At 8:36 PM -0700 10/24/96, Vadim Antonov wrote:
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%.
Of course this will show up as equal traffic in both directions, so it would be a wash under settlements. To the extent that one side's sites are better for surfing (e.g. higher wavers :-) or has proportionally fewer customers, traffic will be unequal.
Roger
The volume of traffic flow in each direction is irrelavent. In all cases where we're talking about *peering* (not transit) the source or destination of the traffic under consideration is someone from whom you collect money to provide service to. You are *obligated*, by ethic if not by law, to provide the best service possible given your installed infrastructure and capability to do so. Asking a *third* party to pay you for something that you've *already been paid for* is unethical in the extreme and, to the extent that providers are trying this in the marketplace, they should be exposed to public scrutiny. These kinds of extortionist tactics need to be brought out in the light of day where everyone can see them -- especially the customers of the providers who are doing these things. Only through a full public disclosure and discussion of this practice will those provider's customers come to understand that their provider, on an ethical level at minimum, is *not* providing to them what they think they're paying for. -- -- 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