It looks like an ISP finally kicked the hornet's nest. Just when the USG thinks it can get out of the Internet business, an ISP does this and the FCC may think it can step in. For those that do not follow NANOG (yes Michael, I know you're there) A recent announcement, from BBN, has caused a very large bit of churn. At the bottom-end there are the pipes that keep it all flowing. It's not about IP assignments, or names, at this level. It's about whom will talk to whom, and for how much. Earlier, when we went to CIDR routing, we also got stuck with non-portable IP addresses. This locked us into certain ISP-based routing hierarchies. There was a tremour, earlier this year, when Sprint began aggrigating their BGP announcements differently. That was only a foreshadowing of things to come. Regardless of how we all view the Internet, if the peering points stop peering, then we all get segregated into a very few large proprietary ponds. These ponds will be unable to communicate with each other. All of these peering points are in the hands of a few commercial entities, mostly telcos. Mostly they are "gentelmen's agreements". The problem is that this appears to be becoming unraveled. For the record, BBN claims that its new owners (GTEI) are coercing this announcement. Since this is a typical telco move, I'm inclined to believe them. There are really two problems here, one is the peering system and the other is FCC involvement. If the FCC determines that it has jurisdiction over these issues then it may decide that it also has jurisdiction over names and IP assignments. In which case the IFWP proceedings are for nought. Magaziner may as well pack it up and go home too. The problem is that the FCC only has jurisdiction in the US. How will it work extra-territorially, existing treaties? If so, then this is the trigger that could cause an internet version of the marines landing in Panama. I hope this reaches y'all out there in Singapore.
To: nanog@merit.edu Reply-To: nlj@bellcore.com Subject: Re: BBN Peering issues - FCC Notice of Inquiry on subject Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 16:46:43 -0400 From: "Nick Lordi" <nlj@bellcore.com> Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu
Now's your chance, the FCC just released a Notice of Inquiry, FCC 98-187, "Inquiry Concerning the Deployment of Advanced Telecommunications Capabilities..." available in a variety of formats via
Take a look at paragraph 79:
What can and should the Commission do to preserve efficient peering arrangements among Internet companies, especially in the face of consolidations of large proprietary gateways? We ask for comment whether the Commission should monitor or have authority over peering arrangements to assure that the public interest is served.
But be careful, commenting could be akin to opening "Pandora's Box" ;-)
Nick
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