Routing and Tariff Policy Ver.1.9
(Effective for X-Y Billing from 1st July 2009 and Port Charges from 1st October 2009)
Background
The Domestic Internet Scenario in India is unique with several large and small ISPs spread across a large geographical area. The policy described below attempts at addressing the concerns of the large as well as the small ISPs at the same time keeping the larger national interest in mind by promoting domestic hosting of content as well as saving foreign exchange by keeping domestic traffic within India.
Some of the Design Constraints that we had to consider were:
- Infrastructure invested by the Large ISPs: The policy should be fair to large and small ISPs. The infrastructure invested by the large ISPs should be adequately compensated.
- Small ISPs should not be ignored: The policy should provide benefit to the small ISPs who play an important role in the penetration of Internet throughout the country. Small ISPs should derive significant benefit by connecting to the NIXI.
- The policy should encourage domestic Content being hosted out of India: This is the only way Indian ISPs can insist on Peering with their western counterparts rather than paying hefty transit charges to them. This will result in the overall lowering of cost of bandwidth in the country.
(a) Basic Routing Policy
- An ISP at any NIXI node must at a minimum announce all its regional routes to the NIXI router at that NIXI location. All ISPs connecting to that NIXI node are entitled to receive these routes using a single BGP session with the NIXI router. This will guarantee the exchange of regional traffic within a NIXI node. This is referred to as forced regional multi-lateral peering under the policy.
- In the event, one NIXI member is already providing transit to another NIXI member, the exchange of regional routes mentioned in above, may also happen using a separate private connection between the ISPs.
- ISPs should announce only those routes that belong to their AS, i.e their own network, and their customer routes at the NIXI. An ISP in any region can aggregate traffic from other ISPs in the region and connect to the NIXI through a single connection.
- The NIXI router will only exchange information but not carry any transit traffic.
- All NIXI members must ensure that they suitably and proactively upgrade capacity from time-to-time so that they do not end up dropping traffic that other peers are exchanging with them. An ISP must Upgrade its port capacity or take additional port if 95th percentile of its OUT or IN traffic in a month crosses 70% of its port capacity, for 3 months.
(b) Tariff Policy
- For traffic exchange at a NIXI node between ISP A and ISP B, B will pay to A (through NIXI) an amount equal to Rs. 25 per Gbyte x [traffic from A to B - traffic from B to A]. Here, the concept of "Requester Pays" to promote domestic content. Thus the "requested" traffic from ISP A to ISP B is measured and subtract the "requested" traffic from ISP B to ISP A. It is currently proposed that the settlement of this be done by paying this money to the NIXI and the NIXI paying the net of all such settlements to the respective ISP. The tariff of Rs. 25 per GB can be reviewed from time to time as bandwidth prices drop.
- In the case of a NIXI member providing transit to another NIXI member, where they agree to adhere to the NIXI routing policy using a separate link between them, the above "X-Y" calculation will be done by both the members as per (b) above and settlement will be done amongst themselves; However, in the event of a dispute, the NIXI will have the right to intervene and NIXIs decision in the matter will be binding on both parties.
- To prevent unfair advantage to stand alone Data Centers, there will be an additional factor (P) introduced in the calculation of payment for interconnect between the ISPs. The factor will have a value of 0 if it is determined that the ISP is primarily a Data Center (outgoing traffic is 5 times incoming traffic). It will be 1 otherwise.
In order to simplify measurement, the NIXI will do the settlement between the ISPs accordingly. Thus, the ISPs will pay the NIXI the following accordingly:
C x P x (X - Y)
Where C is currently Rs. 25 per GBytes as mentioned in (b) above, and P has a value of 0 or 1 respectively if the ISP is a standalone Data Center (i.e his outgoing traffic is 5 times his incoming traffic), or is otherwise ISP. This amount will be rounded off to nearest hundred rupees.
- ISPs connected at more than one location can give the option of consolidated billing.
Membership Fee
Rs. 1000 per annum all India basis.
Other Charges
Joining Charges (per NIXI PoP) one time: Rs.1,000
Connectivity Charges
| Port Capacity | Charges in Rs. per annum |
|---|---|
| *2 Mbps | 24,000 |
| 10 Mbps | 1,00,000 |
| 100 Mbps | 2,00,000 |
| 1000 Mbps | 3,00,000 |
*New ISPs are allowed to join at NIXI Mumbai and Delhi, but with a condition that they will move to higher slab within a year.
Additional Ports of only 100 Mbps and above will be given. These additional Ports will be charged at 50% cost of the relevant slab indicated in the table above.
Billing for Port charges will be done at the beginning of each quarter.
Rack space including electricity: 2U rack space free of charge and additional Rs 2500 per U per year.
Charges for reconnection: Rs 1,000 per port per location per instance.
All applicable taxes will be over and above these rates
