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Re: Generation of traffic in "settled" peering arrangement
by John Curran 25 Aug '98

25 Aug '98

At 04:14 PM 08/24/1998 -0700, Patrick Greenwell wrote: >The net effect is that the transit provider is double-dipping, >and it costs the receiver twice to receive the data. > >Somehow this doesn't seem to be very attractive to me. You're paying half the cost currently, the sender (presuming they're transit or a relatively balanced peer) is paying the other half. /John

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Re: Generation of traffic in "settled" peering arrangement
by owen＠DeLong.SJ.CA.US 25 Aug '98

25 Aug '98

> p.s. The fact that the sender of traffic should be paying some portion > of the resulting costs is not a surprise to anyone; many of the > content companies that I've spoken to believe they already are > paying more as traffic increases, and were quite surprised to > find that it doesn't actually make it to the networks which > bear the brunt of the traffic carriage. > > p.p.s. As noted, departure from shortest-exit is also another approach > which may provide some answers to this situation, but that's a > different topic which deserves its own thread. This message > is simply noting that settling for peering traffic is quite > viable, despite assertions to the contrary regarding traffic > generation. As long as you're billing the senders on your > network for increased usage (and handing it off shortest-exit), > increased traffic is good thing. > Except, John, that you ignore the fact that you have basically required anyone who wants to put a high-bandwidth server on your network to accept other people writing a blank check for them, regardless of the legitimacy of the hits they receive. I doubt the customer would be too happy if your peering policy suddenly tripled their bill. Owen

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Re: Generation of traffic in "settled" peering arrangement
by Paul Vixie 25 Aug '98

25 Aug '98

> Are you saying that someone should be forced to pay for the privilege of > offering something for free to your customers? Things that your customers, > who I number among are requesting? I don't know what he was saying, but I'll say something like it: gatekeeper, wuarchive, cdrom.com, and other archives of free stuff are going to have to do some kind of micropayment scheme -- charge for downloads in other words -- in order to pay their own costs to their providers, in order that those providers are able to pay THEIR costs, in transit they buy or in glass they lease or whatever. The Internet backbone's growth has been all about barriers to entry and in special deals. People have been buying their provisioning at flat rate or with other subsidies, and reselling it at variable rates to folks who came later or otherwise didn't have access to, or knowledge of, the special deals of the pioneers. Eventually these special deals run out of time, or run out of bandwidth, and a true (cost-driven) market economy is developing. What we're seeing now is just SO inevitable. -- Paul Vixie La Honda, CA "Many NANOG members have been around <paul(a)vix.com> longer than most." --Jim Fleming pacbell!vixie!paul (An H.323 GateKeeper for the IPv8 Network)

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Re: Transaction Based Settlements Encourage Waste (was Re: B
by Sean Butler 24 Aug '98

24 Aug '98

Mike Leber wrote: >You appear to be missing the point that there are perfect legitimate and >non fraudulent ways of increasing the amount of traffic generated. For >example, simply pay all your web hosting clients based on the amount of >traffic generated. Then instruct them on ways to maximize their revenue >using methods that don't overly annoy users. For example: > >1) implement anticaching measures (both antibrowser cache and anti >transparent proxy cache) > >2) make their pages automatically reload every minute to show some dynamic >indicator (say, the temperature and humiditty outside). > >3) use lots of very long streaming data. They should have sound on every >page (and the sound files should be 3 weeks of data). That way if >somebody visits your client's site and then goes to lunch or home for the >weekend the web site is still generating revenue by playing this huge >sound file because the visitor's browser was left viewing your client's >nice site. My argument was that in addition to the peering settlement charges, each network would charge their customers for the traffic they generate. So, if you ask your web hosting customers to add traffic, and actually pay them for that, then my customers that request content from yours get a bigger bill than they used to. My customers stop going to your customers site. (I'll provide them with an itemized bill that lets them see what cost so much and why.) Your customers figure out they are getting a free internet connection from you (since you are now subsidizing their connection/traffic cost), but they are no longer getting any business from their customers. I imagine they take off the extra traffic real quick. And the numbers I am talking about would be quite small. Enough for the average dial user to retain a bill that is near $20/month. However, for those that generate much more, they'd get billed more. Now at the peering points, when you have thousands of dial in users requesting content, and you are on the short end of the traffic exchange in terms of byte count, so you'll have to pay the large content ISP, you can pass that on to your many dial customers. It would be similar on the content size -- you can charge based on the traffic they generate, but most likley, this will be a small small amount, since you be getting money from your peers. Again, this requires all ISP's to do per usage based fees -- not just one or two ISPs could start to do it, or they'd lose all their customers. I'm not saying to use the current flat rate costs *and* charge for usage, but lower the flat rate (or make it nothing or next to nothing) and then charge for usage. Shouldn't those users that generate the most traffic on your network pay for it? For number 3, if you are paying for traffic you receive, you no longer get up and go to lunch with your internet connection running! One thing I hadn't thought about, that your post brought out... If I cache, I am charging my customers for traffic they request, even though I only had to pay for it once... Not sure that passes the ethics committee. I know settlement based peering and usage based charges for your customers is not without many problems, but I think they can be worked out. I think settlements without usage based charges has no chance, as traffic generators can then run free. But when someone is paying for the traffic, bogus traffic would stop. There may be some period of instability as all Internet customers get used to it, but I think it could come around. And it is my take that you can catch non-legit traffic, and if the penalties for creating such traffic are high enough, it would happen infrequently. I know others feel that you can always generate bogus traffic that is not tractable, but if the technology is not there today, it is not far away. Sean ___________________________________ Sean Butler, CCIE #3897 IBM Global Services -- OpenNet Support Phone: 8-631-9809, 813-523-7353 Fax: 8-427-5475 813-878-5475 Internet email: sebutler(a)us.ibm.com

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Re: Transaction Based Settlements Encourage Waste (was Re: B
by Sean Butler 24 Aug '98

24 Aug '98

>> Transaction Based Settlements Encourage Waste I think everyone agrees that the above statement is true in today's Internet model, where customers are charged flat rates for their connections. But if we change the peering model, why should we not change the model for charging customers? If we do that, then settlements can work, and the problem of metrics for how to charge should become much easier... Take the aggregate traffic from A --> B, and from B--> A, and whoever receives more bits pays the other provider. Say it is A that has to pay B, as B is a big content provider and A is a big dial ISP. Now, if A charges $19.95/month flat rate to all of its dial users, A instantly loses. But if A charges its dial customers based on the bits received, or time connected, perhaps it becomes more even. Network A can't win in a settlement based peering relationship unless he passes the costs on to his customers, and at flat-rates, whether it is dial up or leased line, that is not happening. So, charge the content provider for outbound *and* inbound traffic. This can and should be subsidized by advertisers, as the more 'hits' that site generates, the more $$ you can charge. (Of course, this only works when advertisers are willing to pay to be on your site, but if they aren't willing, either your site has content that doesn't have mass appeal or the advertiser doesn't want to be associated with your content. For the former, you probably aren't getting enough hits to worry about usage based costs. For the latter, find another advertiser or someone else to pay...) For the dialup user, charge him a lower fixed monthly cost of, say $5, but charge him for the traffic to and from him. What's the cost? Whatever it takes to make money while remaining competitive! There are still problems with DOS based attacks, but those need to be resolved anyway. As for writing 'fraudulant apps' that generate asymmetric flows to try to 'even out' the peering relationship, it doesn't work anymore for creating flow in to your own network. Your paying the other provider because they are sending you more traffic than you are sending them. For the opposite direction, if you can write an app that sends more traffic out to the other network, you'll need a valid host to talk to. I'm sure the other provider won't have one of their own machines doing that, so you'll need a customer of the other network to receive that traffic. But now that they are charged for it, that won't happen. (I'm sure someone out there can think of ways around this, but I imagine there are solutions to them. If its fraudulent traffic, and you face serious fines and/or periods of time where you have to shut down your network, would you really take the chance?) Of course, the first ISP that starts to do usage-based charges may stand a good chance of losing many of their customers, so this would have to be Industry wide. And the peering charges would have to be the same (or at least on the same order of magnitude) between all ISPs, or peering imbalances will quickly be created. Thus, there will most likely have to be, at a minimum, an Independent Peering Council, or at worst, government regulation, to make this happen. :-( DISCLAIMER: I'm not advocating this solution, and it may or may not express the views of my employer. I should also state that I am doing my M.S. Thesis on "The Evolution of Peering." Any original ideas I see on nanog (or com-priv, where this discussion really should be) will be quoted as such! Sean ___________________________________ Sean Butler, CCIE #3897 IBM Global Services -- OpenNet Support Phone: 8-631-9809, 813-523-7353 Fax: 8-427-5475 813-878-5475 Internet email: sebutler(a)us.ibm.com

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RE: BBN/GTEI
by Jason Zigmont 24 Aug '98

24 Aug '98

Really the answer to all of the peering questions is that it is one big game of chicken. You have four players: Exodus GTEI/BBN Exodus's customers BBN's Customers The real question is who will pull out first. I do not agree with GTEI/BBN's tactics, but unfortunately they need to do what they need to do. The nature of peering is that it is voluntary. Therefore people can choose what their peering policy is. If Exodus gives in first then GTEI won. If GTEI gives in then Exodus and the rest of the smaller players win. (Which is better, of course). Which side will win is dependant on the customers. This is the danger of running a network dependant strictly on peering arrangements. But a network of peering is cheaper then one that is backed up by transit circuits. But this is a different business model then Exodus. No matter what happens, the end result will be a corner stone of what the Internet will become. Its not a technical issue. Its a business issue. There may be technical justifications, but it is still a business issue. Jason ____________________________________________________ Jason Zigmont (N1JIV) jzigmont(a)globalcenter.net Senior Account Executive 212.618.9625 (V) Frontier GlobalCenter 212.571.2036 (F) http://www.globalcenter.net 1.888.795.3124(Pager) Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail http://www.cauce.org

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Re: Generation of traffic in "settled" peering arrangement
by owen＠DeLong.SJ.CA.US 24 Aug '98

24 Aug '98

> At 11:00 AM 08/24/1998 -0700, Owen DeLong wrote: > >... > >Except, John, that you ignore the fact that you have basically required > >anyone who wants to put a high-bandwidth server on your network to accept > >other people writing a blank check for them, regardless of the legitimacy > >of the hits they receive. > > Owen, > > Clarify... right now, many organizations with high-speed connections > to the Internet pay based on usage (including traffic sent). Doesn't > anyone on a usage-sensitive leased-line connection pay based on the > traffic regardless of the "legitimacy" of the hits received? Isn't > this why we all hunt down SMURFers? > > /John > > To some extent that's true. However, as a counter-point, consider such sites as sunsite, wustl, smc.vnet.net, etc. I doubt those sites would continue to exist in a solely bandwidth sensitive pay-as-you-go world. I think they count on flat rate connectivity to be able to continue to exist. I don't think the elimination of those sites (and many others like them) would benefit the net. Do you? Owen

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RE: BBN/GTEI
by owen＠DeLong.SJ.CA.US 24 Aug '98

24 Aug '98

> This ignores the fact that both companies have paying customers. If I am a > BBN access customer and I cannot get to any sites, then what good is BBN to > me? As an access provider, I built a access infrastructure and I get payed > by my customer for providing it to them (include in this cost is the price > to connect to content providers). If I am a Exodus customer and I pay for > hosting, Exodus is no good to me if it doesn't have any viewers. Exodus > built a hosting infrastructure, its customers pay for the right to use that > infrastructure(included in this cost is the price to connect to viewers). So > both companies need each other. Both companies get payed for providing a > service. Where is the problem? Why should BBN get a cut of what Exodus's > cutomers pay? BBN is trying to get payed to provide something it needs to > from Exodus. If BBN needs it, why would Exodus pay for it? Isn't BBN trying > to get payed twice? > If you are a BBN access customer, then you BUY TRANSIT FROM BBN. That's not ignored below, that puts you in the category of people that should make noise. Personally, I agree with your position. Owen > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Michael Dillon [SMTP:michael@memra.com] > > Sent: Friday, August 21, 1998 9:13 AM > > To: list(a)inet-access.net > > Subject: Re: BBN/GTEI > > > > On Fri, 21 Aug 1998, Brian Wallingford wrote: > > > > > If you don't peer with or buy > > > transit from GTEI, sit back, shut up, and watch and learn (seriously - > > > WATCH and LEARN). > > > > This is seriously good advice. A lot of people have compared this to the > > UUNet peering flap but the two incidents couldn't be more different. In > > UUNet's case you had John Sidgemore, an economist, attempting to throw his > > weight around and push towards a paid peering scenario with a cartel at > > the core, all of this based solely on an economics viewpoint. > > > > But with BBN, there is a network engineering problem at the core of the > > issue, that of assymmetric traffic patterns. And BBN realizes that this > > sort of assymmetry will become more and more common in the future and that > > the industry needs to find some sort of hybrid peering/settlement > > mechanism that will work for both parties in an asymmetric arrangement. > > They are looking at things like what kind of methodology can be used to > > measure the traffic, what constitutes free balanced peering, how to charge > > for regional transit on traffic that exceeds the limits of balanced > > peering, and similar difficult issues. > > > > I believe that the reason we are not hearing many details is that there > > are NDAs in place about the specifics of the Exodus, AboveNet and CRL > > peering contracts. But sooner or later those companies will come to some > > sort of agreement and BBN will explain the rationale behind their > > thinking. We may not totally agree with that rationale, but I think we can > > all see that establishing peering between two specialty providers has to > > be handled a bit differently than between two full-service providers. > > > > And if BBN's ideas can be refined and accepted by the industry, then we > > will be in a better position because there will be an established > > methodology and pricing structure for an ISP to transition from full > > transit to full peering. I know from my experience with Priori that a lot > > of peering negotiations happen like an old-boys club cartel and if you > > ain't a member of the club, you can't get in. We need to change this so > > that there is an open process by which anyone can transition to being a > > peer based on an open and accepted methodology and pricing structure. > > > > -- > > Michael Dillon - Internet & ISP Consulting > > Memra Communications Inc. - E-mail: michael(a)memra.com > > Check the website for my Internet World articles - http://www.memra.com > > > > >

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Re: Generation of traffic in "settled" peering arrangement
by Sean M. Doran 24 Aug '98

24 Aug '98

John Curran wrote (to someone not really worth bothering with): | Clarify... right now, many organizations with high-speed connections | to the Internet pay based on usage (including traffic sent). Doesn't | anyone on a usage-sensitive leased-line connection pay based on the | traffic regardless of the "legitimacy" of the hits received? Isn't | this why we all hunt down SMURFers? Moreover, the technology to mitigate the damage caused by an increase in demands on a traffic-generating service is straightforward. Several companies have inventive solutions for doing admissions control and traffic shaping, and several even more interesting efforts (notably some work on congestion- sensitive admissions control, which seeks to impose TCP-like congestion avoidance on fundamentally non-congestion-avoiding traffic) are being worked upon. As Scott Huddle noted a number of days ago, a source of traffic in theory *ALWAYS* has it in its power to control the volume and pattern of its transmissions. As right now, most such sources are in easy reach of practical ways of controlling the volume and pattern of its admissions for very low (or no) cost, a wise source of traffic in a sender-pays settlements-based world will already have been investigating ways of optimizing their traffic output. The one nit in John's followup is that in a sender-pays settlements-based world we do not have to hunt down SMURFers, or flooders -- providing they pay the larger bills based on the larger amount of traffic, the affected targets will have necessary revenue to adapt to such things, either through building bigger pipes or building systems to stop such traffic before one's egress interface (to avoid having to pay the next network along for all the flood traffic). Sean.

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Re: Transaction Based Settlements Encourage Waste (was Re: B
by Sean Butler 24 Aug '98

24 Aug '98

>Or, let's say A finds artificial ways to send more >traffic to B to balance it out so they get charged >less. Hmmm... I don't see any way changing the charging >model addresses that. I think that if both the source of the traffic and the destination, i.e. the sender and receiver, have to pay for the traffic they get and receive, that it is much more difficult to come up with schemes to 'even out' the flow.. Continued below. >I don't think that good content should have to succumb >to advertising littering it's pages in order to support >itself. I don't think that ftp.cs.berkeley.edu should >have to install ADs in the readme files so that you >see an ad everytime you go to download sendmail, as >an example. Get real. Advertising is just one way the content provider can generate money. If it is content that someone wants, shouldn't they pay for it? If the business model changes so that traffic starts to cost something to the users at both ends, per usage rather than flat rate, someone has to pay. If that content provider is idealogically opposed to advertsing, then they better fnid someway to pay. >In fact, it's easier to generate what you want to a >host that doesn't respond. No need to worry about the >responses counteracting your intent. I'm not sure how >you would distinguish fraudulent traffic to enforce >such a provision. Afterall, it could look like a port >scanner, or any number of other things. Hmm. I think that if network A continuously generates traffic to a host on network B that doesn't exist, this would be easy to catch. For instance, Cisco's netflow shows traffic flow to and from source and destination. If its all one way, then it is invalid traffic. I see that there are issues with this, especially with today's tools, but I don't think it is impossible to catch fraudulent traffic. I would also say that there is no need for settelements until you reach some scale of difference. Whether that is an order of magnitude, or some smaller scale, doesn't matter to much. But when you do this, I think it quickly becomes obvious when you start to get enough invalid traffic to pass that threshhold... >> Thus, there will most likely have to be, at a minimum, >> an Independent Peering Council, or at worst, government >>regulation, to make this happen. :-( >The worst would be if this did happen. The proposal has >_WAY_ too many holes and sounds like exactly the kind of >proposal that is why we all dread regulation so much. I agree that noone wants regulation, but I don't see an Independent Peering Group, or a group that has board members from many ISP's as a bad thing. I don't know if such a group could ever come to an agreement, but that is another story. As for the holes, you listed a couple. That people can generate fraudulent traffic and it isn't easy to catch was one -- I think if it isn't easy today, it will be soon, especially if you need it to survive as an ISP. And the other I saw was that advertising shouldn't be needed to generate the $$ the content provider needs to pay usage based charges vs. flat-rate. All I can say is there are other means to generate money, and the content providers will do so if they have to to stay on-line. Again, not advocating this is the way to go, nor expressing the views of my employer... Sean ___________________________________ Sean Butler, CCIE #3897 IBM Global Services -- OpenNet Support Phone: 8-631-9809, 813-523-7353 Fax: 8-427-5475 813-878-5475 Internet email: sebutler(a)us.ibm.com

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