I contend that if quantifiable evidence exists that setting the peering bar high in the name of selling transit and/or restricting new players leads to a downward spiral in network quality ... then evidence exists that can be taken to stockholders and BOD of those companies. Companies, unless they are run by less than competent management, will not knowingly commit economic suicide. Stockholders tend to have a very low tolerance for management stupidity. Stockholder tolerance now is a lot lower then five years ago. At 6:45 PM +0200 07-05-2001, Peter van Dijk wrote:

On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 09:37:10AM -0700, Paul Vixie wrote:

...

albert@waller.net (Albert Meyer) writes:

...

Didn't UUNet try this back in 96? A quick search of Boardwatch failed to find the article, but ISTR that John Sidgemore eventually slunk back to the playground and agreed to play nice. If UUNet couldn't pull it off back then, I doubt that CW can now. ...

I am completely fascinated by your assessment (that UUNet didn't pull it off).

It is rare, but I agree with Paul here :)

Unet is, for example, one of the few (if not the only) ISP in The Netherlands that charges for *peering* (no, not transit, just peering).

More and more clued people I know are avoiding UUnet because they don't peer with the small but quickly growing ISPs. Most UUnet customers are getting worse and worse connectivity as other ISPs stop peering with UUnet, because UUnet is becoming less and less important. A nice downward spiral.

Greetz, Peter.

-- Joseph T. Klein +1 414 915 7489 Senior Network Engineer jtk@titania.net Adelphia Business Solutions joseph.klein@adelphiacom.com "... the true value of the Internet is its connectedness ..." -- John W. Stewart III

On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 06:45:13PM +0200, Peter van Dijk wrote: [snip]

Unet is, for example, one of the few (if not the only) ISP in The Netherlands that charges for *peering* (no, not transit, just peering).

I stand corrected on this bit. UUnet just has quite strong peering requirements. Anybody wanting to exchange traffic with UUnet while being unable to comply must become a customer, therefore.

More and more clued people I know are avoiding UUnet because they don't peer with the small but quickly growing ISPs. Most UUnet customers are getting worse and worse connectivity as other ISPs stop peering with UUnet, because UUnet is becoming less and less important. A nice downward spiral.

I do still think UUnet is in a downward spiral, just like C&W. Strong peering policies are not good for the Internet. Greetz, Peter.

Peter writes:

...

I do still think UUnet is in a downward spiral, just like C&W. Strong peering policies are not good for the Internet.

David replies:

I'm not so sure that's true. Personally, I think the Internet is better served by having a smaller number of larger and better maintained meeting places than by just having a large number of peering points were everyone connects to everybody else.

Here are just a few reasons why, for example, it's better if you use transit to FooNet to reach BarNet rather than BarNet peering with you directly (assuming you are not too big yourself):

1) FooNet and BarNet are more likely to keep their peering points scaled to handle the load than you are. They are more likely to monitor performance and shut down failures.

2) FooNet and BarNet will meet at more places than you will meet BarNet, allowing traffic to get off the source network faster and providing better fault tolerance.

3) Fewer BGP sessions means faster convergence and less instability.

4) You may be more likely to meet BarNet at public peering points while FooNet is more likely to meet BarNet at private peering points. Your traffic to BarNet will get the benefit of the higher amounts of effort FooNet and BarNet will put into keeping their meeting points efficient.

DS

First, I'm not sure how these reasons relate to UUNET's direction (downward spiral, up and to the right, quick-quick-slow). Second, many of them are based on presumptions that relate to past performance, with no guarantee of future results. This is especially true if you consider traffic exchange to occupy more than two points on the spectrum than just Free---Paid Transit. For example, 1) has historically been true when BarNet is not paid for taking your traffic; it may value it for other reasons (content/eyeballs), but unless it is paid it is hard to get resources for link or equipment upgrades. In paid peering, it is paid to take your traffic and is likely to take seriously performance degradation or failure; whether you do is, of course up to you. So it may make more sense to enter a paid peering agreement with BarNet than to use transit through FooNet to get to them. Similarly, 3) has the interesting assumption that you are not using BGP to talk to FooNet, which will not be the case if you have a multi-homed transit arrangement aside from the peering to BarNet. 4) and 2) contain some interesting assumptions about meeting points and the topological relationships among FooNet, BarNet and the customer network. 4) seems to assume, for example, that more of BarNet's effort goes into a private connect to FooNet than to the public connect at BazNAP. Could be true; could be entirely the other way around. As David's post points out, though, there is no easy assumption about what is going to be best. I think the Internet is actually best served by having lots of available of choices for how to interconnect. That way, when your mileage varies, there is something you can do about it. regards, Ted Hardie Disclaimer: I am not speaking for my employer. This disclaimer is, however, included solely for the amusement of Stephen Stuart; any other use may be a violation of his rights to amusement. (http://www.irbs.com/internet/nanog/0104/0164.html)

Similarly, 3) has the interesting assumption that you are not using BGP to talk to FooNet, which will not be the case if you have a multi-homed transit arrangement aside from the peering to BarNet.

No, I'm assuming you *must* have BGP sessions to everyone you get peering or transit from. The more places you peer with, the more BGP sessions you are going to have.

4) and 2) contain some interesting assumptions about meeting points and the topological relationships among FooNet, BarNet and the customer network. 4) seems to assume, for example, that more of BarNet's effort goes into a private connect to FooNet than to the public connect at BazNAP. Could be true; could be entirely the other way around.

That's not quite the assumption. It really is that more effort goes into a private connect to FooNet than to the public connect at BazNAP as it applies to your particular connection. They might monitor their BazNAP connection closely, but not be particularly concerned if they notice possible problems with a smaller peering connection -- especially if they don't charge for it.

As David's post points out, though, there is no easy assumption about what is going to be best. I think the Internet is actually best served by having lots of available of choices for how to interconnect. That way, when your mileage varies, there is something you can do about it.

Well, I won't argue with that. Another possible disadvantage with 'free' peering is you may have a harder time getting the larger companies to deal with issues that arise surrounding that peering. They may feel they have no financial incentive to worry about it, and you really have no contractual leverage to get, for example, response time guarantees. DS

Disclaimer: I am not speaking for my employer. This disclaimer is, however, included solely for the amusement of Stephen Stuart; any other use may be a violation of his rights to amusement. (http://www.irbs.com/internet/nanog/0104/0164.html)

I am suitably amused. Stephen

I do still think UUnet is in a downward spiral, just like C&W. Strong peering policies are not good for the Internet.

Is this just an opinion, or do you have evidence? A genuine impartial economic analysis of this issue would be very interesting, and probably even more interesting to the regulators. I would hope any such analysis will include cost of maintenance and stability of networks with n interconnects as n increases. Most regulation theory looks to minimize customer price over the long term. This does not necessarilly mean maximizing competion (though it normally but not always means no monopolies). European regulation in this area (yes it exists) focusses only on those with Significant Market Power (variously defined but normally 25% or above of the 'Relevant Market'), and suggests that their interconnect policies should be non-discriminatory and cost-oriented. In my book that means that A has 30,000 routes of 100,000, and B has 2 routes, then B is paying A. (before saying that 'but B would charge A too' remember that A probably has the opportunity to exchange data via B's transit, at, no doubt, a lower cost per bit). In the mean time their view is, in general, that if what you say is true (downward spiral etc.) because their peering policy is suboptimal, then this just allows some competitor with a more optimal peering policy to gain competitive advantage. IMHO there is a high correlation between people claiming strong peering policies are 'bad for the internet' and those recently refused peering. Thus data samples are somewhat skewed. -- Alex Bligh Personal Capacity