Membership numbers for the world's largest Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), the London Internet Exchange (LINX), has more than doubled with Australia boosting its global reach.

When LINX began in 1994 its focus was on the development of UK Internet infrastructure, but this has widened covering infrastructure between Australasia, Asia, North America and Europe.

This is reflected in the composition of membership across the globe which now covers over 40 countries with network operators and other organisations choosing to exchange their Internet traffic through co-operative peering agreements.

Australian members include Australia's Research and Education Network (AARNet) and LINX has just passed the major milestone of 200 Gigabits per second of peak Internet traffic.

In addition, they have reached an all-time high of 280 members using 570 connected member ports (including a record of 80 ultra-fast 10GigE ports).

Five years ago member numbers stood at just 120 with peak traffic at 13.5 Gigabits per second. Today membership numbers have more than doubled and there has been an incredible 1500 per cent increase in traffic.

LINX CEO John Souter said these stats show that peering is an increasingly attractive proposition despite the availability of low transit pricing.

"Achieving 280 members is really significant, as critical mass is the most important factor to the success of an Internet exchange," he said.

"The recent surge in the number of member 10GigE ports show how important peering is to even the largest network operators."

Nearly a quarter of all members are now based outside Europe.