People are often surprised that a personal network participates in more than ninety internet exchanges across two dozen countries. The trick isn’t a rack in every city — it’s a small amount of hardware in the right place, plus remote peering.
Anchor where the internet is dense
AS215248 is anchored in Amsterdam — NIKHEF and Qupra — because that’s where an enormous amount of European interconnection already happens. From there, remote peering lets you show up on exchanges far away without shipping metal there.
Keep the policy simple
My peering policy is deliberately boring:
- Open. No minimum traffic, no contracts.
- IPv6 always, dual-stack preferred.
- RPKI + IRR. Every prefix has a valid ROA and is documented under the AS-SET, so peers can filter safely.
Doing the unglamorous parts properly — signing your routes, keeping PeeringDB accurate, answering your abuse mailbox — is what makes a hobby network a good citizen rather than a nuisance.
Why bother?
Because it’s the best way to learn. Every session you bring up teaches you something the documentation never quite does. If you’re a smaller operator and want to peer, or you’re thinking about your first rack in Amsterdam, get in touch — I’m always happy to help.