Digital economies across the globe are expanding at a rapid pace, powered by AI, e-commerce, digital banking, fintech, and other mission-critical business applications that rely on the Internet for performance. At the same time, rising consumer demand for streaming, gaming and social media is accelerating content delivery requirements, driving significant growth in Internet traffic. According to TeleGeography, international bandwidth demand surpassed 6.4 Pbps in 2024 – triple the demand of 2020, which was already at an all-time-high due to the pandemic.
This growth places significant pressure on service providers as they evolve their networks to keep pace with digital transformation. It also impacts enterprise connectivity with the growth of cloud services, edge computing, SaaS platforms, real-time applications and distributed workforces. Consistent, low-latency connections to partners, platforms, and services are now crucial for both service providers and enterprises alike, while ensuring bandwidth can support increasingly data-intensive applications and services.
Connectivity to cloud providers, content delivery networks, and other global partners and platforms comes with the challenge of balancing performance, cost, and global reach. Service providers need to efficiently manage growing traffic, quickly scale network reach regionally or globally, and maintain SLAs for multiple customers, all while controlling operational costs. Legacy network infrastructure is no longer enough to juggle this growing set of requirements across multiple markets.
Exchanging Traffic at IXPs
By peering and exchanging traffic at Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), organisations can gain more control over how data flows across networks, while improving performance and reducing transit costs. This approach is increasingly important for meeting changing connectivity demands.
Peering is not a new concept for many service providers, who have already been using it to extend their reach on a global scale. However, it has seen substantial growth in recent years thanks to surging traffic demands. As of November 2025, there are 1,019+ active IXPs globally – a growth of almost 53% in the last five years (Internet Society Pulse).
Peering is also gaining popularity among enterprises looking to enhance their digital transformation strategies, particularly in high-demand sectors like finance, gaming, broadcasting, research, and travel.
Peering itself has changed a lot over the years. Traditional ‘direct’ peering was typically used for large networks with heavy traffic at specific exchange points, requiring direct connections and the physical deployment of infrastructure such as routers and cross-connects at the IXP. This delivers strong performance, but comes with large costs, long setup times, and operational complexities.
Today, remote peering uses a third-party provider’s infrastructure to provide a virtual presence at one or more IXPs. The chosen provider carries traffic from the organisation’s point of presence (PoP) to the IXP over its own backbone, which takes away the difficulty of installing and managing physical hardware locally.
While direct peering takes weeks or months of time for installation, plus upfront investment for on-site equipment, remote peering is totally virtual with a service-based model, which translates into cost reduction and a much faster setup process.
Simplifying Peering with Partnerships
Enterprises and service providers can utilise an expert partner to streamline their peering journey. A remote peering partner can provide extensive global reach, and direct interconnectivity with leading global IXs via a selection of on-ramp locations. This delivers on-demand access to a wide-reaching network of peering members.
Partnering for remote peering is also highly cost-efficient. Customers pay only for the required bandwidth and connections with short contract terms, and virtual presence removes the need for large upfront infrastructure investments.
Preferred peering partners can also be accessed through a single interconnection port at a convenient location via an experienced peering partner, dramatically reducing deployment times and costs. Multiple IXPs can be accessed remotely and on-demand, with the flexibility to scale bandwidth according to demands.
Remote peering is also a great way to enhance user experiences, delivering optimal performance and ultra-low-latency connectivity for bandwidth-sensitive applications. An expert partner can handle all IX memberships and onboarding to simplify management, with one single contract for connectivity and peering services.
These benefits enable service providers to deliver greater agility and an improved customer experience. For enterprises, they enable global competitiveness and accelerated digital transformation, without physical network constraints.
Local Presence. Global Reach.
The continued growth in cloud-first strategies, global internet traffic and AI workloads makes it impossible for many organisations to deploy and manage physical infrastructure across multiple global markets. Remote peering takes away those hurdles, helping enterprises and service providers to scale and respond to changing demands quickly, and without soaring upfront costs.
Service providers and enterprises cannot be held back by the cost and complexity of physical infrastructure in today’s digital economy, where seamless, high-performance connectivity across markets is now an expectation. The shift from direct to remote peering with a specialist partner provides a fast, flexible and cost-efficient way to grow on a global scale, without limitations.
