# Cross Connect

Twilio's Cross Connect service provides a direct physical connection between your data center and Twilio's cloud as if they were one and the same network. This means that there is no intermediary between your applications running on your infrastructure and Twilio's platform hosting our APIs and services. This not only offers the best-in-the-market availability and performance, but also is the most secure way to utilize Twilio's services.

Since Cross Connect is a direct connection between your network and Twilio's, it provides the best performance, the least delay, and the best voice call quality.

![Diagram illustrating a direct Cross Connect between customer data center and Twilio cloud](https://docs-resources.prod.twilio.com/3477b45ba828f7e4d47d6d6a8be78e043a3108f1b78aeac93fa802339b15e09a.svg)

## Setting up Cross Connect

Three participants are needed to come together to create a Cross Connect: you, Twilio, and your data center provider. All three will need to provide the components that are required to set up the link.

## Your components

One of the first choices you need to make is at which Interconnect Exchange you want to have a Cross Connect with Twilio.

Cross Connect links your internal network to the Twilio Interconnect location using a gigabit fiber link. If you're already in one of our [regional data centers](/docs/interconnect#interconnect-regions-ip-details), you can connect to us directly in the [meet-me room](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet-me_room). Alternatively, you can have an Ethernet point-to-point circuit provisioned between your location and one of our data centers' meet-me rooms. Twilio Interconnect is available in these [global data centers](/docs/interconnect#interconnect-regions-ip-details).

### IP routes

Your edge/border devices (e.g., IP-PBX, SIP-PRI IAD, Session Border Controller (SBC), NAT gateway, etc.) will need to be assigned global IPv4 addresses that are part of one or more CIDR blocks that your provider will announce to Twilio (your "IP routes").

> \[!WARNING]
>
> Your IP routes must be globally unique ("public IPs"), not [RFC 1918](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1918) private address ranges. In other words, your IP routes have to be ***outside the following ranges*** :
>
> `10.0.0.0`-`10.255.255.255`
>
> `172.16.0.0`-`172.31.255.255`
>
> `192.168.0.0`-`192.168.255.255`

### Firewall

You will need to add [Twilio's IP routes](/docs/interconnect#interconnect-regions-ip-details) to your firewall's access control accept-list to allow your network to talk to Twilio's platform.

## Twilio components

### IP routes \[#ip-routes-2]

All services accessed over Twilio Interconnect will come from Twilio's IP routes. You will see them announced via BGP. We encourage you to allow **all** [Twilio's IP routes](/docs/interconnect#interconnect-regions-ip-details) on your firewall.

### Twilio Interconnect connection

Twilio will provision bandwidth for your connections at the Twilio Interconnect Exchange locations you select. For high availability, we strongly recommend connecting to at least two of our geographically redundant Twilio Interconnect locations. For example, you can select a 100Mbps connection in Ashburn, Virginia and a 100Mbps connection in San Jose, California to create redundant connections to Twilio on both coasts of the United States. For Europe, Frankfurt and London are great redundant exchange locations. Singapore and Tokyo offer the same for the APAC region.

### Letter of Authorization

You will receive a Letter of Authorization (LOA) from Twilio, permitting the data center provider to create a Cross Connect. The letter will specify the exact location of the port Twilio has provisioned for you.

## Configuring your private connection to Twilio

### Step 1 Submit a provisioning request in Twilio Console

You will need to provide the following information to submit a request:

* Desired connection exchange location.
* Desired bandwidth.
* Letter of Authorization (LOA) entity.
* Public BGP interface IP if you would like to use your own. If not, Twilio can assign a private BGP interface IP from the link local range 169.254.X.X.
* Public Autonomous System Number (ASN) if you have one. Twilio can assign a private one if you don't have one already.
* BGP Prefix.

### Step 2 Order your Cross Connect using Twilio provided LOA

Once your request is submitted, Twilio will provide a LOA which expires 60 days from the date of issuance. Order a Cross Connect from your data center provider using the provided LOA.

### Step 3 Twilio configures the connection

After the physical link has been set up, send the Cross Connect completion notification (provided by Equinix) to Twilio. Twilio will proceed to set up the connection and allocate a BGP interface (point-to-point) IP along with a private ASN if necessary. You will be notified once the connection has been configured by Twilio. At this point your configuration details will be viewable in Console.

### Step 4 Advertise IP routes

Advertise your IP routes via the Cross Connect. The routes for your border devices must be announced via BGP to Twilio over the connection.