A follow on to my post, because it's got me thinking about "Network Neutrality". What we have is old world scenarios not matching the new world order. Let's do some diagrams. The way things used to be, scenario #1: Segment A Segment B Segment C Segment D | | | Server---> <---ISP #1---> <---ISP #2---> <---Client Back in the day, the server operator paid for segments A and B, the client paid for segments C and D. The peering between the two ISP's was about making sure the costs of Segment B and Segment C were approximately the same, in the aggregate. The first evolution of this was for the folks running the servers to "merge" with ISP #1, creating a generation of data center based content "ISP"'s, typically located in or near major US exchange points. In essence this made the picture look like scenario #2: Segment B Segment C Segment D | | Server ISP---> <---ISP #2---> <---Client This made a lot of folks like ISP #2 unhappy. Their segment C costs remained the same, but by consolidating and shrinking the costs of segments A and B into a much shorter B the server side folks were seen as not taking their fair share of the costs. This lead to peering friction between these folks. The server folks cried foul, after all it cost millions to build out infrastructure in all of these locations, so while their backbone cost was not as high, they were eating a lot of cost in space and power and servers. The second evolution though was the CDN, which in fact didn't do a backbone at all. They said rather than buy colo space, or build our own colos all of which is expensive, we'll take the money we would have spent on colo and give it directly to ISP #2, for space and power very near the end users. This gives us scenario #3. Segment B Segment C Segment D | | Rest of the Internet---> <---ISP #2+--> <---Client | +--> <---Server The ISP #2 guys loved this, finally a way for them to cut backbone costs, and in fact the server folks were willing to pay them for the privilege. Now, what does this have to do with network neutrality? Well, I've never seen a good definition of what the term really means, but there seems to generally be a feeling that folks should be able to gain access to consumers (the Clients) on more or less a fair and level playing field. That sounds like a great concept, but the problem comes when you look at the reality of scenarios #1, #2, and #3 above. I don't want Network Neutrality to come at the expense of making one or more of these scenarios impossible. We don't want to say you can never do #3 just so everything is fair. However the costs of these three scenarios are neither the same intotal, nor are they divided the same. If my speculation is right here what various business folks have gone and done in the Comcast/Level 3 situation is to replumb a scenario #3 setup into a scenario #1 setup, effectively rolling the clock back to a previous time. This will cost everyone more money, as more bits move further. Strangely, in may in fact be more fair in that both sides pay more similar costs, but they are in fact, higher costs. In essence Comcast/Limelight&Akamai had figured out how to do this for a $1 cost to Comcast and a $1 cost to Akamai, and now Level 3 is doing it in a way that costs them $2 and Comcast $2. Level 3 says it is fair because they pay the same cost, Comcast says it is not because their costs are raised. Comcast offers Level 3 the $1 solution, but it's not L3's business model so it would cost them $3 to go set that up, and they think that is unfair. This situation thus finally allows me to articulate something that has been rambling around in my head for years, but only now makes sense. The only way you can create a network neutrality model that is fair to all players is to regulate the market into a single scenario. If you picked any one of the above and forced everyone into it, then you could also enforce that anyone could play for the same price. However, as long as we allow the different scenarios it can never be fair, someone in scenario #1 will always have different costs than in scenario #2 or #3. It's a sort of "separate but equal" that never turns out to be equal. The funny thing about peering to me has always been that everyone keeps their dealings as secret as possible. They don't want to disclose costs, interconnect locations, speeds or other details. Everyone wants to believe they are getting a better deal than the next guy due to their amazing negotiations, and they don't want to give up that advantage. The reality is though that all parties are using the secrecy of these dealings to hide the myriad of ways they screw each other and their competitors because they don't know there are better deals to be had elsewhere. Perhaps better than Network Neutrality would be a situation where any time two networks interconnected they had to disclose the location, speed, and amount of money changing hands to be compiled in a searchable, public database. :) -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/