BNIX is one of those pieces of digital infrastructure that millions of people rely on without ever seeing it. More than 80 networks meet on its platform to exchange internet traffic directly, making it a crossroads for Belgium’s digital economy. As artificial intelligence, cloud and streaming push ever more data across those networks, its role is only becoming more critical.

Geopolitics is adding yet another dimension to that already complex mix. Where does our traffic go? Who controls the infrastructure behind it? And how dependent does Europe want to be on technology and services from elsewhere? For Frédéric Libotte, Senior Relationship Manager at BNIX and Vice Chair of the Board of Euro-IX, those questions bring the internet exchange remarkably close to its original mission: keeping traffic local whenever possible.

You call BNIX ‘the Belgian heart of the internet’. What does that actually mean?

Frédéric Libotte: “To understand that, you have to go back to how the internet worked when BNIX was created in 1995. Belgium had only a handful of internet players and traffic often travelled internationally, even when the traffic was between Belgian networks. BNIX, short for Belgian National Internet Exchange, was created by Belnet, the Belgian Research & Education Network, to relocalise that traffic. Instead of sending data on an unnecessary international journey, networks could exchange it directly in Belgium. That concept is called peering, and it remains the essence of what we do. Today, we bring together telecom operators, internet service providers, content providers, hosting providers and other networks that exchange traffic directly through our platform. That crossroads is what we mean when we call BNIX the Belgian heart of the internet.”

Does being at the crossroads mean BNIX controls the traffic?

“No, and that is fundamental. We provide the platform, but participants decide what they do with their internet traffic and who they exchange it with. We are not a commercial telecom operator and don’t sell internet access, so we don’t compete with our participants. For me, three pillars define what we offer: neutrality, reliability and local anchoring.”

“We make no distinction between David and Goliath. Everyone is welcome on our neutral platform”

Nobody is obliged to use BNIX. So how do you remain relevant?

“The internet market has changed enormously. Internet transit has become much cheaper and networks have more ways to exchange traffic. Large players can establish private connections with each other instead of exchanging that traffic through a shared platform. Participation in BNIX is therefore a choice, which means we continuously have to demonstrate why that choice remains valuable. One of our strengths is the diversity of the ecosystem: we make no distinction between David and Goliath. Everyone is welcome on our neutral platform. At the same time, there is a broader question here. If the largest internet players increasingly decide to exchange traffic only among themselves, what happens to the open character of the internet?”

“We have to create capacity before it is needed”

Your platform was recently renewed. What can participants do today that they couldn’t do before?

“We renew the platform roughly every five years, following the evolution of internet traffic. What we absolutely want to avoid is reaching a point where the platform starts to saturate, so we have to create capacity before it is needed. There was a time when 100 Mbps was significant; today, 10G has become much more common, and the new platform is already technically ready for 400G ports, although we are not offering them commercially yet. We have also made scaling easier. A participant can, for example, start with 1G on a physical 10G port and later increase that to 2G or 5G without changing the physical connection. Energy efficiency is part of every platform renewal as well.”

Is the upgrade mainly about more traffic, or are requirements changing too?

“Both are connected. Participants want more capacity, quickly and at a competitive price, but above all they expect a professional and reliable platform. At the same time, internet traffic itself is changing, and BNIX gives us an interesting view of how internet usage in Belgium evolves. Before Covid, our largest traffic peaks typically occurred in the evening, when people came home and started streaming. During Covid, traffic shifted towards the working day because people were suddenly working from home, and that pattern has partly remained as teleworking became normal. You can really see changes in society reflected in internet traffic.”

“Local interconnection becomes more important, not less”

What impact do AI and cloud have on an internet exchange?

“The basic trend is clear: more data. But what is particularly relevant for an internet exchange is that content and cloud providers want to be increasingly close to their users. The internet is often presented as completely decentralised, but in practice that evolution makes local interconnection more important, not less.”

You also look beyond Belgium through Euro-IX. What does that add?

“BNIX was one of the founding members of Euro-IX in 2001, and I have been Vice Chair of the Board since last year. Internet exchanges face many of the same technical, commercial and legal questions, so we meet twice a year to exchange experiences: what are other countries doing, what works, and which mistakes can we avoid? BNIX remains focused on the Belgian market, but the internet obviously doesn’t stop at the border. A few years ago, we established a direct connection with LU-CIX, the Luxembourg Internet Exchange. Through remote peering, BNIX participants can connect with networks there without needing their own physical presence in Luxembourg, while Luxembourg participants can reach networks in Brussels in the same way.”

Where does LCL fit into that physical ecosystem?

“BNIX is currently present in five data centers, including LCL. LCL became our third Point of Presence in 2010, and now it forms part of that five-location architecture. This distribution is essential for resilience: participants can choose where they connect and can use different locations depending on their requirements. Nowadays, infrastructure has to be redundant and continuously available. If one location has a problem, we can rely on the others. Again, the internet may look virtual, but the infrastructure behind it is physical. It needs space, electricity, cooling and reliable data center environments.”

“We need to look at what we already have in Europe instead of automatically looking towards the biggest global players”

What will be the big issue for the coming years?

“Geopolitics is adding a new focus point: independence. We increasingly have to think about how dependent we are on services and technologies controlled outside Europe. Something can appear inexpensive and convenient, but what happens if a party outside Europe can decide to stop providing a service? Complete independence is probably a dream because Europe does not have all the technologies and services itself, but sovereignty has become a real discussion. We need to think about which European alternatives we can offer and where cooperation can make us more independent. In 1995, relocalising Belgian internet traffic was mainly about speed, efficiency and cost. Today, keeping traffic and infrastructure closer to home can also contribute to resilience and greater digital autonomy. Almost everything about the internet has changed, but the principle behind BNIX has not: keep the exchange open, neutral and reliable, and make sure Belgium’s networks can continue to meet each other close to home.”