West Highland Internet eXchange

WHIX is a distributed Internet exchange on the West Coast of Scotland. It is operated by HUBS' sister organisation, the West Highland Access Network.s WHIX is operated on a non-discriminatory basis with any WHAN member entitled to connect to it on payment of a membership fee and a port charge. Once connected arrangements can be made bilaterally with others connected at the exchange.

Because WHIX is distributed between Applecross and Eigg, it is not a layer-2 broadcast network like many exchange points. Instead it is a full point to multipoint mesh implemented with BGP/VPLS. Also because of the paucity of transit provision in the areas it is the norm rather than the exception to have Internet transit over the exchange.

Rules

• Participation in the exchange is open to members of WHAN in good standing.
• The exchange does not provide Internet access, it provides for connecting member networks together.
• Fees are charged according to the number and capacity of physical ports on the WHIX fabric that are required.
• Members are allocated one IPv4 and one IPv6 address from the peering LAN subnet per port.
• Members must inform WHIX of their equipment's associated MAC address and a filter is applied on this port accordingly.
• No broadcast or multicast traffic other than IPv4 ARP and IPv6 neighbour discovery is allowed.
• The IPv4 and IPv6 subnets used on the exchange LAN must not be announced to the Internet.
• The peering LAN may not be used as an internal connection within a member network. A separate VPLS pseudo-wire service is available for this.
• Services other than transport provided by WHIX, such as route-servers, NTP time service and so forth are provided on an as-is basis.

Connection Points

• Arisaig
• Camus Croise
• Coille Mhialairigh
• Creagan Dearga
• Eigg Sgurr
• Glas Bheinn
• Kyle of Lochalsh
• Mallaig High School
• Sabhal Mòr Ostaig

Contact

whan@hubs.net.uk