LINX, the leading European provider of Internet interconnect services, announced at the LINX98 member conference on 21st August that it is to significantly reduce 10GE and 100GE port fees at its regional exchange, IXManchester. These are to come into effect from 1st October 2017.
Monthly 10GE port prices will be cut by 22.8% to £270 with 100GE fees reduced by over a third to £1350 (39.3%). In addition, the first 1GE port at IXManchester is available at no charge and comes as part of LINX membership.
Established in 2012, IXManchester is rapidly approaching 100 connected networks who pass a combined 35Gb/s of traffic at peak times. This makes IXManchester the biggest peering LAN in the UK outside of London and an attractive alternative to peering in the capital.
LINX CEO, John Souter, said: “Last year we implemented mid-year price cuts of up to 40% while simultaneously announcing plans of a major upgrade of our LON2 network in London. The introduction of new LON2 equipment allows us to re-deploy the original hardware into our Manchester sites as part of our long-term support for regional peering in the UK.”
IXManchester operates across three city locations; Equinix Williams House, Equinix Joule House plus the M24Seven data centre in Stretford.
Chris Byrd, Technical Director at M24Seven, said, “IXManchester is very well established now and M24Seven is proud to have been host to one of the exchange’s three city sites for the past three years. The decision to reduce prices is great news for the networking community in the region and will help further enhance Manchester’s status as a leading tech city”.
Last year, Manchester made it into the top 20 European Digital City Index for starting and scaling a digital tech business. In addition, £10million in government funding is being proposed for a future project to test IoT technology.