What is ACTIX?

The ACT Internet Exchange was established to allow entities housed within TransACT to send traffic directly to and from each other rather than via their transit connectivity. This activity is known as peering.

This provides improvements in speed as traffic travels directly between the parties and reduces load on the network by reducing the need for traffic to be duplicated through one or more intermediate carrier routers. In some cases this also avoids traffic being routed "out of town", or incurring other traffic charges.

The ACT Internet Exchange provides route servers which contain routing details for each of the participants. This simplifies peering enormously for most users.

Who would connect to ACT-IX?

Various types of organisations connect to ACT-IX:

• "Traditional" ISPs
• Carriers
• Content Providers
• Web Hosters
• Mobile Operators
• VoIP Providers
• Other IP centric organisation's

Getting Started

If you'd like to participate at ACTIX then you'll need:

• A router that supports BGP4 - check with your supplier
• A block of IP addresses to advertise - we can't supply these addresses. You'll either have them already or need to get a block addresses from your upstream supplier or directly from APNIC.
• An Autonomous System (AS) number - you may already have one assigned by APNIC. We'll assign one for you if you haven't got one.
• Submit a connection request.

Once you've emailed us a peering request we'll send you some details on the IP address you will use on your router attached to the Exchange and a sample config for a Cisco or Quagga based router. If you are using another type of router you'll need to do a little more work.

Is transit allowed over ACTIX?

The ACTIX peering VLAN is intended for just that: Peering.
Inherently providing transit over the peering VLAN is not allowed. We offer dedicated point-to-point VLAN's for that purpose.
Those dedicated VLAN's can very easily be delivered on the same IX port using a Dot1Q trunk configuration. A dedicated VLAN isolates your transit traffic from your peering traffic and makes it easier to manage and measure.