Are you saying that if any part of a network touches US soil it can be regulated by the US govt over the entirety of the network? For my part, this is not an attempt to change the subject or divert the argument (red herring). It is a valid question with operational impact.

That's not how companies work. What you see as a single company operating a single worldwide network, is actually a web of companies with interlocking directorships and share structures. In each country they will probably have 3 or 4 corporate entities. One owns the network assets, one employs all the people in Sales, another employs the network ops people, and 4th one mops up the other employees and is a holding company for the other three. None of them do any billing because that is all done by subsidiary companies in Luxembourg and Ireland. Etc, etc. This is done for a variety of reasons but regulation is definitely one of them. In most countries you need a licence to operate telecom networks, and the licence holder will be the local operating company, not the head office company that consolidates the ownership underneath a share symbol traded on your favorite stock exchange. Spend some time hanging out with finance and legal people in a big company. You may find it almost as fascinating as designing networks. An additional point is that when one company acquires another and it gets reviewed for potential antitrust issues, this often impacts the company structure because a local regulator wants to see that the local corporate entity is not 100% controlled by a foreign corporation. This makes it easier for the government to target regulations at the domestic entity. --Michael Dillon

On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 02:46:27PM -0800, Scott Weeks wrote:

--- herrin-nanog@dirtside.com wrote:

That having been said, jurisdiction is a red herring. Every transit-free provider does at least some of its business in the United States. Economic reality compels them to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. That's all the hook the Feds need. ---------------------------------------------

Are you saying that if any part of a network touches US soil it can be regulated by the US govt over the entirety of the network? For my part, this is not an attempt to change the subject or divert the argument (red herring). It is a valid question with operational impact.

<hearsay> A good friend of mine who works for a local (Australian) bank is constantly complaining about SOX compliance, which he has to do because there's a related entity to the company he works for which does financial business in the US. </hearsay> It's not beyond the realm of possibility for a government (any government, not *just* the US) to say "if you want to do business in our jurisdiction, you will abide by the following rules", which may include rules regarding what related entities located in other countries do. Not that you'd really need such a regulation for peering; so much of the "core backbone" is US-based[1] that even just a regulation controlling how peering worked for equipment and entities in the US would have the desired effect -- after all, the US government would (in the short term, at least) mostly be interested in making sure that the Internet worked within the US. It might also (further) encourage companies to host more stuff in the US, if they can lower their risk of connectivity problems to US-based eyeballs. - Matt [1] How many depeerings have happened in other countries that have had such a major effect on global connectivity? -- One of the Rules Of Flight is, or should be: Pullout Altitude Is Not A Signed Quantity. -- Anthony de Boer, in the monastery