On Sun, 29 Sep 1996, William Allen Simpson wrote:
It has appeared to me for some time (and I've mentioned it before) that peering "restrictions" have gotten completely out of hand. I believe this is because terminology and agreements for "peering" and "transit" have become ill defined.
Many would argue if it is out of hand, what is wrong with providers no just giving away peering to anyone at just 1 nap. I am spending millions to get connected to MAE-West, Palo Alto, CIX, Ameritech, Sprint NAP, and more. I think that providers should peer with you when you reach every major point, but they should not be forced to do so before then.
I can see no justification under any circumstances why any provider would refuse to peer with another at an established exchange point for exchanging their _own_ customers' traffic!
Ok, say you peer with us at MAE-East, but not at MAE-West. Say then that you want to get to one of our customers in San Francisco, we would be stuck moving the data to the east coast and then handing it to you. If you peered with us at MAE-West we would not need to do this. If you called us up and said you would be at all major exchange point in a few months, we may peer with you just a MAE-East until you do finish your buildout, but I don't think we should be forced to peer.
But note: this should not mean transit to others who are not customers of the provider, or to other exchange points around the world.
I firmly believe that this is where the current model has gone awry.
What, providers not wanting to toast their backbone? When you are connected to every major exchange and have a huge DS3 network, it cost big bucks. We are building a small network and will be spending about $250K a month on telco. Why should someone be able to just pay MFS $5700 a month and make everybody transit bandwidth to him at just MAE-East?
Worse, the current technology used at the exchange points could encourage abuse. What is to stop anyone connected to an exchange from simply dumping packets anonymously at the link level into the various inter-exchange providers' routers and getting free transit?
Yes, there are many people who do this. I know of a few who point sprint traffic to sprints MAE-East router and are not peering with sprint, but I don't see that as a encouraged abuse. That is steeling, and providers should not do it. If people want sprint to peer then build a full DS3 network and connect to every major NAP at DS3 ore more and I bet they will peer. Nathan Stratton CEO, NetRail, Inc. Tracking the future today! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone (703)524-4800 NetRail, Inc. Fax (703)534-5033 2007 N. 15 St. Suite 5 Email sales@netrail.net Arlington, Va. 22201 WWW http://www.netrail.net/ Access: (703) 524-4802 guest --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34