Curtis Maurand <curtis@lamere.net> writes:
A rose by any other name... The fact is, and history shows us, that when cartels form, things get bad for the consumer. Oil, Electricity, telecomm. However, The placement of the NAP's is disconcerting, because the process for choosing them was closed. Does it make sense for all of my traffic going to maine.rr.com from lamere.net (both in Maine and in the same communities) to exchange traffic at MAE east 650 miles away?
See other mail on this same topic. The placement of the NAPs was not a closed process. If you want to exchange traffic directly with maine.rr.com, you should approach them directly and see if you can work out an arrangement with them. Be prepared to make a business and technical case that is appealing to both sides. This may come as a surprise to you, but being at an exchange point is not a guarantee that any particular organization that is there will be willing to trade traffic with your organization. There's no advantage to being at an exchange point other than quickness of provisioning connections between companies; you still have to meet whatever criteria your prospective partner sets forth for traffic exchange.
I don't see this as a bad thing. What you say about price equalization followed by increases may be true, but it seems unlikely to me for a few reasons.
1. There's a fiber 6glut.
There won't be if the Tier-1's all form a "consotium." They will collude on network build out and stop competing with each other. If you think that's not true, think again.
It's hard enough to get backbone providers to cooperate on legal stuff, let alone collude to perform illegal restraint of trade. If none of the big boys takes you seriously, it is probably not a conspiracy, just confirmation that you're small fry. But hey, we could all be wrong, in which case you can at least hitch a ride of Vijay's flying pig... ---Rob