and direct Internet traffic exchange with fewer network hops reducing costs on IP transit and increasing routing resilience.
Kwok noted the two are also planning to introduce a mobile data exchange service to Asia in future - a service which AMS-IX has been offering in Europe since 2001.
Job Witteman, CEO of AMS-IX, said the company has now 25 global GPRS roaming exchange (GRX) providers and would considering provide a similar offering in Asia as a secondary service.
Amsterdam-based AMX-IX, which is the industry’s largest internet exchange with more than 470 Interconnected IP networks and a traffic peak of over 1.5 terabit per second, also hosts the first mobile peering point worldwide, the GRX and the mobile data exchange and the first interconnection of IPX networks.