From: Vadim Antonov <avg@pluris.com>

...

Since some of the larger vendors (Cisco mostly) has introduced accounting features into their software settlements could start any time.

a) the accounting was there for years, so what

.. But the huge glut of "I wanna be an ISP too!" guys operating a Cisco 2500 out of their garage was not. A large number of ISP's simply don't know what they're doing; witness the universal broadcasting of RFC1597 addresses.

b) a 100-byte packet travelled from provider A to provider B. Should A

pay

to B or vice versa?

It's the golden rule - "He who has the gold, makes the rules". Not that the idea isn't without problems.. But seeing peering procedures formalized would make life easier, even if it cost a few bucks. Being a fairly small start up, I know that the odds of UUnet cutting me a check every month are between slim and none. You can tell this list is populated only by Real Engineers. Ten messages and counting on Saturday night. :-)