Juergen Schultheiss, staff writer for the "Frankfurter Rundschau" newspaper, wrote a comment about DE-CIX and the role DE-CIX plays for the economical development of the city of Frankfurt:

The most recent economic history of the city of Frankfurt includes the quiet success story of the unabated and dramatic growth of the Internet Exchange, DE-CIX. The Exchange is celebrating its 15th anniversary. But you won't hear about the classic celebration, or about the mayor's office reception no matter how many new customers are seeking to be connected to the Exchange, no matter if the data traffic reaches unimaginable dimensions.
 
That is a pity, especially because the mayor herself has now discovered twittering and is more than ever dependent on what is being done at Hanauer Landstrasse. That is perhaps where the root of the problem is: It is not particularly easy to describe and understand that the worldwide Internet data exchange depends on Internet exchanges where data streams from different providers flow together. There is no palpable product that can be shown off saying, this is what we make, and it's a top notch product.

Nevertheless, what DE-CIX, a wholly owned subsidiary of eco, the German Internet Association, achieves, may quite possibility be the city's top product. For passenger numbers going through, the airport is the ninth largest in the world; on an international level, Frankfurt ranks in the top 20 bank cities (depending on the mode of calculation) , the Internet Exchange, however,  is the undisputed worldwide top exchange for the amount of transferred data, ranking above London and Amsterdam and ranking far above metropolitan areas like New York or the much smaller Washington.  That the infrastructure at Hanauer Landstrasse as well as at Kleyerstrasse with Ancotel  makes Frankfurt the top location is a fact that is slowly but surely being recognized not only due to Interxion  CEO Peter Knapp's good contacts in the state government and the city. And it is true that meanwhile Petra Roth and Markus Frank are closer to the Internet scene.

However, that alone will not suffice. The city will have to be able to push Frankfurt forward as communication and media location more aggressively.  That is not easy, alone for the fact that the players in the economy are not on the same page and some play in their own favor and ignore the advantages for the location that would arise from cooperation.  Still: Bringing the participants together, getting them to move towards a common location policy would be a cause worth fighting for - because the nervous system of the service metropolis Frankfurt, is the Internet.

Link to the original article (german only):
http://www.fr-online.de/frankfurt_und_hessen/meinung/2589254_Unbekanntes-Spitzenprodukt.html