The London Internet Exchange (LINX), one of Europe's largest network peering communities, has become the first exchange operator to be endorsed by Open-IX, a new US standards organization that has charged itself with increasing diversity of peering options in the country.

LINX launched its first internet exchange in the US earlier this month. Called LINX NoVA, the exchange operates out of three data centers in Northern Virginia: a DuPont Fabros facility in Ashburn, a CoreSite building in Reston and an EvoSwitch site in Manassas.

The goal of Open-IX is to stimulate development of robust peering points besides the few key ones currently controlled by a handful of data center providers. Those incumbents are Verizon Terremark, CoreSite, Telx and especially Equinix, which controls the most populous peering points in all major US markets.

Open-IX, whose members are data center providers, exchange operators and end users – Netflix is the most notable example of an end user – wants to foster alternatives to the incumbents to bring down peering costs and to provide more redundancy options.

The organization has devised two standards documents – one for exchanges and the other for data centers that host them – and endorses operators that meet those standards.

Since the Open-IX certification process started, both data center and exchange operators have been racing to get endorsed. As John Sarkis, VP of connectivity and operations at Digital Realty Trust told us in an earlier interview, the first exchange to launch in each market will most likely become the next incumbent in that market.

John Souter, CEO of LINX, said the creation of Open-IX was an indication that US operators wanted a more transparent approach to peering than the one they are stuck with currently. “This method of passing traffic is sometimes described as the ‘European model’ but it’s primarily about putting the member first,” he said in a statement.

The LINX infrastructure in the UK lives in 10 data centers operated by Telehouse, TelecityGroup, Equinix and Interxion.

The other two big European exchange operators, Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) and Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange (DE-CIX), have also supported Open-IX and expanded into North America intending to have the organization's endorsement.

Earlier this month CyrusOne became the first data center operator to secure an Open-IX endorsement for six facilities. The company also operates a national internet exchange and has plans to have it endorsed by Open-IX.