Sean M. Doran wrote:
Remember Yakov's route push and route pull model.
These are pretty much equivalent - if both parties follow them and have similar mix of packet sources and sinks. My take is that the simplest combination of "neutral ground" public IXPs and no-transit backbones contains an interesting economical negative feedback effectively preventing market monopolization. (I.e. the bigger backbones have to carry more traffic, thus neutralizing advantages of the economies of scale). In this respect, the mandated settlement-free NAP connectivity (no matter how disliked by backbone ISPs) is a good thing. Eventually FCC will have to come up with interconnection rules, and i suspect they will take a dim view on the continuing backbone consolidation and exclusion of smaller players. OTOH, the costs of peering with a lot of small folks are non-trivial. I would expect IXP operators to start offering the route clearing-house services on commercial basis. Assuming that the mandated settlement-free exchanges are likely to be the future direction of regulatory push, the hot-potato routing seems to be the best approach. You simply act in your selfish interest by pushing packets off your backbone asap. --vadim