OMAHA, Neb. – July 25, 2023 – Omaha IX, the premier Midwest Internet Exchange (IX), is seeing a flurry of activity, with Microsoft and Qwilt coming on board as Meta and other major players are expanding their capacity. With their increased investment in this IX, these major names in tech are underscoring Omaha IX’s role as a significant IT and connectivity enabler for mission-critical use cases and applications.
Qwilt joined the rich Omaha IX peer ecosystem on June 1 with 100G capacity, while Microsoft Community Cache is the newest member with a capacity of 20G. Meanwhile, existing peers like Meta and Akamai continue to expand their presence at the Midwest nexus, with a host of organizations boosting their ports from 20G to 100G — or even from 400G to 600G. This ongoing growth exemplifies just how vital peering has become in delivering agile, fast networking. Peering has quickly become the connectivity solution of choice for the most innovative organizations due to its ability to deliver enhanced control, resilience, performance, speed, cost efficiency and geographic reach. As Omaha IX’s ecosystem proves, this trajectory shows no signs of slowing down — especially as low-latency applications such as cloud gaming, AI and VR continue to grow in popularity.
Hosted at 1623 Farnam, Omaha IX is strategically located in the central United States at the ideal nexus point for U.S. fiber routes heading north/south and east/west. The location’s proximity to major hyperscale providers and presence within the robust interconnected edge data center — combined with attentive team members and high-touch customer support — makes Omaha IX an ideal ecosystem to support any mission-critical connectivity requirements.
“Omaha IX, since its inception, has continued to play a pivotal role in supporting next-gen connectivity — and the innovative applications that thrive on it — throughout North America and beyond,” says Todd Cushing, president of 1623 Farnam. “These commitments from our partners and peers further demonstrate how crucial Omaha IX is to data and content delivery. Needless to say, we’re very proud of our ecosystem, and thrilled to see how it’s growing, evolving and offering even more value to every peer that interconnects here.”
IX participants expanding capacity include Meta, Kansas Fiber Networks, Great Plains Communications, Hurricane Electric, Metropolitan Community College, Akamai and US Internet.
These developments are on track with what Omaha IX has seen in terms of growth over the past 18 months. In January 2022, the IX averaged 180G in traffic. Traffic hit 900G in November 2022, when a new video game popular with cloud gamers launched. Streaming and other content demands are only growing, particularly as Artificial Intelligence and other emerging technologies become more commonplace. Omaha IX is positioned to ensure low-latency, reliable connectivity into the future.
To learn more about Omaha IX and see a full list of participants, visit www.omahaix.com.
About Omaha IX
Omaha IX is the leading gathering point for internet service providers, content providers and other network providers to exchange traffic, enabling a direct connection that facilitates ultra-low latency and dependable high speeds. Its central location at 1623 Farnam, a regional leader in network-neutral edge interconnection and data center services, supports faster, simpler connections to points across the United States. 1623 Farnam services over five million eyeballs and multiple Fortune 500 companies in our region. Nebraska is the 15th fastest growing tech state and 20th fastest population growing state in the nation. We pride ourselves on consistently earning high customer satisfaction scores resulting in customer peace-of-mind.
