Comments below:

On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Sean M. Doran wrote:

...

Uhm, OK, so what's the difference between that and a customer connection across which BGP is spoken?

Sean.

I'm starting to get lost here, so maybe someone can restate things in a way that's educational and appropriate to the charter of the list.

The question above is rather interesting, and what I'd like to know is what are the various types of "peering" that various ISPs have arranged between each other?

"public" - each ISP is at a public exchange point and traffic that is destined to/from each provider moves across whatever hardware is provided at the exchange point. This could exist at all exchange points where both parties have an adequate presence. Possible additional cost if traffic that would come from another peer is shifted here and bandwidth to the exchange needs to be increased.

"private" - A connection exists either via PTP, ATM, FR, or whatever else you can think of between the involved parties. One or both parties pay for the link. One time hardware outlay. Seems expensive. Less expensive than "buying" an DS3 or higher port from the provider. Who buys from whom? Who pays? These must be NDA'd. Can anyone cite some examples of what some providers *might* do to make it a fair trade when this is an NDA'd agreement?

"public/private hybrid" - Existing exchange point equipment and connections are used. Purchase ether/fddi cable from MFS to run between your equipment. Cheap? No telco charges, consolidate your pipes.

So what was the Exodus/GTEI agreement like? Did it fit neatly into one of these categories? Are there other more esoteric arrangements? Is GTEI basically trying to get Exodus as a "customer" in a round-about way? That certainly seems like an easy way to make more cash. "I'll talk to you, but only if you buy 'Peering Bundle #A13' from us at $100,000/mo. and you have no other options. We are big, and this is what you need to do to be a peer."

The only arrangement I can talk about is the GTEI/Exodus one. As I have stated before, there are two private interconnects between the providers. These are local loop DS3s, one in the Bay Area, one in Washington D.C. greater area. Both local loops were purchased/provisioned by Exodus. Hardware was purchased by the respective parties on both ends of the circuit. Both parties feed MEDs/specific networks to the other parties of their OWN networks/customer networks (a non-transit agreement). No money exchanges hands. Each party agrees to backhaul to the "best-exit" (based upon the MEDs and Specifics with MEDs). This was designed to alleviate the asymmetric traffic flows (BBN requests more data from Exodus than Exodus requests from BBN). So it's yet another private interconnect agreement, not mentioned in the above.

Is this an accurate assessment? Please set me on track if I'm misunderstanding the concepts at work here...

Thanks,

Charles

=-----------------= = | Charles Sprickman Internet Channel | | INCH System Administration Team (212)243-5200 | | spork@inch.com access@inch.com | = =----------------=