Benson Schliesser wrote:

...

P.S. would the Internet be worse off if all traffic .> exchange was paid for and there was no settlement free interconnect at all? I.e. paid peering, paid full transit and paid partial transit on the menu? Would you care to speculate on which party receives the greater benefit:

Michael Dillon wrote: the sender of bytes, or the receiver of bytes?

If both the sender and receiver are being billed for the traffic by their respective (different) service providers (all other issues being equal) is one provider in a better position than the other?

Cheers, -Benson

Having enable on a router, yet not having experience with peering in any capacity I was wondering if this analogy holds water. Please excuse the simple model, as I want to understand what other factors may be involved (aside from contractual nuances) Provider A has host/service/user traffic that we will call "Blue Bricks" that need to be moved outside their network. Provider B has host/service/user traffic that we will call "Red Bricks" that need to be moved outside their network.. Both providers decide to meet at the corner and exchange 1 brick each on a regular basis let's say for 1000 cycles both providers meet and exchange blocks successfully. for the next 200 cycles Provider A brings his expected "blue brick" to the corner, yet provider B brings two "red bricks". While that was not expected .. it is acceptable in the short term. then as time goes by Provider B begins to bring additional blocks, yet seems not to notice the standard 1 block that provider A is bringing. While fairly simple, this model explains that the disproportion of "blocks", or traffic as it were, could be a cause of distress. While I hear talk of "Price compression" and "lining pockets" respectively from those who have chosen their position, based on what I've read here and in other places, depeering is a non aggressive yet detrimental way to assert the concerns of a peering provider who feels that the relationship has become inequitable. I can see how the costs of arranging peering and maintaining it can be quite sizable on both sides, but what other factors could cause this type of depeering. Perhaps my view is over simplified, but I don't see this as a black and white "bad guy" scenario. As previous posts have (whether accurately or not) stated, Cogent was notified in advance of Level 3's intentions and both companies had to know that they were shooting themselves in the foot by playing this ever frustrating game of "chicken". I welcome flames/education as this can't be as much of a dichotomy as it seems to be ST