In a volatile world overshadowed by the ongoing war in Ukraine, AMS-IX begun to reap the benefits of its investments in scaling up. This includes launching new national and international locations and undergoing digital transformation, which involves implementing a new organizational structure, processes, and systems to enhance efficiency and customer experience.

Continued challenges in an insecure world

At the time of writing this statement (March 2025), the world around us continues to be insecure and unpredictable. The ongoing war in Ukraine and the conflicts in Israel and Gaza have unfortunately almost become business as usual. In addition, long term international economic, military and technology cooperations are suddenly at risk, resulting in a wake-up call for companies and governments and an accelerated evaluation of partnerships, supply chain and associated risks. One likely outcome of this is an increased focus on working with nearby suppliers of critical products and services.  

While this could have a short-term negative impact on global development opportunities, it also represents an opportunity for AMS-IX. With our not-for-profit, trust and neutrality-based values and with our deep understanding of robust and secure IP interconnection, we are well positioned to further develop our role as a trusted provider of critical internet infrastructure and to contribute to the development of associated policy and regulations.

The value of AMS-IX

While some AMS-IX users may just be looking for peering capacity in Amsterdam with as many networks as possible at the lowest possible cost, it has always been AMS-IX ambition to be more than that. I’m not sure however that this is widely recognized in the AMS-IX ecosystem.  

Since its inception there has been a strong focus on high availability, reflected in the deployment of redundant infrastructure in all core and edge locations in Amsterdam and deployment of optical cross connects to enable users to connect their single device to two AMS-IX edge routers. Results: service availability close to 100% in all locations, zero SLA claims for outages and happy users.  

Peering is more than connecting two networks to exchange internet traffic between the customers of those networks. It is also about developing and supporting a community to identify and implement such peering opportunities, to learn from each other and to help each other out in times of trouble. AMS-IX enables this by organizing events like MORE-IP and EPF and by sponsoring and supporting Peering events such as GPF, AFPIF, Peering Asia and LACNIC. Also several NOG’s such as NLNOG, MENOG, HKNOG, PHNOG and more are supported. Last but not least other community events and organisations such as RIPE, EURO-IX and ISOC are important drivers for AMS-IX within the internet community as a whole.  

AMS-IX believes an open internet can contribute to a better society. There are however many threats for “an open internet”, ranging from large monopolistic access networks restricting their interconnection options to governments enforcing the blocking of certain internet content or websites. In addition, there is a threat that physical internet infrastructure ends up in the hands of a small number of large non-European players or that international internet connectivity for the Netherlands becomes largely reliant on surrounding non-EU countries.  

To address these threats AMS-IX management and staff actively contribute to government policy debates (e.g. through presenting an “argument map”, providing pros and cons of certain policy proposals) and participate in initiatives and organizations like the Dutch Subsea Cable Coalition, DINL, EuroISPA and EURO-IX.  

While the internet infrastructure and services have developed into robust and mature ecosystems in many countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific, there are still many parts of the world where there is still a long way to go. AMS-IX supports the development in those regions by providing education and best practices and enabling local internet exchanges (through its IXaaS product). This is always done with a “let us support the local community” – and not with a “let us plant an AMS-IX flag” – attitude.  

Of course, this robust network architecture and these initiatives come at a cost, which is to be recovered in the pricing of AMS-IX services. We are confident however, that the stakeholders in the AMS-IX ecosystem recognize and appreciate these initiatives and are willing to pay a small price premium, provided it does not hurt their competitiveness.

AMS-IX Customer or Member?

Organizations that use AMS-IX services can either be “Customers” or “Members” (of the AMS-IX Association), which can be selected at the time an organization signs the contract (Master Services Agreement) with AMS-IX. In 2024 just over 50% of all connected networks were operated by an AMS-IX member, the remainder by AMS-IX Customers.  

The AMS-IX Association is the sole shareholder in AMS-IX B.V., the company that owns and operates all assets and activities. Being an AMS-IX member (at no additional cost) enables an organization to join the General Meetings of the Association (where e.g. strategy, financials and technical developments are discussed), to influence AMS-IX decision making (by addressing topics with the Board) and to propose its employees for Board membership.