I believe Geoff glosses one or two interesting cases. 1) the (semi) regulated market where an external body defines an exchange rate which can differ in each of A,B's {dis}favour, and requires A and B to settle inbound,outbound according to that tarrif. In that case, A and B can be required or expected to exchange differences between net A->B and B->A traffic for traffic in some set of {calls,time,initiater-end} Of course, A and B might also be expected to pay tax or other impost on gross amounts! 2) A and B form a regulated {combination,confederation} and seek to acquire leverage off C for exchange, arriving at some interior settlement which is not peering, but the entity D, which is some relationship of A and B has peering power against C, E, F ... What I'm trying to intrude is that this is not the 1980s and we are not in some Milton Friedman nightmare of completely unregulated exchanges between entitities. We might differ about the desirability of unregulated exchange between competing parties, but even in the international arena, albiet in a very ineffectual sense, other bodies dictate what happens. Like, forcing MCI to divest of some activity in forming Concert with BT (which fell apart) or like preventing the RBOC from being in the long distance game (which fell apart) or like going to the FCC to winge about international phone settlement rates (which is falling apart) The falling apart part is about political apathy as much as a realpolitik view of what will work. That these things fall apart doesn't mean inside the fine-grained 5 year window they can't work, or that better regulation might not shore them up for another interesting 5 year window. A lot of things happen in a 5 year window. Off to one side of this is another dimension. USA people may not have seen a story in the Australian press pointing out that the sale of C&W Optus to Singapore raises the prospect of the Australian national security agencies satellite communications channels being owned and operated by a non-resident entity. Of course its a beat-up, and from a not disinterested source, but it makes for interesting considerations in how entities might be constrained to offer communication services, and by implication settlements. cheers -George PS this is a personal mail and doesn't reflect APNIC policy views. -- George Michaelson | APNIC Email: ggm@apnic.net | PO Box 2131 Milton QLD 4064 Phone: +61 7 3367 0490 | Australia Fax: +61 7 3367 0482 | http://www.apnic.net