How IXP.GT Uses Internet Measurement to Improve Local Connectivity

Three years ago, Marco Antonio To stopped by our booth at Black Hat and started talking with the IPinfo team.

Marco, the CEO at IXP.GT, was already familiar with IPinfo data. That chance meeting started a relationship that eventually led to IXP.GT joining ProbeNet Labs. 

For Marco, the reason to get involved was straightforward. ProbeNet could provide data the exchange simply didn't have.

Today, they host a point of presence, and together we’ve uncovered some surprising routing paths in Guatemala. More importantly, the measurements have given IXP.GT independent evidence of something they've spent years telling networks in the country: local interconnection can make the internet meaningfully better.

Building Local Interconnection in Guatemala

IXP.GT was founded in 2017 under the leadership of Guatemala's National Research and Education Network, Red Avanzada Guatemalteca para la Investigación y la Educación (RAGIE).

Universities provided a neutral, nonprofit foundation from which the exchange could bring together ISPs, content providers, and other networks. Since then, IXP.GT has helped attract major content providers and points of presence to Guatemala, including Meta, Cloudflare, Apple, and Gcore.

Meta’s point of presence was established in Guatemala as IXP.GT was forming and now serves ISPs across the country, including networks that aren't directly connected to the exchange.

But there was a gap in what they could see.

IXP.GT had telemetry from some content providers and hosted measurement nodes from organizations including LACNIC and RIPE Atlas. What it lacked was a detailed view of how traffic was actually traveling between networks connected to, or simply near, the exchange.

Hosting a ProbeNet point of presence changed that.

An Outside-In View With ProbeNet Labs

ProbeNet Labs is a non-commercial, operator-hosted measurement program. Partners like IXP.GT host a lightweight probe at a point of presence in their network, where it continuously runs ping and traceroute measurements. In return, they get access to measurements from their own point of presence and the wider ProbeNet.

ProbeNet continuously measures the internet from the outside in. For IXP.GT, that means being able to observe latency and network hops and see how traffic is actually flowing, including when the path is very different from what geography might suggest.

For internet exchanges, that data can serve two purposes. It can surface routing anomalies and reachability issues that need investigation, while also providing independent evidence of peering performance that exchanges can use with prospective members, content providers, and other partners.

For IXP.GT, both have already proven useful.

Two Universities, One Very Long Route

Two universities in Guatemala City are right next door to one another. But the universities use different ISPs, and those ISPs don't interconnect through IXP.GT. As a result, traffic travels north to Miami before returning to Guatemala.

That detour adds latency and consumes international capacity that can be more expensive than keeping traffic local.

With ProbeNet, IXP.GT can see the path. The latency and hops show how the ISPs reach the internet and where traffic is actually traveling rather than assuming physical proximity translates into network proximity.

And Miami isn't the only unexpected destination showing up in the data.

Another Surprising Route Detour

ProbeNet measurements have also highlighted how regional routing decisions affect Guatemala.

Traffic from Guatemala to neighboring Mexico, for example, can first travel to Miami, cross part of the United States, and then head south again. That means a data center physically located in Mexico isn't necessarily the closest option from the network's perspective. For some Guatemalan users, infrastructure in Miami may actually be faster to reach.

The reverse can happen when providers treat “Latin America” as a single geographic region.

IXP.GT found Google traffic being served from Brazil. While both Guatemala and Brazil are in “Latin America,” that grouping doesn't reflect Guatemala's position immediately south of Mexico and relatively close to the United States. In network terms, serving Guatemala from South America can result in more hops and higher latency.

We've seen again and again through ProbeNet that geography alone doesn't tell you how two points on the internet connect. A map can tell you where infrastructure is located. Measurements tell you how traffic actually gets there.

That information has immediate operational value. ProbeNet reports help IXP.GT keep an eye on routes and peers and investigate when something doesn't look right.

Conversely, some of the most useful measurements are about routes that are already working well.

How Local Peering Cuts Latency

Meta provides a particularly clear example.

Because Meta peers locally at IXP.GT, traffic can reach its infrastructure with latency of roughly 1 to 5 milliseconds. Comparable traffic reaching content providers without the same local interconnection can instead see latency around 25 to 30 milliseconds.

That's a substantial difference for an exchange trying to demonstrate why networks and content providers should interconnect locally.

IXP.GT has spent years explaining those benefits to current and prospective members. Now they have measurements to show them — something concrete to demonstrate to potential members the benefits in joining.

The independence of those measurements matters to him, too.

Neutrality has been central to IXP.GT since its founding. Instead of asking a prospective member or content provider to accept performance claims measured by the exchange itself, they can point to measurements collected independently by ProbeNet.

He's already taken the findings beyond conversations with ISPs and content providers, discussing the data with organizations in the private sector, government, and banking. (And they’re impressed by the detail of the metrics.)

That makes measurement more than an operational tool. It gives IXP.GT a way to demonstrate its role in Guatemala's internet ecosystem.

Turning Measurement Into a Growth Tool

That's one of the reasons we've built ProbeNet Labs.

An exchange can know that local peering should reduce latency, keep traffic local, and improve efficiency. The harder part is quantifying those effects across real internet paths and communicating them to the networks it wants to bring into the exchange.

A ProbeNet point of presence also places local measurements within a wider network of ProbeNet PoPs around the world. Marco sees particular value in that broader context because the internet he's measuring today is very different from the one of 15 years ago.

Traffic flows have changed considerably over the past 15 years, with CDNs, hyperscalers, and now AI services increasingly shaping how traffic moves.

That feeds directly into its plans for growth. IXP.GT wants to continue to expand interconnection beyond Guatemala City, while still attracting networks and content providers that can improve connectivity throughout the country.

Now IXP.GT has independent measurements to bring into those conversations.

What a Year of Measurements Can Show

We're also excited about what happens as this relationship continues.

A single measurement can expose an inefficient route or quantify the benefit of a local peer. A year of measurements starts to show how Guatemala's internet is changing.

Marco and his team want to use that history to see what’s improved, how different networks and content providers change their behavior, and how IXP.GT's position within Guatemala's internet ecosystem evolves.

There are other possibilities we're interested in exploring together. Because IXP.GT grew out of Guatemala's research and education community, access to IPinfo Lite could give university students another resource for studying the country's internet infrastructure. 

We’ve come a long way from that first conversation at our Black Hat booth.

Bring ProbeNet Labs to Your Network

If you’re an internet exchange, ISP, or academic institution, you can host a ProbeNet point of presence and gain access to measurements from your network and the wider ProbeNet.

Apply to join ProbeNet Labs →