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MDC Newsroom

12 Aug, 2020 3 minutes

The MEX-IX is an Internet exchange platform located in our data center in McAllen, Texas, where the largest concentration of Mexican networks are gathered. The MEX-IX is also the first IXP to focus on establishing peering relationships between Mexican networks and content providers in the U.S.

The network infrastructure in Mexico splits traffic in two segments, routing the North through the U.S. and servicing the South from within the country. Mexico City is the main option to cover the central and southern part of Mexico, but for the northern states much of the traffic is routed across the border.It is estimated that 40% of traffic in Mexico is routed through the U.S.  

For content providers and CDNs, the high density of Mexican networks and the presence of an IXP in McAllen is an extremely viable option to reach the majority of users in Mexico without the regulatory hassle and costly implementation of establishing their own infrastructure inside the country. For ISPs, content providers, cloud and CDNs, interconnecting  at the border is the smartest way to service the markets in Mexico.

CDNs like  Limelight, Akamai, AWS and Cloudflare are successfully covering most of the Mexican markets and are unloading traffic to Dallas with a point of presence at the border in McAllen and in Mexico. 

More information about these CDNs:

  • Cloudflare delivers 15% -30% of Internet traffic
  • Akamai, has more than 20 million domains on its network
  • Limelight provides +40 Tbps of traffic capacity on its network
  • AWS has a global reach of +180 PoPs

These CDNs deliver content for the following platforms: Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Fox, Spotify, Slack, Uber, Adobe, Universal, Disney +, and many others.

The MEX-IX enables service providers to operate more efficiently by offering improved peer-to-peer network performance, less latency and increased reliability, while lowering IP Transit costs.

The high density of Mexican operators with their own network at MDC McAllen makes this exchange point work as if it were within Mexico; creating a unique opportunity for IP service providers and content providers to exchange traffic with Mexico easily and efficiently. The platform also  invites Mexican networks to peer with each other to improve their local performance.

Key Facts about the MEX-IX: 

  • MDC McAllen has the largest number of connected operators in Mexico in the US, and already has the main content distributors at the point of exchange. 
  • The MEX-IX is supported on a custom Arista switch and offers 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps port options. 
  • The exchange platform supports bilateral and multilateral peering with Route Server. 
  • Operational performance is backed by SLA and 24/7 NOC support. 
  • New port requests can be made online through the MDC portal. 

Schedule a meeting with us to learn more about why the border and MEX-IX

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