Every connection, explained
Two ways onto the internet: through someone else's network, or straight into it. We use both, and we prefer the second whenever we can.
Where we live
Our servers are at the GlobalSwitch Madrid datacenter, one of Spain's most important interconnection facilities. Being there gives us direct access to the country's main traffic exchange points.
Transit
Transit is how we reach the rest of the internet indirectly: through a bigger network that carries our traffic to whatever we don't connect to ourselves. It works, but it's still a hop through someone else's house. We run two, on purpose, so one having a bad day doesn't take us down with it.
Cogent
One of the largest IP transit networks in the world. Through it we reach, redundantly, any network we don't peer with directly. It's our main IPv4 and IPv6 transit path.
HE.NET
Hurricane Electric operates one of the largest and longest-running IPv6 backbones on the Internet. We use it as additional IPv6 transit, reinforcing redundancy independently of Cogent.
Peering
Peering is the direct version: no hop through someone else's network, just a straight line to the destination. That's simply better: fewer points of failure, lower latency, more control over how our traffic actually travels. Ours runs through DE-CIX in Madrid, where we peer directly with Cloudflare and Apple, and we keep adding more.
DE-CIX
An Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in Madrid. There we have direct peering with Cloudflare, Apple, and other networks, bypassing generic transit.
Cloudflare
One of the largest CDNs in the world: a huge share of web traffic passes through its network. Direct peering means fewer hops and lower latency for all of that traffic.
Apple
Moves an enormous volume of consumer traffic: iCloud, App Store, FaceTime, software updates. Direct peering improves performance for a large share of your users' everyday traffic.
loadfront reaches the Internet two ways: redundant transit with Cogent (IPv4/IPv6) and HE.NET (IPv6), and direct peering at DE-CIX Madrid with Cloudflare and Apple.
For what it's worth, all of this runs under our own autonomous system, AS203099, RIPE-registered and a MANRS participant. Not something you need to know, just there if you're curious.
Why we do it this way
We didn't want to depend on one transit provider, or on generic connectivity alone. So we run redundant transit (Cogent, HE.NET) alongside direct peering at a top-tier exchange point (DE-CIX): fewer hops, lower latency, and more room to absorb a problem on either network.
Coming: direct customer peering
If you have presence at GlobalSwitch Madrid or are reachable via DE-CIX, in the future you'll be able to set up direct peering with our AS203099 instead of going through transit. Not available yet. It's planned for when we expand to multiple nodes. If you're interested, get in touch and we'll let you know when it's ready.