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Peering gives you greater control over routing, resulting in improved network performance and happy end users. In this fourth article in the “reasons to peer” series, we explain how this works.

When data is transported via public transit carriers, the data flows via a private network interconnect (PNI) between the involved carriers. PNIs mean cost, work, maintenance, and organization between those carriers, and upgrades of PNIs between large carriers do not always happen in time. Running your traffic over saturated PNIs can nevertheless work for a while, even without a noticeable latency or loss of quality – depending on the case.

But using a saturated PNI does have an effect on the end-user experience. If your users are streaming video or online gaming, it can result in many buffering interruptions and not very happy users.

Ensured bandwidth

With peering, you are in control of your points of interconnection where both you and the Internet Exchange you are connected to ensure enough port bandwidth. If you have enough peering bandwidth, your users have almost unlimited possible throughput to the other networks. For Internet Service Providers (ISPs), for example, the limit in this case is just the service the user bought from you, and not the overcrowded PNI traps of Tier 1 or Tier 2 carriers you are using.
You can read the previous articles in the Reasons To Peer series below :

• 3. Peering lowers latency
• 2. Peering lowers your costs
• 1. Peering Raises Your Revenue