At 21:42 06/18/2000 -0700, Steve Feldman wrote:

The closest to a real distinction that I've been able to come up with is whether or not a third party is involved *and* whether packets (or cells) are switched.

For example, peering through a FDDI, Ethernet, or ATM switch is always called "public" (unless perhaps the switch is owned by one of the peers). And peering through a wire or SONET/SDH circuit seems to always be called private, even though the data might pass through SONET/SDH multiplexers, cross-connects, and switches operated by a third party...

Steve, this happens to be true in most cases, but I would view it as being sort of coincidental. What most people term "public peering" is effected at a public traffic interchange point, where many providers appear, or can choose to appear. Note that the decision whether to interconnect is still, in almost all cases, a bilateral business decision between each pair of providers. The word "public" is thus something of a misnomer. It's usually implemented over FDDI, ATM, whatever, because the traffic interchange point needs to implement any-to-any connectivity. That's a matter of engineering practicality, but the definition should not rest on it. What most people mean by "private peering" is a direct interconnection between two providers. That's most often implemented over a circuit between the two, without either deploying equipment to the other's premises; again, however, that's simply a matter of engineering convenience. These connections are conceptually point-to-point. Hope this was helpful, - Scott