Hi all - Thanks to those who provided comments to the last white paper draft of "The Evolution of the U.S. Peering Ecosystem". I've made most of the changes and added the data points as suggested, so I am now ready to send out the document more broadly. Lots of acknowledgements in the acknowledgements section now - Thanks!! In a nutshell, the Evolution of the U.S. Peering Ecosystem introduces the notion of the Internet as a set of Regional Peering Ecosystems, each with its own - Tier 1s (who have access to the entire regional routing table solely through peering relationships), - Tier 2s (broadly all other ISPs), and - Content Providers These players are modelled with characteristics (upstream transit links, peering links, etc.) and their motivations (described as Peering Inclinations (Open, Selective, Restrictive, or No Peering) articulated in Peering Policies) that can predict roughly their behavior in the Peering Ecosystem. The "Evolution" of the U.S. Peering Ecosystem is the result of five forces: 1) The so-called dot.bomb - economic collapse of the telecom sector 2) The emergence of a large scale used equipment market 3) The exponential growth of Kazaa traffic costing eyeball networks $$$$ 4) The failure of @Home - cable companies provide Internet services themselves 5) The rapid decline in transport and transit prices The three major changes roughly are: 1) The Cable companies are peering (with Tier 2s and each other) in a *big* way 2) The Large Network Savvy Content Companies are getting into peering in a *big* way 3) The Large Network Savvy Content Companies are getting their content directly onto the Cable companies eyeball networks by peering relationships. These are significant changes due to the volume of traffic exchanged, the amount of money being saved by avoiding intermediary transit providers, and the performance implications of these direct connections. As promised, if you are interested in this stuff I will gladly send you a copy of the latest draft, v1.1. I'm working on the same exploration for the Asia Pacific Peering Ecosystems (hence the APRICOT Peering Track note I sent out earlier this week). Hope this helps - Bill