(apologies if this appears twice)
From: Alex French <alex@evilal.com> Subject: Ireland to regulate peering
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In brief: New rules being put in place by the Irish telecoms regulator will regulate IP peering between ISPs as if it were a voice interconnect. I'd love to hear from any other IPers who know if this is being proposed anywhere else in Europe. As far as I know, this is unprecedented.
The Irish telecoms regulator (ComReg) has announced a new set of licensing rules for telcos. The bad part is that the rules have been greatly expanded to include regulation of "all electronic communications networks", including (apparently) ISP networks and VPN operators.
ComReg is planning to apply the principles of voice interconnect to all network types; this means that "operators of public communications networks shall have a right, and when requested by other [operators], an obligation to negotiate interconnection with each other for the purpose of providing publicly available electronic communications services." In effect, IP networks will have to peer with each other on request.
Even worse, the "interconnect" (i.e. peering) prices will be subject to review by the Irish regulator if either party feels that they're not being offered a fair deal.
The cherry on the cake is that ISPs can be designated as having "Significant Market Power" (this used to be defined as having 25% of a market, but the criteria are now more nebulous). If you have SMP, you must publish your network cost accounting as prove that the peering prices you charge are cost-oriented (cost + a reasonable ROI)
As I see it, this will lead to the collapse of the current peering/transit negotiation process that ISPs have successfully used all over the world for years. I don't even see how this would benefit smaller ISPs, since the new rules are likely to discourage larger companies from entering this market at all. At the very least, the regulation of peering rates has got to hurt competition.
The relevant documents are available at http://www.comreg.ie. Specific links are
http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=101003 http://www.comreg.ie/whats_new/default.asp?ctype=5&nid=100998
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb (me) http://www.wilyhacker.com (2nd edition of "Firewalls" book)