Self-Regulatory Organizations; MIAX Sapphire, LLC; Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of a Proposed Rule Change by MIAX Sapphire, LLC To Adopt Connectivity and Certain Port Fees for Members and Non-Members

Pursuant to Section 19(b)(1) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Act”), and Rule 19b-4 thereunder, notice is hereby given that on October 10, 2024, MIAX Sapphire, LLC (“MIAX Sapphire” or “Exchange”) filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) a proposed rule change as described in Items I, II, and III below, which Items have been prepared by the Exchange. The Commission is publishing this notice to solicit comments on the proposed rule change from interested persons.

I. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Terms of Substance of the Proposed Rule Change

The Exchange is filing a proposal to amend the MIAX Sapphire Options Exchange Fee Schedule (the “Fee Schedule”) to adopt certain non-transaction fees. The text of the proposed rule change is available on the Exchange's website at https://www.miaxglobal.com/markets/us-options/miax-sapphire/rule-filings, at the Exchange's principal office, and at the Commission's Public Reference Room.

II. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change

In its filing with the Commission, the Exchange included statements concerning the purpose of and basis for the proposed rule change and discussed any comments it received on the proposed rule change. The text of these statements may be examined at the places specified in Item IV below. The Exchange has prepared summaries, set forth in sections A, B, and C below, of the most significant aspects of such statements.

A. Self-Regulatory Organization's Statement of the Purpose of, and Statutory Basis for, the Proposed Rule Change

1. Purpose

On July 15, 2024, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) approved the Exchange's Form 1 application to register as a national securities exchange under Section 6 of the Exchange Act. The Exchange commenced electronic operations on August 12, 2024. The Exchange proposes to establish the following sections of the Fee Schedule, including proposed fee structures and amounts (the majority of which the Exchange proposes to waive for a specified time, as discussed further below): (1) connectivity fees for Members and non-Members; and (2) certain port fees for Members and non-Members. The Exchange initially filed this proposal on August 9, 2024 (SR-SAPPHIRE-2024-21). The Exchange withdrew SR-SAPPHIRE-2024-21 on August 14, 2024 and submitted SR-SAPPHIRE-2024-22. On October 10, 2024, the Exchange withdrew SR- SAPPHIRE-2024-22 and submitted this proposal.

Connectivity Fees

The Exchange proposes to establish Section 5), System Connectivity Fees, which will describe network connectivity fees. The Exchange proposes to offer to both Members and non-Members the choice of a 1 Gigabit (“Gb”) fiber connection or the 10Gb ultra-low latency (“ULL”) fiber connection to the Exchange's primary and secondary facilities, as well as its disaster recovery facility. The 1Gb and 10Gb ULL fees will be charged to both Members and non-Members for connectivity to the Exchange's primary/secondary facility and to its disaster recovery facility.

The Exchange proposes to establish monthly fees of $1,400 per 1Gb connection and $13,500 per 10Gb ULL connection that will be assessed to Members and non-Members for connecting to the primary/secondary facility. The Exchange proposes to establish monthly fees of $550 per 1Gb connection and $2,750 per 10Gb ULL connection that will be assessed to Members and non-Members for connecting to the disaster recovery facility.

Monthly network connectivity fees for Members and non-Members for connectivity with the primary/secondary facility will be assessed in any month the Member or non-Member is credentialed to use any of the MIAX Sapphire Application Programming Interfaces (“APIs”) or market data feeds in the production environment. Further, the Exchange proposes to pro-rate the monthly fees when a Member or non-Member makes a change to the connectivity (by adding or deleting connections) with such pro-rated fees based on the number of trading days that the Member or non-Member has been credentialed to utilize any of the MIAX Sapphire APIs or market data feeds in the production environment through such connection, divided by the total number of trading days in such month multiplied by the applicable monthly rate. Monthly network connectivity fees for Members and non-Members for connectivity to the disaster recovery facility will be assessed in each month during which the Member or non-Member has established connectivity to the disaster recovery facility.

The Exchange proposes that Members and non-Members utilizing the MENI to connect to the trading platforms, market data systems, and disaster recovery facilities of the Exchange or its affiliated options markets (MIAX, MIAX Pearl, and MIAX Emerald) via a single, shared 1Gb connection will only be assessed one monthly network connectivity fee per connection, regardless of the trading platforms, market data systems, and disaster recovery facilities accessed via such connection.

Waiver Period for Connectivity Fees. The Exchange proposes to waive the monthly Member and non-Member network connectivity fees for the 1Gb connections to the primary/secondary facility and disaster recovery facility, and the 10Gb ULL connections to the disaster recovery facility for the partial month in which the Exchange launches operations, plus an additional three full calendar months. The proposed monthly Member and non-Member network connectivity fees for the 1Gb connections to the primary/secondary facility and disaster recovery facility, and 10Gb ULL connections to the disaster recovery facility will be discounted by 50% for the three full calendar months thereafter.

The Exchange proposes to waive the monthly Member and non-Member network connectivity fees for the first two 10Gb ULL connections on each switch to the primary/secondary facility for the partial month in which the Exchange launches operations, plus an additional three full calendar months. The Exchange proposes that the monthly Member and non-Member network connectivity fees for the first two 10Gb ULL connections on each switch to the primary/secondary facility will be discounted by 50% for the three full calendar months thereafter. Any subsequent 10Gb ULL connections on each switch will be charged the full monthly rate of $13,500 per 10Gb ULL connection.

For clarity, the Exchange provides the below examples regarding connectivity fees, utilizing the launch date of August 12, 2024:

• Members and non-Members that subscribe to the 1Gb connection to the primary/secondary facility and/or disaster recovery facility, and/or subscribe to the 10Gb ULL connection to the disaster recovery facility, will not be charged the proposed rates (i.e., $1,400 for 1Gb connections to the primary/secondary facility, $550 for 1Gb connections to the disaster recovery facility, or $2,750 for 10Gb ULL connections to the disaster recovery facility) for the remaining days in August, as well as for the entire period covering the months of September 2024 through November 2024. Thereafter, Members and non-Members will receive a 50% discount for each 1Gb connection to the primary/secondary facility and disaster recovery facility, and for each 10Gb ULL connection to the disaster recovery facility for entire period covering December 2024 through February 2025.
• Members and non-Members that subscribe to the 10Gb ULL connection to the primary/secondary facility will not be charged the proposed rate ($13,500) for the first two 10Gb ULL connections on each switch to the primary/secondary facility for the remaining days in August, as well as the entire period cover the months of September through November 2024. Thereafter, Members and non-Members will receive a 50% discount for the first two 10Gb ULL connections on each switch to the primary/secondary facility for entire period covering December 2024 through February 2025. For each 10Gb ULL connection on each switch greater than two (i.e., three or more), Members and non-Members will be assessed the entire amount of the proposed rate beginning upon the launch of the Exchange.

The Exchange previously communicated to market participants that the Exchange intends to waive the monthly Member and non-Member network connectivity fees in the manner described above. Even though the Exchange proposes to waive the Member and non-Member network connectivity fees for the periods of time described above, the Exchange believes that it is appropriate to provide market participants with the overall structure of the fees by outlining the structure and amounts in the Fee Schedule, so that there is general awareness that the Exchange intends to assess such fees in the future. The Exchange notes that its affiliated markets, MIAX, MIAX Pearl and MIAX Emerald, provide for the same structure and amounts, absent the waiver and discount periods described above, for connectivity fees assessed to their Members and non-Members.

Port Fees

The Exchange proposes to establish Section 5)d), Port Fees, which will provide the fee structure and amounts for the different types of ports offered by the Exchange, which are described below. MIAX Sapphire has primary and secondary data centers and a disaster recovery center. Each port provides access to all Exchange data centers for a single fee. The Exchange notes that, unless otherwise specifically set forth in the Fee Schedule, the port fees include the information communicated through the port. That is, unless otherwise specifically set forth in the Fee Schedule, there is no additional charge for the information that is communicated through the port apart from what the user is assessed for each port.

Waiver Period. The Exchange proposes to waive all port fees during the Initial Waiver Period. Even though the Exchange proposes to fully waive all port fees during the Initial Waiver Period upon launching operations, the Exchange believes that is appropriate to provide market participants with the overall structure of the fees by outlining the structure and amounts in the Fee Schedule, so that there is general awareness that the Exchange intends to assess such fees upon the expiration of the defined period of the Initial Waiver Period.

FIX Port Fees

The Exchange proposes to establish Section 5)d)i), FIX Port Fees, pursuant to which the Exchange will assess FIX Port fees to Members in each month the Member is credentialed to use a FIX Port in the production environment and based upon the number of credentialed FIX Ports. In particular, the Exchange proposes to assess Members the following monthly FIX Port fees: (i) $275 for the 1st FIX Port; (ii) $175 per port for the 2nd through 5th FIX Ports; and (iii) $75 per port for the 6th FIX Port and each additional FIX Port. FIX Port fees will be waived during the Initial Waiver Period.

MEO Port Fees

The Exchange proposes to establish Section 5)d)ii), MEO Port Fees, pursuant to which the Exchange will assess MEO Port fees based upon the different types of MEO Ports offered by the Exchange. MIAX Sapphire offers different types of MEO Ports depending on the services required by Members.

The Exchange proposes to assess monthly Full Service MEO Port fees to Market Makers based upon the number of classes or class volume accessed by the Market Maker. MIAX Sapphire will assess monthly Full Service MEO Port fees to Market Makers in each month the Marker Maker has been credentialed to use the Full Service MEO Port in the production environment and has registered to quote in at least one class.

Specifically, the Exchange proposes to establish the following monthly Full Service MEO Port fees: (i) $2,500 for Market Maker registrations in up to 10 option classes or up to 20% of option classes by volume; (ii) $3,750 for Market Maker registrations in up to 40 option classes or up to 35% of option classes by volume; (iii) $5,000 for Market Maker registrations in up to 100 option classes or up to 50% of option classes by volume; and (iv) $6,000 for Market Maker registrations in over 100 option classes or over 50% of option classes by volume up to all option classes listed on MIAX Sapphire.

The Exchange also proposes to adopt footnote “b.” for its Full Service MEO Port fees that will apply to the Market Makers who fall within the following Full Service MEO Port fee levels, which represent the 3rd and 4th levels of the fee table: Market Makers who have (i) registrations in up to 100 option classes or up to 50% of option classes by volume, and (ii) registrations in over 100 option classes or over 50% of option classes by volume up to all option classes listed on MIAX Sapphire. The Exchange proposes that for these monthly Full Service MEO Port tier levels, if the Market Maker's total monthly executed volume during the relevant month is less than 0.015% of the total monthly executed volume reported by OCC in the Market Maker account type for MIAX Sapphire-listed option classes for that month, then the fee will be $4,000 instead of the fee otherwise applicable to such level ( i.e., $5,000 or $6,000).

The purpose of this proposed lower monthly Full Service MEO Port fee is to provide a lower fixed cost to those Market Makers who quote the entire Exchange market (or substantial amount of the Exchange market), as objectively measured by either number of classes assigned or national average daily volume (“ADV”), but who do not otherwise execute a significant amount of volume on the Exchange. The Exchange believes that, by offering lower fixed costs to Market Makers that execute less volume, the Exchange will retain and attract smaller-scale Market Makers, which are an integral component of the option industry marketplace, but have been decreasing in number in recent years, due to industry consolidation and lower market maker profitability. Since these smaller-scale Market Makers utilize less Exchange capacity due to lower overall volume executed, the Exchange believes it is reasonable and appropriate to offer such Market Makers a lower fixed cost. The Exchange notes that its affiliated markets, MIAX, MIAX Pearl, and MIAX Emerald, offer a similar reduced fee for their full service MEO/MEI ports for smaller-scale Market Makers. Accordingly, this concept is not novel.

For the calculation of the monthly Full Service MEO Port fees, the applicable fee rate is the lesser of either the per class basis or percentage of total national ADV measurement. The amount of the monthly Full Service MEO Port fee will be based upon the number of classes in which the Market Maker was registered to quote on any given day within the calendar month, or upon the class volume percentages set forth in the table in Section 5)d)ii) of the Fee Schedule. A Market Maker is determined to be registered in a class if that Market Maker has been registered in one or more series in that class. The Exchange will assess MIAX Sapphire Market Makers the monthly Full Service MEO Port fee based on the greatest number of classes listed on MIAX Sapphire that the MIAX Sapphire Market Maker registered to quote in on any given day within a calendar month. The class volume percentage is based on the total national average daily volume in classes listed on MIAX Sapphire in the prior calendar quarter. Newly listed option classes are excluded from the calculation of the monthly Full Service MEO Port fee until the calendar quarter following their listing, at which time the newly listed option classes will be included in both the per class count and the percentage of total national average daily volume.

MEO Port users will be allocated two (2) Full Service MEO Ports and four (4) Limited Service MEO Ports per Matching Engine to which they connect. MEO Port fees include MEO Ports at the primary, secondary and disaster recovery data centers. Market Makers may request additional Limited Service MEO Ports for which MIAX Sapphire proposes to assess Market Makers $250 per month per additional Limited Service MEO Port for each Matching Engine in excess of the four (4) Limited Service MEO Ports described above.

Full Service MEO Port fees and Limited Service MEO Port fees will be waived during the Initial Waiver Period.

Clearing Trade Drop Port Fees

The Exchange proposes to establish Section 5)d)iv), Clearing Trade Drop Port Fees. The Exchange proposes to assess a CTD Port fee of $450 per month. This fixed fee structure and amount is the same as the CTD Port fee in place at the Exchange's affiliate, MIAX Emerald. CTD Port fees will be waived during the Initial Waiver Period.

FIX Drop Copy Port Fees

The Exchange proposes to establish Section 5)d)v), Fix Drop Copy Port Fees. The Exchange proposes to assess an FXD Port fee of $250 per month. This fixed fee structure is the same as the FXD Port fee structure in place at the Exchange's affiliate, MIAX Emerald, and is half the price of the FXD Port fee for MIAX Emerald. FXD Port fees will be waived during the Initial Waiver Period.

As described more fully below, the Exchange provides a cost analysis to supports its proposed connectivity and port fees that includes, among other things, descriptions of how the Exchange allocated costs among it and its affiliated markets (MIAX, MIAX Pearl, and MIAX Emerald) to ensure no cost was allocated more than once, as well as additional detail supporting its cost allocation processes. The Exchange proposes connectivity and port fees that are intended to cover the Exchange's cost of providing connectivity and ports, with a reasonable mark-up over those costs.

2. Statutory Basis

The Exchange believes that the proposed fees are consistent with Section 6(b) of the Act in general, and furthers the objectives of Section 6(b)(4) of the Act in particular, in that it provides for the equitable allocation of reasonable dues, fees and other charges among Members and other persons using any facility or system which the Exchange operates or controls. The Exchange also believes the proposed fees further the objectives of Section 6(b)(5) of the Act in that they are designed to promote just and equitable principles of trade, remove impediments to and perfect the mechanism of a free and open market and a national market system, and, in general protect investors and the public interest and are not designed to permit unfair discrimination between customers, issuers, brokers and dealers.

Cost Analysis

In general, the Exchange believes that exchanges, in setting fees of all types, should meet very high standards of transparency to demonstrate why each new fee or fee increase meets the Exchange Act requirements that fees be reasonable, equitably allocated, not unfairly discriminatory, and not create an undue burden on competition among members and markets. In particular, the Exchange believes that each exchange should take extra care to be able to demonstrate that these fees are based on its costs and reasonable business needs.

In proposing to charge fees for connectivity and port services, the Exchange is especially diligent in assessing those fees in a transparent way against its own aggregate costs of providing the related service, and in carefully and transparently assessing the impact on Members—both generally and in relation to other Members, i.e., to assure the fee will not create a financial burden on any participant and will not have an undue impact in particular on smaller Members and competition among Members in general. The Exchange believes that this level of diligence and transparency is called for by the requirements of Section 19(b)(1) under the Act, and Rule 19b-4 thereunder, with respect to the types of information exchanges should provide when filing fee changes, and Section 6(b) of the Act, which requires, among other things, that exchange fees be reasonable and equitably allocated, not designed to permit unfair discrimination, and that they not impose a burden on competition not necessary or appropriate in furtherance of the purposes of the Act. This rule change proposal addresses those requirements, and the analysis and data in each of the sections that follow are designed to clearly and comprehensively show how they are met.

As detailed below, the Exchange recently calculated its aggregate annual costs (and approximations for monthly costs) for providing 1Gb and 10Gb ULL connectivity, Full Service MEO Ports, Limited Service MEO Ports, FIX Ports, CTD Ports, and FXD Ports. For physical 1Gb and 10Gb ULL connectivity combined, the Exchange calculated its aggregate annual cost to equal $6,620,300 (or approximately $551,692 per month, when rounded to the nearest dollar when dividing the combined annual cost by 12 months). For the various port services, the Exchange calculated the following annual costs: $605,907 for Full Service MEO Ports (or approximately $50,491 per month, when rounded to the nearest dollar when dividing the combined annual cost by 12 months); $600,608 for Limited Service MEO Ports (or approximately $50,050 per month, when rounded to the nearest dollar when dividing the combined annual cost by 12 months); $158,148 for FIX Ports (or approximately $13,178 per month, when rounded to the nearest dollar when dividing the combined annual cost by 12 months); $109,908 for CTD Ports (or approximately $9,158 per month, when rounded to the nearest dollar when dividing the combined annual cost by 12 months); and $36,637 for FXD Ports (or approximately $3,054 per month, when rounded to the nearest dollar when dividing the combined annual cost by 12 months). In order to cover the aggregate costs of providing connectivity and ports to its users (both Members and non-Members ) going forward and to make a modest profit for connectivity services, as described below, the Exchange proposes to modify its Fee Schedule to establish the connectivity and port fees described above, subject to certain fee waiver periods. The Exchange does not anticipate that it will make an overall profit on the various port services following the expiration of the Initial Waiver Period, on an annual basis, based on projected subscriber data.

The Exchange's affiliates previously completed a study of their aggregate costs to provide connectivity and port services and produce market data, defined above as its Cost Analysis. Personnel began to plan for and develop the Exchange beginning in early 2023, and costs included in this Cost Analysis are related to the development and buildout of the Exchange since that time. During the Exchange's development and buildout that occurred throughout 2023 and continues to today, the Exchange routinely studied its aggregate costs to provide connectivity and port services, which were used to determine the proposed pricing for the provisions of connectivity and port services that are part of the Exchange's Cost Analysis. The Cost Analysis required a detailed analysis of the Exchange's aggregate baseline costs, including a determination and allocation of costs for core services provided by the Exchange—transaction execution, market data, membership services, physical connectivity, and port access (which provide order entry, cancellation and modification functionality, risk functionality, the ability to receive drop copies, and other functionality). The Exchange separately divided its costs between those costs necessary to deliver each of these core services, including infrastructure, software, human resources ( i.e., personnel), and certain general and administrative expenses (“cost drivers”).

As an initial step, the Exchange determined the total cost for the Exchange and the affiliated markets for each cost driver as part of its 2024 budget review process. The 2024 budget review is a company-wide process that occurs over the course of many months, includes meetings among senior management, department heads, and the Finance Team. Each department head is required to send a “bottom up” budget to the Finance Team allocating costs at the profit and loss account and vendor levels for the Exchange and its affiliated markets based on a number of factors, including server counts, additional hardware and software utilization, current or anticipated functional or non-functional development projects, capacity needs, end-of-life or end-of-service intervals, number of members, market model ( e.g., price time or pro-rata, simple only or simple and complex markets, auction functionality, etc.), which may impact message traffic, individual system architectures that impact platform size, storage needs, dedicated infrastructure versus shared infrastructure allocated per platform based on the resources required to support each platform, number of available connections, and employees allocated time. For the 2024 budget process for MIAX Sapphire, only costs and anticipated revenues associated with the electronic exchange were considered. While MIAX Sapphire plans on opening its trading floor in 2025 costs and anticipated revenues from the trading floor were not included as part of any analysis for MIAX Sapphire for 2024. All of these factors result in different allocation percentages among the Exchange and its affiliated markets, i.e., the different percentages of the overall cost driver allocated to the Exchange and its affiliated markets will cause the dollar amount of the overall cost allocated among the Exchange and its affiliated markets to also differ. Because the Exchange's parent company currently owns and operates four separate and distinct marketplaces, the Exchange must determine the costs associated with each actual market—as opposed to the Exchange's parent company simply concluding that all costs drivers are the same at each individual marketplace and dividing total cost by five (5) (evenly for each marketplace). Rather, the Exchange's parent company determines an accurate cost for each marketplace, which results in different allocations and amounts across exchanges for the same cost drivers, due to the unique factors of each marketplace as described above. This allocation methodology also ensures that no cost would be allocated twice or double-counted between the Exchange and its affiliated markets. The Finance Team then consolidates the budget and sends it to senior management, including the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Executive Officer, for review and approval. Next, the budget is presented to the Board of Directors and the Finance and Audit Committees for each exchange for their approval. The above steps encompass the first step of the cost allocation process.

The next step involves determining what portion of the cost allocated to the Exchange pursuant to the above methodology is to be allocated to each core service, e.g., connectivity and ports, market data, and transaction services. The Exchange and its affiliated markets adopted an allocation methodology with thoughtful and consistently applied principles to guide how much of a particular cost amount allocated to the Exchange should be allocated within the Exchange to each core service. This is the final step in the cost allocation process and is applied to each of the cost drivers set forth below. For instance, fixed costs that are not driven by client activity ( e.g., message rates), such as data center costs, were allocated more heavily to the provision of 10Gb ULL physical connectivity (57.7% of total expense amount allocated to 10Gb ULL connectivity), with smaller allocations to Full Service MEO Ports (1.6%) and Limited Service MEO Ports (1.6%), and the remainder to the provision of other connectivity, other ports, transaction execution, membership services and market data services (39.1%). This next level of the allocation methodology at the individual exchange level also took into account factors similar to those set forth under the first step of the allocation methodology process described above, to determine the appropriate allocation to connectivity or market data versus allocations for other services. This allocation methodology was developed through an assessment of costs with senior management intimately familiar with each area of the Exchange's operations. After adopting this allocation methodology, the Exchange then applied an allocation of each cost driver to each core service, resulting in the cost allocations described below. Each of the below cost allocations is unique to the Exchange and represents a percentage of overall cost that was allocated to the Exchange pursuant to the initial allocation described above.

By allocating segmented costs to each core service, the Exchange was able to estimate by core service the potential margin it might earn based on different fee models. The Exchange notes that as a non-listing venue it has five primary sources of revenue that it can potentially use to fund its operations: transaction fees, fees for connectivity and port services, membership fees, regulatory fees, and market data fees. Accordingly, the Exchange must cover its expenses from these five primary sources of revenue. The Exchange also notes that as a general matter each of these sources of revenue is based on services that are interdependent. For instance, the Exchange's system for executing transactions is dependent on physical hardware and connectivity; only Members and parties that they sponsor to participate directly on the Exchange may submit orders to the Exchange; many Members (but not all) consume market data from the Exchange in order to trade on the Exchange; and the Exchange consumes market data from external sources in order to comply with regulatory obligations. Accordingly, given this interdependence, the allocation of costs to each service or revenue source required judgment of the Exchange and was weighted based on estimates of the Exchange that the Exchange believes are reasonable, as set forth below. While there is no standardized and generally accepted methodology for the allocation of an exchange's costs, the Exchange's methodology is the result of an extensive review and analysis and will be consistently applied going forward for any other potential fee proposals. In the absence of the Commission attempting to specify a methodology for the allocation of exchanges' interdependent costs, the Exchange will continue to be left with its best efforts to attempt to conduct such an allocation in a thoughtful and reasonable manner.

Through the Exchange's extensive updated Cost Analysis, which was again recently further refined, the Exchange analyzed every expense item in the Exchange's general expense ledger to determine whether each such expense relates to the provision of connectivity and port services, and, if such expense did so relate, what portion (or percentage) of such expense actually supports the provision of connectivity and port services, and thus bears a relationship that is, “in nature and closeness,” directly related to network connectivity and port services. In turn, the Exchange allocated certain costs more to physical connectivity and others to ports, while certain costs were only allocated to such services at a very low percentage or not at all, using consistent allocation methodologies as described above. Based on this analysis, the Exchange estimates that the aggregate monthly costs for connectivity and ports are as follows: $532,820 for 10Gb ULL connectivity; $18,872 for 1Gb connectivity; $50,491 for Full Service MEO Ports; $50,050 for Limited Service MEO Ports; $13,178 for FIX Ports; $9,158 for CTD Ports; and $3,054 for FXD Ports (all calculations utilized the number rounded to the nearest dollar when dividing the annual cost for each type of connectivity or port by 12 months), as further detailed below.

Costs Related to Offering Physical 1Gb and 10Gb ULL Connectivity

The following charts detail the individual line-item costs considered by the Exchange to be related to offering physical dedicated 1Gb and 10Gb ULL connectivity as well as the percentage of the Exchange's overall costs that such costs represent for each cost driver ( e.g., as set forth below, the Exchange allocated approximately 1.2% of its overall Human Resources cost to offering 1Gb connectivity and 34.5% to offering 10Gb ULL physical connectivity).