It would be better to regulate some type of communication to customers *before* depeering occurs, much in the same way that the SEC requires publicly traded companies to communicate certain things a certain times to its shareholders. It's an indirect form of market intervention that can be pretty effective, because sometimes the unwillingness to communicate a bad thing to ones customers is enough incentive for the parties involved to "figure it out". Frank -----Original Message----- From: Rod Beck [mailto:Rod.Beck@hiberniaatlantic.com] Sent: Sunday, November 02, 2008 8:24 AM To: Patrick Giagnocavo; nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: routing around Sprint's depeering damage I'll make one comment before 'Alex the Hammer' closes this discussion for straying into politics. Clearly regulating the incumbents to unbundle local loops has worked very well in some European countries (France and possibly others). Clearly US financial deregulation has cost the world dearly. So regulation is the appropriate response in some cases (I hope that is clear given the world financial system almost went under a few weeks ago). However, it is not clear what a well crafted peering regulation would do that is different than what the market has achieved already. Sensible and hence pragmatic government mandated peering would require companies having equal bilateral traffic flows to peer or buy transit from each other. That would not necessarily preclude the current peering dispute. Forcing companies to peer when it is not in their interest is unlikely to be supported by the courts in any country, even the French and German courts. Sooner or later these two companies in conflict will either return to peering or one of them will buy transit to reach the other. It is a short term issue that probably doesn't merit government intervention Regards, Roderick S. Beck Director of European Sales Hibernia Atlantic 13-15, rue Sedaine, 75011 Paris http://www.hiberniaatlantic.com Wireless: 1-212-444-8829. French Landline: 33+1+4355+8224 French Wireless: 33-6-14-33-48-97. AOL Messenger: GlobalBandwidth rod.beck@hiberniaatlantic.com rodbeck@erols.com ``Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.'' Albert Einstein.