What is peering?

Peering is a commercial relationship between two Internet Service Providers (ISPs) where they agree to provide access to (part of) each other's networks and services. If the two parties determine that the value/cost to each party of this service is similar then they may choose not to have any settlement between the parties.

Peering might take place over dedicated circuits or via a shared peering fabric (typically located at a neutral collocation facility or internet exchange). The method chosen will depend on many factors, such as the volume of traffic and any special service requirements.

Who do we peer with?

We peer with a large number of web content and service providers in Australia such as Microsoft, YouTube, Amazon Web Services, Google, Blackboard, Desire2Learn, and Netspot (Moodle), making content from these entities ‘on-net’ - which means high-performance and unlimited downloads for AARNet customers.

Our peering priorities

AARNet only partners with peers who provide value to AARNet customers. This value might be improved performance by reducing latency between the parties or it might be the facilitation of advanced services.

Any peering will take into account the cost to AARNet, e.g. co-location costs, additional routers, interfaces, circuits, etc., and where the benefit is small AARNet may choose not to peer but continue using its transit relationships to source the traffic.

AARNet favours using bi-lateral peering agreements as these provide AARNet with a direct relationship with the peer. AARNet may consider using an Internet Exchange to facilitate peering as long as bi-lateral peering is permitted and thus multi-lateral peering is not mandatory.

Peering policies

Our National and International Peering policies provide guidance to potential peers.

Peering locations

Sites available via the peering fabric:

Sites available via Private Cross Connects:

For information about peering sites available via Private (Ethernet) cross connects, please go to our Peering DB Database entry.

AARNet Autonomous System Number - AS7575

IPv4 prefixes defined by RADB macro AS7575:AS-CUSTOMERS. Approximately 500 prefixes announced.

IPv6 Prefixes 2001:388::/32. Currently announcing 70 prefixes.

AARNet prefers to use MD5 authentication on BGP sessions. View our our Peering DB database entry.