Nokia joins Linx as technical partner for London network refresh

After a working life of nearly a quarter of a century, the London Internet Exchange (Linx) has announced the completion of a large project refreshing its 17-site secondary interconnection fabric LON2 in the UK’s capital as part of a strategic investment in the future of interconnection services in the UK.

The upgrade, for which communications tech provider Nokia has been selected as the technical partner, comes at a time where the existing technical service was reaching end of life.

Linx’s dual local area network (LAN) infrastructure design in London has been something that the provider regards as setting them apart over the years from other internet exchange points (IXPs). The company says operating a diverse and resilient service in-house for its members means not having to look elsewhere for this critical capability.

In 2018, Linx announced it was the world’s first IXP to deploy a disaggregated network using an Ethernet virtual provider network (EVPN), with hardware and software sourced from alternative suppliers.

LON2 was originally launched in 2002, following the primary LON1 LAN’s increasing popularity, and was created to ensure there was no critical single point of failure in the UK’s internet connectivity. It operates in parallel with LON1 to provide its members with enhanced network resilience, redundancy and architectural diversity.

Linx’s LON1 network moved to Nokia technology in 2021, following the demand for 400GE port access from members. LON2 has traditionally been a supplier-diverse LAN, but Linx said the decision to also move LON2 to Nokia technology followed a series of proof of concepts with a shortlist of possible suppliers.

LON2 remains fully diverse for Linx members as it uses different hardware and software to LON1.

With LON2 approaching 25 years in operation next year, and so close to that 1Tb traffic mark, Linx stressed that it remains a key point of interconnection for the UK and Europe, and a cost-effective way to access its services in London.

“The LON2 refresh is a cornerstone of our strategy to deliver resilient, scalable and cost-effective interconnection,” said Linx chief technology officer Richard Petrie. “Nokia’s platform not only meets our technical requirements, but also supports our long-term vision for a diverse and robust network ecosystem.

“When looking for a new technical partner for LON2, we had criteria we needed to meet, including being able to support all our interconnection services, support EVPN, and … scale from 10GE to 100GE, 400GE and even 800GE port options for the future. Diversity to LON1 was still a crucial element for us in the decision-making process. Many of our members take complete mirrored infrastructure and Linx services on LON1 and LON2 for resilience and redundancy, so diversity was non-negotiable.”

Paul Alexander, vice-president and country general manager for UK&I at Nokia, said: “Linx’s networks are critical to the UK’s digital infrastructure. Its continued trust in Nokia to provide high-performance, flexible and advanced connectivity across both of its UK networks demonstrates a shared commitment to resilience, innovation and long-term scale.

“As AI [artificial intelligence] becomes the dominant workload shaping modern networks, service providers and critical infrastructure operators need platforms that are ready for new traffic patterns, higher performance and greater scale. This investment helps ensure Linx’s members benefit from a future-ready foundation for the AI era, supporting growing capacity demands across 100GE, 400GE and beyond.”

Linx is also working with Nokia as a technical partner in most of its operating regions from Linx NoVA in the US, to Linx sites in Kenya and Ghana.