The closest to a real distinction that I've been able to come up with is whether or not a third party is involved *and* whether packets (or cells) are switched. For example, peering through a FDDI, Ethernet, or ATM switch is always called "public" (unless perhaps the switch is owned by one of the peers). And peering through a wire or SONET/SDH circuit seems to always be called private, even though the data might pass through SONET/SDH multiplexers, cross-connects, and switches operated by a third party. Steve On Sun, Jun 18, 2000 at 04:06:56AM -0400, HANSEN CHAN wrote:
Hi,
Can someone tell me the difference between private and public peering? A peering paper I have read explained the switch is shared in the case of shared and non-shared in the case of private. I still do not understand. Appreciate if someone could shed some light on this matter for me.
My guess is that public peering is done in a commerical internet exchange while private peering is done in a facility owned by either one of the ISP.
Thanks, Hansen