LINX rebuild sharpens London internet backbone

The overhaul covers LINX’s secondary London interconnection fabric, known as LON2, which runs alongside the primary LON1 network and is designed to give members redundancy, resilience and architectural diversity. LINX said the refresh was driven in part by the end-of-life status of the previous technical platform, making the project both a maintenance necessity and a strategic investment in the exchange’s next phase of growth.

That matters well beyond the data-centre sector. LINX is one of Europe’s best-known internet exchange operators, linking networks that include cloud providers, telecoms groups, enterprises and content platforms. On its public materials, the organisation says it serves about 900 members from more than 75 countries. In practical terms, that means the smooth functioning of its London platforms affects how efficiently traffic is exchanged across a wide swathe of the UK and European digital economy.

LON2 has a particular place in that structure. It was launched in 2002 after demand on LON1 grew, with the aim of avoiding a critical single point of failure in UK internet connectivity. LINX has long presented its dual-LAN design as a distinguishing feature, allowing members to mirror infrastructure across two separate fabrics instead of relying on one exchange environment. The latest upgrade preserves that logic while modernising the equipment underneath it.

Nokia’s role is notable because LINX had already moved LON1 to Nokia technology in 2021 to meet demand for 400 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. For LON2, LINX said it carried out proof-of-concept work with a shortlist of vendors before choosing Nokia again. The company said the selected platform had to support its interconnection services, work with EVPN architecture and allow scaling from 10GE and 100GE to 400GE and, over time, 800GE. That gives the upgrade a longer horizon than a routine hardware swap.

The decision also highlights a more nuanced point in network engineering: resilience is not just about duplicate capacity but about controlled diversity. LINX said LON2 remains fully diverse from LON1 because the two use different hardware and software combinations, even though Nokia is now involved across both. That is significant for members that buy mirrored services on both London fabrics and expect a failure or design issue in one environment not to cascade into the other.

Industry conditions make that emphasis timely. Exchanges and carriers are facing heavier east-west data flows as cloud computing expands and AI workloads alter traffic patterns. Nokia has been increasingly framing its infrastructure business around AI-era demand, while saying optical and network infrastructure are central to that push. LINX, for its part, has tied the refresh to future scaling requirements rather than short-term traffic relief alone, signalling that exchanges now have to prepare for sharper jumps in capacity demand than in earlier upgrade cycles.

Security is part of that broader picture as well. LINX and Nokia were already working together on DDoS protection, with Nokia announcing in January 2025 that LINX had selected its Deepfield technology to strengthen defence against high-volume attacks. Taken together with the LON1 migration in 2021 and the LON2 refresh now completed, the relationship has moved beyond a one-off supply contract into a wider infrastructure partnership spanning routing, resilience and protection services.

The timing is also important for London’s role as an interconnection hub. LINX said last year that LON2 was approaching the 1 Tbps peak-traffic mark, underlining how a platform originally built as a secondary fabric has become an increasingly valuable part of the exchange’s commercial and technical proposition. With LON2 nearing 25 years of operation in 2027, the completed rebuild gives LINX more headroom to defend London’s standing in an increasingly competitive market for peering, cloud access and low-latency connectivity.