Summary

  • A PeeringDB request filtered to an exchange named "Hawaii Internet Exchange" returned an empty data array on 17 October 2026.
  • The ASN named in the directory entry's stated evidence basis holds one IX-LAN record: a 10,000 Mbps port at DRF IX in Honolulu, created and last updated 82 seconds apart on 18 December 2019.
  • The physical layer is documented as a route with a duration of service, not as a Hawaii landing date, capacity figure or fault record — so the local-peering question is unmeasured, not settled in either direction.

A name that returns nothing

A request to the PeeringDB API filtered to an exchange named "Hawaii Internet Exchange", with depth=2, returned {"data": [], "meta": {}} — an empty data array (exchange-name query). That is worth stating precisely, because it is easy to overread in both directions. It is not proof that no Honolulu exchange exists, and it is not a count of them: one name filter returns nothing when no record matches that string, whether the record is spelled differently, abbreviated, or absent altogether.

The directory entry's stated evidence basis is an RDAP autnum record for AS19035. That is a network registration, not an exchange registration, and the two are not interchangeable. The registry checks that follow therefore start from the ASN, not from the name.

The port that does exist

Filtering the peering registry's IX-LAN table by AS19035 returns one row, and one row only (AS19035 IX-LAN record). Read the fields in order. The network ID is 21728, the exchange ID is 267, and the exchange's recorded name is "DRF IX". The port speed is 10,000 Mbps. One IPv4 address and one IPv6 address are recorded. The route-server peering flag is false, so no route-server session is claimed. BFD support is false. The operational flag is true. The status is "ok".

Then the two timestamps, which do more work than any other field in the row. The record was created at 2019-12-18T23:18:17Z and last updated at 2019-12-18T23:19:39Z — 82 seconds later. Nothing in the row has been edited since, so the interval between the last recorded change and this snapshot generation on 17 October 2026 is about six years and ten months. A port record untouched for nearly seven years is not evidence that the port is unused. It is evidence that the public description of the port has not been maintained, which for an interconnection claim is its own kind of gap.

Who the network object says it is

The network object carried by AS19035 is named "HIX", with network ID 21728 and organisation ID 24642 (AS19035 network object). The aka, name_long and website fields are all empty, and social media links are an empty array. The retained record therefore does not expand the three letters into "Hawaii Internet Exchange", and this article does not do it on the registry's behalf. The equivalence between the acronym and the full name is an inference available to a reader who already knows the local market; it is not a fact the record states.

That distinction is not pedantry. A directory name is a claim about an institution. The registry's name for the same ASN is a three-letter label with no expansion attached. Where the name is the thing being checked, an acronym nobody filled in leaves the check open.

The facility records one exchange

The third record narrows the physical picture. The Honolulu facility query returns DRFortress HNL, facility ID 2526, operated by DRFortress LLC, at 3375 Koapaka St in Honolulu, with one exchange recorded at that facility (Honolulu facility record).

The exchange record itself, ix_id 267, states: "DRFortress operates an Internet Exchange in Honolulu, Hawaii. Our intent is to foster efficient local peering within the State of Hawaii." (DRF IX record). That sentence is a statement of intent by the operator of the facility where the port sits. It carries no member count, no traffic figure, no capacity commitment and no failure or recovery description. Those are precisely the numbers that would let an outside reader test whether local peering substitutes for transit on this island chain, and none of them appear in the retained text.

The physical layer states a route, not a landing date

The distance premium that makes local peering interesting in Hawaii is physical before it is commercial. Southern Cross states on its own site that it provides high-capacity, low-latency connectivity between Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Hawaii and the US West Coast, and that it has provided critical connectivity for over 20 years (Southern Cross). That is a route statement with a duration attached. It is not a landing date for Hawaii, not a landing or licence instrument, and not a capacity figure.

The second cable reference is thinner still. The hawaiki.co.nz page as retrieved presents BW Digital as "a leading owner and operator of digital infrastructure" (hawaiki.co.nz). It says nothing about a Hawaii landing point, a date or a capacity, so nothing of the kind is asserted here. A reader who wants the cable inventory of the archipelago will not get it from these pages, and this article does not manufacture it from the fact that several systems are commonly said to serve the islands.

What this does not prove, and what would

Three questions from the original reporting plan remain open, and they are open for a documented reason rather than a convenient one.

First, the registered organisation behind AS19035 is unverified. Two research attempts aimed at the ARIN RDAP autnum body failed at the provider on 17 October 2026 with provider capacity unavailable after a bounded wait. No registered name is therefore asserted, and the ASN is characterised only through the two peering-registry records above. That matters because a directory reader who wants to reach the operator behind the entry would normally start from the registration, and here the registration did not arrive.

Second, no member list, member count, peak or aggregate traffic series, route-server participant list, port inventory or outage report was obtained for any Honolulu exchange. The question that motivated this reporting — whether a Honolulu exchange keeps Hawaiian traffic local — is therefore unmeasured rather than answered. A single 10 Gbps network-side port that has not been edited since 2019 is compatible with several very different realities, and the record does not choose among them.

Third, no submarine cable landing date, landing instrument, system capacity or fault record was obtained, so no claim is made that the physical layer provides, or fails to provide, a second path.

The falsifying measurement is specific and public. A dated member list, a port-speed distribution across more than one participant, a traffic series, or an outage report describing how Honolulu traffic rerouted during a cut would each move this from an unmeasured claim to a measured one. Until one of them exists in citable form, the honest description of the Hawaii Internet Exchange entry is narrow: a name the participant registry does not return, an acronym it returns without expansion, and one 10 Gbps port edited in 82 seconds on a December night in 2019.

The directory entry remains available at Hawaii Internet Exchange.