What is a FD-IX?

Every time you stream a video, load a website, or run an AI application, that data crosses multiple networks before it reaches you. The places where those networks hand traffic to each other are called internet exchange points. Most people have never heard of them. They power the internet anyway.

This guide explains what FD-IX is, how it works, why networks use us, and what that means in practice — for ISPs, enterprises, content providers, and increasingly, for AI infrastructure.

What Is an Internet Exchange Point?

An internet exchange point (IXP) is a physical location where multiple independent networks connect to exchange traffic directly with each other.

Instead of routing data through a chain of transit providers — each adding cost, latency, and another point of failure — networks at an IXP hand traffic directly from one to the other. A single physical connection to the exchange gives you access to dozens or hundreds of other networks simultaneously.

The IXP provides the switching fabric: the hardware, fiber, power, and a neutral environment. The participating networks provide their own routers and decide, through peering agreements, which other networks they want to exchange traffic with.

Think of it as a direct flight versus a connecting flight with two layovers. Both get you there. One is faster, cheaper, and involves fewer things that can go wrong.

How Does an IXP Work?

At the physical level, an FD-IX is one or more Ethernet switches housed in a carrier-neutral data center. Each participating network orders a cross-connect — a short fiber run within the same building — linking its router to the IXP's switching fabric.

Once physically connected, networks establish BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) sessions with other members. BGP is the routing protocol that networks use to announce which IP address ranges they control and can reach. Through BGP, your router learns that Network A is reachable directly through the exchange and starts sending traffic for those addresses over the exchange path instead of through your upstream transit provider.

FD-IX operates route servers — centralized BGP speakers that aggregate route announcements from all members. Instead of forming individual one-to-one BGP sessions with every other participant, you connect once to the route server and automatically receive routes from every member who also connects to it. This dramatically simplifies onboarding.

The result: traffic that used to leave your network, travel to a distant transit provider, and come back now stays local — exchanged directly at FD-IX.

Why Do Networks Use FD-IX?

Lower Transit Costs

IP transit — buying bandwidth from an upstream provider to reach the rest of the internet — is the dominant cost for most network operators. Transit providers charge per megabit or per gigabit of traffic delivered. As traffic volumes grow, so does the bill.

At FD-IX, traffic exchanged directly between members is typically settlement-free. You pay a port fee for your connection to the exchange. The traffic itself costs nothing extra beyond that.

For a network moving significant volumes, the savings are real. A mid-sized ISP that shifts a third of its traffic from paid transit to local peering can meaningfully reduce its monthly bandwidth spend. For larger networks, the impact is even greater.

Lower Latency

Transit providers route traffic efficiently, but not necessarily locally. A packet from an ISP in Indianapolis destined for a content network also in Indianapolis might travel to Chicago or even the East Coast before being handed off and returned. This is sometimes called tromboning — traffic that should take a short path instead takes a long detour.

At FD-IX, traffic exchanged between two networks in the same city stays in that city. The path is shorter. Latency drops. Users notice, even if they never know why.

At FD-IX, traffic exchanged between member networks travels with sub-millisecond latency across the exchange fabric. The same traffic over transit could add 20–60ms of unnecessary round-trip delay.

Better Reliability

Transit providers are single points of dependency. If your upstream has a routing issue, your traffic is affected. Peering at an IXP adds alternative paths: traffic that can't reach a destination via transit might still reach it via a directly peered network.

More paths means more resilience. Networks that peer broadly at IXPs tend to have more stable, consistent performance for their users.

Routing Control

When all your traffic goes through a single transit provider, your routing options are limited. At FD-IX, you control which networks you peer with and how you prioritize traffic. You can prefer the IX path for latency-sensitive traffic, fall back to transit for destinations you don't peer with, and build traffic engineering policies that reflect your actual needs.

Who Uses Internet Exchange Points?

FD-IX serves a wide range of participants:

Internet Service Providers (ISPs) — both wireline and fixed-wireless — use FD-IX to reduce the transit costs associated with delivering content to their subscribers. When a local ISP peers with Cloudflare or Akamai at an exchange, their customers get faster load times and the ISP pays less for the traffic.

Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) connect to FD-IX to move their edge caches closer to ISP customers. Cloudflare, Akamai, and others are present at FD-IX, which means their content is one direct hop from every ISP that connects to the exchange.

Cloud providers use FD-IX to offer on-ramp connectivity — direct paths into their infrastructure that bypass the public internet. AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Oracle all have reachable on-ramps through FD-IX.

Enterprises with significant traffic volumes connect to IXPs to access cloud providers and content networks more efficiently and more privately than going over the public internet.

AI infrastructure operators are an increasingly important participant class. AI workloads generate sustained, high-bandwidth east-west traffic between GPU clusters, storage systems, and inference nodes. Local, direct interconnection through an IXP reduces jitter and keeps AI pipelines running efficiently.

Public Peering vs. Private Peering

At an IXP, there are two main ways to exchange traffic:

Public peering uses FD-IX's route servers. You form a single BGP session with the route server and exchange routes with every other member who also uses the route server. It's fast to set up and immediately gives you access to many networks.

Private peering (also called bilateral peering or a private VLAN) means forming a direct BGP session with a specific network over a dedicated Layer 2 path. You and one other network agree to exchange traffic only with each other, with full control over routing policy. This is common for high-volume relationships where the traffic justifies a dedicated connection.

Most networks use both: route servers for broad coverage, bilateral sessions for high-volume peers.

What Is a Carrier-Neutral IXP?

A carrier-neutral IX, such as FD_IX, does not favor any particular network. It does not sell IP transit, does not have a financial stake in which networks you peer with, and does not compete with its members. The exchange exists purely to facilitate interconnection between whoever chooses to connect.

This matters because a transit provider that also operates an IXP has an incentive to steer you toward buying transit rather than peering. A carrier-neutral exchange has no such conflict. FD-IX is fully carrier-neutral — we do not sell upstream IP transit, and our business model is based entirely on port fees and the growth of the exchange.

What Is FD-IX?

FD-IX — Fiber Data Internet Exchange — is the Midwest's carrier-neutral internet exchange. We operate switching fabrics across 50+ data centers in 8 states, with primary hubs in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Columbus, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, Austin, and Houston.

Founded in 2014 with a single 10G switch in Indianapolis, FD-IX now connects 55+ ASNs across more than 64 ports, moving an average of 200 Gbps across the exchange fabric with a total capacity approaching 1 terabit.

Members include ISPs, CDNs, cloud on-ramps, and enterprise networks. Partners include Akamai, Cloudflare, Hurricane Electric, and Lifeline Data Centers.

Port options start at $125/month for 100 Mbps, with 1G, 10G, 25G, 40G, and 100G options available. No setup fees. No long-term contracts. Most connections go live in 7–14 business days.

Frequently Asked Questions

What equipment do I need to connect to an IXP?
You need a router capable of running BGP, with an interface that matches your chosen port speed (1000BASE-T or SX for 1G; 10GBASE-SR or LR for 10G). You also need a valid ASN and your own IP address space (IPv4 and/or IPv6).

How long does it take to connect?
At FD-IX, most connections complete in 7–14 business days from application to live traffic. This includes application review, cross-connect ordering, BGP configuration, and testing.

Is there a minimum traffic volume requirement?
No. Small networks peering for the first time are welcome. FD-IX offers 100 Mbps ports for networks that want to start small and scale.

Do I need to peer with every member?
No. You choose which networks to exchange traffic with. The route server makes it easy to peer broadly, but you can also limit sessions to specific networks if your policy requires it.

What is a cross-connect?
A cross-connect is a short fiber cable run inside a data center, connecting your router's port to the IXP's switching fabric. Your colocation provider handles the physical installation. FD-IX issues a Letter of Authority (LOA) that authorizes the connection.

How does an IXP differ from a data center?
A data center provides space, power, and cooling for your equipment. An IXP operates a switching fabric inside a data center (often a carrier-neutral one) that lets multiple networks interconnect. You can be in a data center without connecting to an IXP, and you can connect to an IXP remotely (through transport circuits) without having equipment in the same building.

Ready to Connect?

If your network is running transit costs you'd rather not be running, peering at FD-IX is probably the most direct way to address it.

Get connected at fd-ix.com — or contact us at sales@fd-ix.com to talk through your specific situation before any hardware is ordered.

The exchange is open. The route servers are running. Your peers are already here.