From: "Bownes, Robert M. (EXCH)" <RMBOWNES@intermedia.com> What I would like to do is to connect to, for example, Sprint *just to get to folks who buy from Sprint*, not to transit through them to get to a NAP someplace. Logically, this should be available (and we make such arrangements available) at a lower cost than transit. At the extreme low end, it is a no-cost relationship at exchange points called peering.

I found this to be a nice recapitulation of what "peering" means. Each peer pays the cost for seeing the other, not for carrying traffic to someone else they can see ("transit").

How can we combat this? By building better interconnectivity amongst ourselves. Local exchanges help to offload traffic that we would otherwise hand off to major NSPs. We are actively campaigning to build exchanges in any city we can for ISPs to exchange traffic, removing it from the NSP backbone.

This is admirable. Is there a place where this effort is coordinated? WSimpson@UMich.edu Key fingerprint = 17 40 5E 67 15 6F 31 26 DD 0D B9 9B 6A 15 2C 32 BSimpson@MorningStar.com Key fingerprint = 2E 07 23 03 C5 62 70 D3 59 B1 4F 5E 1D C2 C1 A2