Packet Clearing House

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Packet Clearing House (PCH)
Pch-logo-300x140.png
Founded1994; 27 years ago (1994)
FounderChris Alan and Mark Kent
TypeNonprofit corporation
Legal statusActive
FocusProviding operational support and security to critical Internet infrastructure, including Internet exchange points and the core of the domain name system
Location
Key people
Bill Woodcock
(Executive Director)
Steve Feldman
(Chairman of the Board of Directors)
Dorian Kim
(Non-Executive Director)
Bob Arasmith
(Systems Director)
Kabindra Shrestha
(Network Director)
Revenue
USD 251,258,067 (2018)
USD 255,790,216 (2017)
USD 209,851,236 (2016)[1]
USD 292,796,682 (2015)[2]
USD 244,829,657 (2014)[3]
Employees
28
Volunteers
50
Websitepch.net

Packet Clearing House (PCH) is an international nonprofit organization responsible for providing operational support and security to critical internet infrastructure, including Internet exchange points and the core of the domain name system.

Overview[]

Packet Clearing House (PCH) was formed in 1994 by Chris Alan and Mark Kent to provide efficient regional and local network interconnection alternatives for the West Coast of the United States. It has grown to become a leading proponent of neutral independent network interconnection and provider of route-servers at major exchange points worldwide.

PCH provides equipment, training, data, and operational support to organizations and individual researchers seeking to improve the quality, robustness, and Internet accessibility.

As of 2021, major PCH projects include

  • Building and supporting nearly half of the world's approximately 700 Internet exchange points (IXPs);
  • Operating the world's largest anycast Domain Name System (DNS) server platform, including two root nameservers, more than 400 top-level domains (TLDs) including the country-code domains of more than 130 countries, and the Quad9 recursive resolver;[4]
  • Operating the only FIPS 140-2 Level 4 global TLD DNSSEC key management and signing infrastructure, with facilities in Singapore, Zurich, and San Jose;[5]
  • Implementing network research data collection initiatives in more than 100 countries;
  • Publishing original research and policy guidance in the areas of telecommunications regulation, including the 2011[6] and 2016[7] Interconnection Surveys, country reports such as those for Canada in 2012[8] and 2016[9] and Paraguay in 2012,[10] and a survey of critical infrastructure experts for the GCSC;[11] and
  • Developing and presenting educational materials to foster a better understanding of Internet architectural principles and their policy implications among policymakers, technologists, and the general public.

PCH has more than 500 institutional donors, including the Soros Open Society Institute, which funded PCH in developing open source tools which help Internet service providers (ISPs) optimize their traffic routing, reduce costs and increase performance of Internet service delivered to the public;[12] the United Nations Development Programme, Cisco Systems, NTT/Verio, Level 3, Equinix, the governments of Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, France, Singapore, Chile, Switzerland, and the United States, and hundreds of Internet service providers and individuals.

PCH works closely with the United States Telecommunications Training Institute (USTTI) to offer courses on telecommunications regulation, Internet infrastructure construction and management, domain name system management, and Internet security coordination, three times a year in Washington, D.C. It also teaches in 80 to 100 on-location workshops a year throughout the world.

Locations[]

PCH maintains staffed offices in San Francisco, Paris, Berkeley, Dublin, Kathmandu, Johannesburg, Khartoum, and Toronto[13] and operates critical network infrastructure within 220 Internet exchange points.[14]

Board of directors[]

PCH's board of directors consists of Steve Feldman (chairman), Dorian Kim, and Bill Woodcock (executive director).[15]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Federal Audit Clearinghouse, 2016 Report of Independent Auditor and Financial Statements with OMB Circular A-133 Audit Reports and Supplementary Information".
  2. ^ "Federal Audit Clearinghouse, 2015 Report of Independent Auditor and Financial Statements with OMB Circular A-133 Audit Reports and Supplementary Information".
  3. ^ "Federal Audit Clearinghouse, 2014 Report of Independent Auditor and Financial Statements with OMB Circular A-133 Audit Reports and Supplementary Information".
  4. ^ "Packet Clearing House". PeeringDB. Retrieved 8 July 2021. AS 3856 handles research traffic for a global network of BGP and DNS looking glasses, and a variety of networking research projects hosted on behalf of academic and industry research labs. AS 42 handles production DNS traffic for several root servers, about 400 TLDs including 130 ccTLDs, and the Quad9 recursive resolver.
  5. ^ Lamb, Rick; Woodcock, Bill. "Shared ccTLD DNSSEC Signing Platform" (PDF). ICANN. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  6. ^ Woodcock, Bill; Adhikari, Vijay (May 2, 2011). "Survey of Characteristics of Internet Carrier Interconnection Agreements" (PDF). Packet Clearing House. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  7. ^ Woodcock, Bill; Frigino, Marco (November 21, 2016). "2016 Survey of Internet Carrier Interconnection Agreements" (PDF). Packet Clearing House. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  8. ^ Woodcock, Bill; Edelman, Benjamin (September 12, 2012). "Toward Efficiencies in Canadian Internet Traffic Exchange" (PDF). Packet Clearing House. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  9. ^ Woodcock, Bill (8 November 2016). "2016 Study on Canadian Network Interconnection" (PDF). Packet Clearing House. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  10. ^ Woodcock, Bill; Hernández, Gäel (December 2012). "Peering in Paraguay: Analysis and Recommendations 2012" (PDF). Packet Clearing House. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  11. ^ Woodcock, Bill; Rowland, Peter; Kolkman, Olaf (November 20, 2017). "Report of the GCSC Critical Infrastructure Assessment Working Group" (PDF). Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace. Retrieved 8 July 2021.
  12. ^ "ICT Toolsets Announces Winners of 2003 Grant Competition". Open Society Institute. 23 August 2004. Retrieved 8 July 2021. OSI is supporting Packet Clearing House in the development of open-source software tools which assist Internet service providers in optimizing the routing of their traffic, reducing the cost and increasing the performance of Internet service as delivered to the public. The 'PeerMaster' toolset functions as a matchmaking service for ISPs, allowing the individuals within each ISP who are responsible for negotiating network interconnections to find each other quickly and easily, and facilitating the interconnection transaction. The NetFlow analysis portion of the toolset goes one step further, analyzing ISPs' traffic flow and prioritizing the other ISPs, other countries, and other regions with which the ISP has the greatest degree of mutual traffic, allowing them to make better-informed network interconnection choices.
  13. ^ "Packet Clearing House Locations". Retrieved 2021-07-08.
  14. ^ "Packet Clearing House Peering". Retrieved 2021-07-08.
  15. ^ "Packet Clearing House People". Retrieved 2013-12-30.

External links[]

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