On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 11:40 AM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:
Traffic Symmetry is a distraction that the $ACCESS_PROVIDERS would like us to focus on.
The reality is that $ACCESS_PROVIDERS want us to focus on that so that we don’t see what is really going on which is a battle to deeper (or avoid increasing peering capacity with) networks they think they can force to pay them more money.
This is an age old tactic and it isn’t unique to $ACCESS_PROVIDERS. The larger $BACKBONE_PROVIDERS did it in the past, too. The first one was a railroad company turned telecom. Then came the remnants of PSI. Today, it’s the largest $ACCESS_PROVIDERS. Usually, this just results in harm to both sides and eventually a loss of subscribers. The $ACCESS_PROVIDERS have an advantage in the latter as they mostly avoid loss of subscribers through the fact that the subscribers don’t have anywhere else that they can usefully go.
Owen
I agree it's a distraction from the primary reason behind it; today, networks using traffic ratios as the excuse why peering 'doesn't make sense'; even if the traffic ratios are balanced, though, I'm sure there would be another requirement, such as minimum number of prefixes announced (mass deaggregation should meet that one), minimum number of downstream ASNs announced (a 4-byte ASN for every rack switch cluster should handle that one), minimum backbone size (isn't everyone already doing 100G at this point?), present on multiple continents (isn't everyone?). When you get right down to it, though, it's all just hand waving around the age-old question of "how many entities can I push to pay, without going too far, and alienating the entire rest of the internet?" In years gone by, that line was relatively conservative; hosting spammers, for example, was thought to be a sure kiss of death that would lead all other networks to shun you, effectively cutting you off from the internet community. However, I think we've all seen that our notion of the power of the community was overstated; internet-wide shunning didn't materialize, we failed at being able to cut spammers off to a level that would make it unprofitable, and we still have thread after thread about BCP 38 compliance. Seeing that, it's really not surprising that networks would become bolder, no longer fearing widespread disapproval or community disaffection for actions that might have seemed more extreme in years past. I mean, at this point we can't even seem to effectively shame people into not leaking deaggregated prefixes, in spite of the weekly email to the list naming names, and in spite of Patrick's exhortations. Given all that, it really isn't all that suprising that a certain 3-digit ASN is trying to pull games like this, refusing to augment capacity in the hopes they can use their customer base as leverage. They've realized the internet has no teeth, so they can act with impunity. It's sad to see, but somehow, it's not all that surprising. So yes, Owen--I agree with you; it's not a new tactic, it's just being carried out more brazenly and with less and less fear of community opprobrium. Matt