Flavio Luciani
Flavio Luciani was born in Rome in 1981 and graduated in Computer Engineering from the University of Roma Tre in 2005. Since 2008 he has been part of the team at Namex, the Internet eXchange Point in Rome, initially as a member of the technical staff and, since 2020, as Chief Technology Officer. Over the years, he has been actively involved in several initiatives within the Internet community. He collaborates with the RIPE NCC organisation and with the association of European eXchange Points EURO-IX. He previously served on the Steering Committee of the Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) initiative under the Global Cyber Alliance. Through workshops, training courses, and in-depth articles, he promotes greater awareness and attention to routing security. He is also co-author of the book “BGP: From Theory to Practice”, a technical publication dedicated to the Border Gateway Protocol and its real-world operational aspects.
Session
Is the peering market slowing down, or are we simply using the wrong metrics to understand it?
This talk argues that Internet peering is not in decline, but in transformation. Based on PeeringDB and ISOC Pulse IXP Tracker data, combined with long-term operational experience in the IXP ecosystem, it examines how Internet Exchange Points are evolving across different regions of the world.
While some large and mature IXPs show slower growth in membership or public peering capacity, this reflects a broader shift in interconnection strategies rather than a weakening of the model. Traffic is becoming more concentrated, private interconnects and in-network caching are increasingly complementing public peering, and edge architectures are changing where networks exchange traffic.
The talk will highlight the factors that determine IXP growth and sustainability, including telecom market liberalisation, local content demand, data centre ecosystems, and national infrastructure policy. It will show why IXPs remain strategic assets for digital resilience, local traffic exchange, and a more robust, decentralised Internet.