Billings operation speeds up Internet

Some of the information zipping through the Internet in Montana and northern Wyoming is now taking a shortcut.

By ED KEMMICK
Of The Gazette Staff

The information was moving so fast already that typical Internet users won’t notice much difference, but the partners who created the shortcut say it opens the door to costs savings and greater efficiency, and thus to economic development.

"It’s kind of unglamorous, but it’s like making sure you have paved streets," said Chris Dimock, president of OneEighty Communications.

Dimock’s Billings-based company is one of the founding members of YRIX – the Yellowstone Regional Internet Exchange Inc. – which was launched Monday. An Internet exchange is basically a mechanism that allows members to route their Internet traffic to each other’s systems, rather than traveling through distant network access points.

Before the creation of YRIX, an e-mail sent from Cody, Wyo., to Helena might have been routed to an access point in Denver, from there to Seattle and then to Helena. Now that message could be sent to routing equipment in Billings and from there straight to Helena.

For an individual e-mail, the transmission time would be only a tiny fraction of a second faster, but when multiplied by tens of thousands of users and millions of data transmissions, the savings in costs and efficiency are substantial.

Geoff Feiss, general manager of the Montana Telecommunications Association in Helena, said YRIX won’t by itself create economic development, but it is building the foundation for it.

"What we’re doing is certainly removing the obstacles to economic development," he said.

Besides OneEighty Communications, members of YRIX are Vision Net, a nonprofit telecommunications company wholly owned by five rural telephone cooperatives in Montana; Visionary Communications, an Internet service provider based in Gillette, Wyo.; and iConnect, a business that provides data centers and network connections.

The crux of the Internet exchange is a "fiber hotel" operated by iConnect in Granite Tower, an office building at 222 N. 32nd St., in Billings.

The routing equipment at that Internet hub makes it unnecessary to send information to distant access points on the way to its destination.

Ron Warnick, general manager of Vision Quest, said the state of Montana – for which Vision Quest is the Internet service provider – is the single largest entity that will benefit from the Internet exchange. Because messages and information will travel so much faster, he said, the state government’s bandwidth requirements will drop by as much as 10 percent.

The telecommunications companies themselves will see major savings because of the additional bandwidth.

Mike Sheard, director of operations for iConnect, said the cooperative arrangement won’t initially result in cheaper Internet service, but it should postpone the need for higher prices because the service providers won’t need to invest in new bandwidth nearly as soon.

Dimock said the Internet exchange is vital for economic development because it shows Internet-dependent businesses that this region is competitive in access to high technology.

Feiss, with the Montana Telecommunications Association, said Internet exchange cooperatives are showing up more and more across the country, but "for a state our size, we’re way ahead of the rest of the nation. … It’s a great thing to see in Montana."

The concept of an Internet exchange has been circulating in this region for two or three years. Earlier attempts to establish one were led by Qwest, Touch America and other large companies, and they never got off the ground.

Now, with smaller, independent companies leading the way, Qwest, Touch America and EarthLink have come knocking, making inquiries about whether they can eventually join the network.

In the short term, YRIX is trying to get the Wyoming customers of Visionary Communications into the exchange. Visionary does have some customers in Montana, but most of its clients live in Wyoming and are not yet connected to the Internet exchange.

Brian Worthen, president of Visionary Communications, said it will take another four to six months to get his customers on board.

Eventually, Vision Net’s Warnick said, the partnership hopes to expand to cover all of Montana and Wyoming and parts of North and South Dakota. He said Billings is the natural center for such a network, just as it is already the shopping and medical-service hub for a vast area.

Warnick said iConnect made by far the largest investment in the Internet exchange, spending $2.5 million to $3 million on its facility in Granite Tower. The other partners spent $35,000 to $40,000 for routing equipment, he said. iConnect will recoup its investment as the other partners pay for the services provided by the Internet hub.

Sheard, of iConnect, said that the partners in YRIX will continue to compete, even though they are cooperating on the Internet exchange.

"All we’re trying to do is achieve some operating and cost efficiencies that otherwise wouldn’t have been done," he said.

Ed Kemmick can be reached at 657-1293 or [email protected]

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