What? Are you kidding? Where does it say anywhere that UUNet is required to connect/peer with anyone? Just because you are at a MAE doesn't give you the rught to peer. I think anyone who sues over the pulling of peering is simply crying like a little girl. The only mistake I think UU Net (or any for that matter) every made was to peer with smaller networks in the first place.
UUNet could disconnect all of them right now. Why does it not? If UUNet leaves all of the smaller networks unhooked, it may just be that UUNet is left in the lurch. At some point UUNet will not be seen to have universal connectivity and at that point their bragging about being a backbone won't matter much. UUNet still needs the little guys -- in whole -- just as much as the little guys need UUNet. UUNet will have to keep away from the Genuity NAPs, won't it? Don't the Genuity NAPs require full/complete peering? I have a feeling that an uneasy peace will soon be called, one in which business on the Net is as usual. Is anyone expecting an apocolypse of sorts? When CIX said that they were going to start charging, they started out at $10,000 entry. Karl D. had membership for MCS, but then turned on CIX when he didn't like the way the organization was run. The AGIS Internet network (Net99) was formed out of the resistance to CIX's exclusive routing announcements. When all was said and done with the announcements and the due dates, CIX failed to demonstrate its ability to manage such specific exclusivity. I think that UUNet may have the same type of problem if it has to live up to its announcements. Granted, it is easier to open up "peers" when they pay you than it is to seperate out connections in which neither end is a CIX member -- but UUNet can't just shut things down and then open them up slowly -- they'd be roasted alive. One first thinks that it is only the little guys get burned with their customers when the little guy is seperated from a backbone operation such as UUNet's. But the only thing is that out of the vast numbers of UUNet customers or indirect UUNet subscribers, there will be many who notice that a connection to the little guy is no longer possible -- and they will complain up the chain to UUNet. Just responding to those complaints is a massive amount of work and expense. I think the message we should get from all of this is that even with the premium pricing of UUNet, Sprint, MCI, etc. there is great pain and disappointment over the ROI for backbone operators. Costs seem to progress geometrically on linear increases in revenue.