UK's LINX Cuts PricesUK's LINX Cuts Prices

LONDON -- The London Internet Exchange (LINX) - Europe’s largest Internet exchange point - is growing so rapidly that it is cutting its fees to members and reducing charges for their use of its facilities.

LINX has around 150 members, including all the UK’s major Internet service providers (ISPs) and many from continental Europe, America and Asia. At its eight London sites it connects the networks of its members, allowing them to exchange Internet traffic. More than 90 per cent of the UK’s Internet traffic passes through LINX facilities.

In the past year, growth in the number of members and in the level of traffic being handled has exceeded forecasts, leaving LINX in a healthy financial position. As a consequence, a general meeting of members has decided to cut a series of fees and charges in a budget which predicts an income of more than £4 million in the next financial year - sufficient to cover all the operating costs of the not-for-profit organisation.

Chief executive John Souter told members: “A higher than expected take-up of new ports, together with more new members than we predicted, means that we are generating additional surplus.

“In the past year all the necessary equipment has been purchased to upgrade every single switch, commence the upgrading of core routing equipment and set aside money for work to provide additional protection for members against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.”

Next year, LINX intends to purchase additional new hardware but the overall capital expenditure should be considerably less than in recent years - although still amounting to more than 20 per cent of turnover.

John Souter continued: “As a result of these changes we have scope to reduce the amount we charge members for each port they have connected at LINX, the amount we charge for the traffic which flows through the ports, and the basic membership fee. We are also able to reduce rackspace charges and the joining fee for new members.

“On a like-for-like basis, all members should see a reduction in the order of 25 per cent of the cost of being at LINX, compared with this year. Cash flow projections show that we will still have adequate reserves to meet foreseeable challenges.”

The London Internet Exchange Ltd. (LINX)