Inside the ESAGAMES Network: Frankfurt Peering

Ping and uptime are decided by the network long before your game ever starts. Here is how the ESAGAMES network is built — where it lives, what peering actually means, and why that means low latency and absorbed attacks.

Quick answer

The ESAGAMES network runs from Frankfurt, home of DE-CIX, on its own autonomous system AS214918. Peering means exchanging traffic directly with other networks instead of through middlemen, so packets take fewer hops — giving lower, steadier ping across Europe and more capacity to absorb attacks before they reach a server.

Why Frankfurt

Frankfurt is the networking capital of Europe. It is home to DE-CIX, the world's largest internet exchange, where thousands of networks meet and trade traffic directly. Building here means our servers sit at the centre of European connectivity instead of at the edge of it. (For the player-latency angle, see why Frankfurt is the best location for EU game servers.)

What "peering" actually means

In plain terms, peering is two networks agreeing to exchange traffic directly instead of paying a third party to carry it between them. Every direct peering connection is one less network a packet has to pass through, which means fewer places for delay, congestion or packet loss to creep in. A network with many direct peers is simply closer, in practical terms, to more of the internet.

Peering: the short path to your players

Ping is mostly distance and hops — how many networks a packet crosses to reach you. By peering directly at a major exchange, traffic to most European ISPs takes a short, direct path instead of being routed the long way round. Fewer hops means lower, steadier ping and fewer routing surprises.

Capacity is part of the design

A central, well-connected location is also what makes serious DDoS filtering possible. Absorbing a multi-terabit DDoS requires enormous network capacity, and that capacity only exists where the internet is dense. Our Frankfurt edge is built to soak up volumetric floods and scrub them before they reach your server.

• Low ping — central EU location and direct peering for short paths.
• Headroom — multi-Tbps capacity to absorb attacks, not just carry normal traffic.
• Stable routing — well-peered paths mean fewer detours and less jitter.
• One network, end to end — filtering and hosting on the same infrastructure keeps latency low.

Why this beats a generic cloud VPS for gaming

A generic cloud VPS is often built for web workloads — bursty, latency-tolerant traffic — and routed accordingly. A network purpose-built for gaming prioritises the opposite: small, frequent, latency-sensitive packets that need to arrive quickly and steadily. That difference in priorities is invisible on a spec sheet but very visible in a match. For the fundamentals of what ping actually measures, see what is ping and how to lower it.

Why network and filtering on one network matters

When mitigation lives on the same network as your server, filtered traffic does not take a detour through a distant scrubbing centre and back. That keeps latency low even while an attack is being absorbed — players stay connected and barely notice. It is the same idea behind our XDP filtering: keep protection close to the server.

The best network is the one you never think about — low ping when it is quiet, and still online when it is under attack.

See how the pieces fit together in how our Anti-DDoS works.