We currently operate three clusters of collocated machines in different data centers.

Recently, I became aware that our newest data center will offer to cross connect us to a bandwidth provider free of charge.

In the past, I never really investigated a cross connect for bandwidth because I figured that the rates would be similar to what we are paying the colo now and that it would reduce our resiliency (because we would only be using one or two carriers for IP, where as the colo uses, say 8 different providers).

Then I saw an ad for hurricane electric internet services (http://he.net/cgi-bin/ip_transit_quote) that gave a price for IP transit at $1/Mbs, which is much better than the $30/Mb we pay for the blended bandwidth.

What are people out there typically paying for bandwith via cross connect and how hard is to setup? Is my understanding that what you do is open agreemetns with two or three ISPs, cross connect to them and then configure your top of rack router on their network. Can you really get IP transit down to a couple of dollars per megabit per month just by doing the routing yourself?

Or, is my understanding of cross connection fundamentally wrong?