Karl Denninger <karl@Mcs.Net> wrote:
Any provider that does not recognize the value of bilateral, no-settlement peering anywhere that its cost-effective for both parties (ie: if you have traffic destined for me, get it on MY network where I'm being paid to carry it and let ME figure the rest out!) deserves what they get.
Zero-settlement peerings open to anyone are demonstrably amount to subsidies from large peers to small.
No they're not. The load which the small provider presents to you (in the form of traffic to your CUSTOMERS) is miniscule by comparison. Further, so is the load you present to THEM. Finally, and FAR more importantly, the REASON you're having the traffic dumped to you is that *YOUR CUSTOMER IS PAYING YOU TO GET IT TO THEM*. If you refuse to perform that job, then your customer should find someone who will actually live up to the letter and spirit of what your customer is purchasing from you.
That already was beaten to death. However, i repeat the argument:
Big Provider Customer A ---[POP] ------------- 1000 miles -----------[POP] | IXP | Customer B ------[POP]-1 mile-[POP] Small Provider
When customers A and B talk Big Provider pays to get them through 1000 miles. Small Provider pays for 1 mile.
So what? Customer A paid you to get the traffic to him. It is in your best interest to do it. You got paid to do this. If you can't, Customer A will find Big Provider #2 (or Small Provider #2) who will. The first time you tell a CUSTOMER as "Big provider" that "the reason you can't reach Customer B, who you think is important, is because they aren't connected to us and their provider won't *pay us to transport YOUR DATA* you are going to find out, quickly, what the Customer's response to that is. You might find out from their corporate counsel; if not, you'll definitely find out from their purchasing department (or person) -- when they cancel your service and move somewhere else. Second, if Small Provider who *does* have capacity to that exchange point finds out what you're up to, expect to have that widely used in press materials and marketing efforts.
Note that i didn't even talk about less measurabe, but way too more important things like hosting of information suppliers. Say, Big Provider connects 1000 web sites; Small Provider hosts 1 site -- benefit from peering in terms of Web site diversity to the Big Provider's customers is 0.1%. To Small Provider's customers the benefit of peering is 99.9%.
Not if you're a customer of Big Provider and want to get there. Your provider either PROVIDES or you find someone who will. You seem to forget the middle letter of ISP is *SERVICE*. You want to talk to someone with a valid IP address on the Internet, your PROVIDER is responsible for seeing that you can get to an exchange point where can be found the network that serves them. BOTH providers have an obligation here, and its not to each other. Its to their CUSTOMERS. If the receiving network then refuses to accept the traffic destined for a customer WHO IS PAYING THEM TO TRANSPORT IT, the customer on that end has a very legitimate beef with their provider and IMHO has every right to walk away and possibly even sue, contract or no (the provider just breached their material obligations).
Zero-settlements work only when peers are of comparable size. Any attempt to extort pressure to force it upon anyone simply causes large folks to flee.
--vadim
Anyone short-sighted enough who fails to understand that bilateral, no-settlement PEERING (*NOT* transit) is in everyone's best interest deserves what the market does to them. I presume that (1) the people you peer with are clueful and don't do stupid things on a regular basis, (2) they don't try to point default at you, etc. That's a given in these discussions. -- -- Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.Net)| MCSNet - The Finest Internet Connectivity http://www.mcs.net/~karl | T1's from $600 monthly to FULL DS-3 Service | 23 Analog Prefixes, 13 ISDN, Web servers $75/mo Voice: [+1 312 803-MCS1 x219]| Email to "info@mcs.net" WWW: http://www.mcs.net/ Fax: [+1 312 248-9865] | 2 FULL DS-3 Internet links; 400Mbps B/W Internal