Originally posted to DE-CIX

As every budding bread baker knows, the combination of right ingredients and the right environment is what leads to success – that, and the patience to allow time for growth. The same recipe also applied for DE-CIX, as Arnold Nipper, Chief Technology Evangelist and Co-Founder, recalls.

1. Location, location, location

One of the key ingredients why DE-CIX started to be successful is that Frankfurt is geographically located at the most eastern part of the western world, and the most western part of the eastern world. When we look back at how the Internet grew, it first started in the US and then made its way over to Europe. It first went to London, and then to Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam, it continued on to Frankfurt. It went further and further to the east.

The American networks were, of course, a big driver for the spread of the Internet. They wanted to do business in Europe, and with the Iron Curtain coming down in 1989, they were also interested in doing business in Eastern Europe. And so in 1995, Frankfurt – being at the gateway between east and west – was in the right place at the right time to connect these markets.

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