Contracts for the UK's third Internet exchange, called Scotix, were completed yesterday. Founders, including the Royal Bank of Scotland and BT, said that they hoped the new hub would someday be a rival to global hubs such as the MaeWest and Abovenet exchanges in California. The new exchange should make Internet traffic flow faster for users in Scotland. Currently, data from online Scotland has to be routed through Linx in London. The new exchange should initially handle traffic of five to 10 megabits a second. It is also expected to provide a hub for new transatlantic connections. "It is the single biggest ecommerce story in Scotland in the last 12 months," said chairman Frank Binney. "If we did not have the exchange, we'd eventually become an ecommerce backwater, and it follows from that that we'd be an economic backwater." ®