In addition to buying commercial transit from the world's major tier 1 backbones, we also have an extensive peering network established. Peering is the process whereby one network provider, such as us, connects to another one directly -- bypassing the "middlemen" (intermediary networks). Peering provides a more direct, faster, and shorter route than transit by bypassing other third-party networks, resulting in considerable performance & reliability gains. However, very few networks engage in peering, as typically a coast-to-coast IP backbone is required for a network to qualify for peering (so only very large national or International Internet networks even qualify to peer), and it is considerably more costly and time-consuming to maintain many 100s, if not 1000s, of peering connections, vs. just a few transit links. We, however, always go for the best and invest the time and the resources necessary in order to ensure that our customers enjoy performance that is truly "Ahead of the Rest."®

We have a large number of peer sessions (over 500), composed of major national & international backbones, ISPs and content providers, at the Equinix Exchanges (IBX'es) in Ashburn, VA and Chicago, IL, at NYIIX in New York, NY, at PAIX in Palo Alto, CA and Seattle, WA, at the SIX in Seattle, WA, and at Any2 in both Los Angeles, CA and San Jose, CA, in addition to a number of private peering inter-connects. A partial list of our peers follows, below. Note that new peers are added on a regular basis, so, the list below may not be complete and up-to-date. For redundancy and optimal performance, we peer with most peers at multiple locations.

Further Advantages of Our Network

The northern Virginia / DC area is an ideal location for a data centre. A very significant portion of the world's Internet traffic passes through here, and the area is not subject to earthquakes, tornadoes, floods or other natural disasters. With two data centres in Northern Virginia, and a West Coast data centre in Seattle, WA, we are able to provide the ultimate in multi-site, geographically-dispersed, mission-critical hosting services.

We are located at the true heart of the Internet, and in a very safe and secure area. This central location ensures optimal connectivity, speed, and routing, minimizing the number of hops - and thus the chance of any problems. We are located right beside a great number of of private and public peering points, in one of the most densely and best connected areas in the world, including directly peering at the Equinix Exchanges (IBX'es) in Ashburn, Virginia and Chicago, Illinois, at the NYIIX in NYC, New York, at PAIX in Palo Alto, CA and Seattle, WA , at the SIX in Seattle, WA, and at Any2 in both Los Angeles, CA and San Jose, CA. All providers have multiple, redundant routes into the DC/VA area. This is further built upon by our redundant connectivity to multiple Tier 1 providers via separate circuits, terminating at diverse locations in Virginia and the District of Columbia. We are redundantly set-up Internet connectivity wise (multiple backbone connectivity providers), as well as physically. In terms of fibre optics, we have multiple private OC-192 SONET rings with multiple financially-healthy fibre providers, taking different physical paths.

Likewise in Seattle, we are located in a stable and level area (ground level of a well-built single story facility), providing the best resistance to earthquakes, and have multiple diverse-path fibre transport circuits with OnFiber, Q.West, ELI, Integra Telecom and Sabey. Seattle is one of America's best connected high-tech cities, and is an excellent base for high-performance, reliable Internet connectivity, and provides some of the most reliable power found anywhere.

We have built our facilities in the best possible areas for Internet connectivity and electrical utility reliability, and then further reinforced them with redundancy in all the possible forms. For example, we are able to offer multiple location hosting with the advantages, such as low latency and direct connectivity of the same IP network, yet the redundancy and security of three separate Data Centres in two different states, over 2500 km physically apart (Virginia & Washington state). Under 5ms (0.005 second), 10 miles, apart DCA2 and DCA3 are available for ultra low-latency dual-location hosting needs, while DCA2 and/or DCA3 plus SEA2 add up to a 2500+ miles apart fully geographically redundant hosting, just some 70ms (0.07 second) apart, on the same reliable & secure coast-to-coast IP network.

To ensure the best routing of our customers' data, in addition to peering, we also pay for commercial top-priority transit network capacity to our tier 1 backbone providers and have full burst capacity available at all times on all circuits. Thus we receive the highest level of service, including 99.99% or 100% uptime and no packet-loss guarantees, from all our connectivity providers. 90%+ of traffic from us to end users only passes over one or two backbones on its way to reaching the end destination. In addition, we are committed to under 50% network capacity utilization at all times; we ensure that our network always has double the capacity it needs, even at peak hours. Furthermore, our core network routers always have not only dual power supplies, but, where available, power feeds to each power supply from a different power grid & UPS system, thus ensuring the ultimate in reliability.

Our network design and operations ensure the very best connectivity, speed, and reliability possible: 100% network uptime, no packet loss, and under 3 ms low latency connection to Tier 1 backbones - guaranteed by our industry-leading SLA.

Our Network & Backbone Connectivity in summary:

 BGP enabled network consists of a variety of backbone providers, each providing connectivity that enables our customers around the globe to get the fastest most reliable service for their money