On Mar 29, 2005, at 3:27 PM, John Dupuy wrote:
I guess I'm looking at this too much from the point of view of a BGP Admin.
Yes, if you are looking at this from the point of view of payment, then the top ISPs do not pay each other.
I was looking at it from a route announcement point of view. Transit is where AS A advertises full routes to AS B. Thus, AS B is getting transit from A. Peering is where A & B only advertise their network and, possibly, the networks that stub or purchase transit from them.
It is my understanding that the top ISPs "trade transit". They provide full routes to each other without payment, regardless of how or where the route was learned from. They are willing to pass some traffic without compensation because it makes for better connectivity. From an announcement POV they are not peering.
I am still curious: do any of the larger ISPs on this list want to confirm/deny the previous paragraph?
I would be AMAZINGLY interested if anyone confirms the above paragraph. AFAIK, 701/1239/209/etc. do not give full tables to _anyone_ unless they are paid. Someone care to correct me? -- TTFN, patrick