Brett writes:
MAE-Houston, a small NAP in the scheme of things, but it makes for a good example so we'll use it. $2000/month to get your foot in the door, then another large chunk of cash to connect to the Gigaswitch which all things considered, isn't really needed. Rather than waste their money on equipment that all in all just doesn't need to be there, why not make it more economic for local players to get involved and cross connect to eachother. In the end you not only save money by not bringing in useless hardware but you garner more customers by lessening the price of the private interconnect.
Perhaps the costs have changed and noone has told me, but the $2000/month for MAE-HOUSTON includes a 10Mb/sec local loop if you are on the MFS network in Houston (more than 140 buildings, I believe). As far as I know, most of the participants (and I note that NOL is not one of them) are not hooked to anything faster than a 10Mb/sec connection and none of them are co-locating at the MAE just for the purpose of connecting to it. So, I am not sure it makes a good example unless you consider the amount of traffic exchanged at MAE-HOUSTON. I believe that some of the participants would like either to get more traffic through the MAE or to have slower connections more in keeping with the amount of traffic they are actually exchanging. The peak usage is not much above 5Mb/sec during the last week. MFS had offered lower speed connections initially and then widthdrew that offering around the time the MAE came on-line. I thought that was a mistake, but it was and is MFS's business to lose. -- Stan | Academ Consulting Services |internet: sob@academ.com Olan | For more info on academ, see this |uucp: {mcsun|amdahl}!academ!sob Barber | URL- http://www.academ.com/academ |Opinions expressed are only mine.
On Wed, 15 Jan 1997, Stan Barber wrote:
Perhaps the costs have changed and noone has told me, but the $2000/month for MAE-HOUSTON includes a 10Mb/sec local loop if you are on the MFS network in Houston (more than 140 buildings, I believe). As far as I know, most of the participants (and I note that NOL is not one of them) are not hooked to anything faster than a 10Mb/sec connection and none of them are co-locating at the MAE just for the purpose of connecting to it.
You miss my point, I know of a fair number of local ISP's that would love to connect at MAE-Houston for the interconnects alone if the costs were within reason. The $2000/month I mentioned is your 10mb line to the nap, that however doesn't get you connected, thats just your loop cost, and for a small fry like me.. thats too damn much, way to damn much. [-] Brett L. Hawn (blh @ nol dot net) [-] [-] Networks On-Line - Houston, Texas [-] [-] 713-467-7100 [-]
This is even considering if MAE-Houston will have more than one customer by the end of those 1 year service agreements in Feb. Most of the people there don't feel $2000/month is worth it for 10mbps connections, particaurlly when other providers will give me point to point 10mbps connections for $1000month (on-net). Oh and those are full duplex also. Now if MFS has gotten some other players to show up and peer, then it might be different, but there just isn't that much value in the MAE-Houston right now. I almost would venture a guess that the whole value in public interconnects is largely dead, due to the restrictive peering polices in place by the larger networks, and the lack of interest/clue in smaller providers. In message <199701160458.WAA21766@academ.com>, Stan Barber writes:
Brett writes:
MAE-Houston, a small NAP in the scheme of things, but it makes for a good example so we'll use it. $2000/month to get your foot in the door, then another large chunk of cash to connect to the Gigaswitch which all things considered, isn't really needed. Rather than waste their money on equipment that all in all just doesn't need to be there, why not make it more economic for local players to get involved and cross connect to eachother. In the end you not only save money by not bringing in useless hardware but you garner more customers by lessening the price of the private interconnect.
Perhaps the costs have changed and noone has told me, but the $2000/month for MAE-HOUSTON includes a 10Mb/sec local loop if you are on the MFS network in Houston (more than 140 buildings, I believe). As far as I know, most of the participants (and I note that NOL is not one of them) are not hooked to anything faster than a 10Mb/sec connection and none of them are co-locating at the MAE just for the purpose of connecting to it.
So, I am not sure it makes a good example unless you consider the amount of traffic exchanged at MAE-HOUSTON. I believe that some of the participants would like either to get more traffic through the MAE or to have slower connections more in keeping with the amount of traffic they are actually exchanging. The peak usage is not much above 5Mb/sec during the last week. MFS had offered lower speed connections initially and then widthdrew that offering around the time the MAE came on-line. I thought that was a mistake, but it was and is MFS's business to lose. -- Stan | Academ Consulting Services |internet: sob@academ.com Olan | For more info on academ, see this |uucp: {mcsun|amdahl}!academ!sob Barber | URL- http://www.academ.com/academ |Opinions expressed are only mine.
--- Jeremy Porter, Freeside Communications, Inc. jerry@fc.net PO BOX 80315 Austin, Tx 78708 | 1-800-968-8750 | 512-458-9810 http://www.fc.net
On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Jeremy Porter wrote:
I almost would venture a guess that the whole value in public interconnects is largely dead, due to the restrictive peering polices in place by the larger networks, and the lack of interest/clue in smaller providers.
I hope not, I have got a lot of people asking about Atlanta-NAP. I think MFSs problem is they way they start them. I mean yes it may take selling the first few people a gigaswitch port for next to nothing, but it will grow after that. MFS has taken the cheap way out to start most of the other MAEs. I think they needed to start with Gigaswitch, UPS system, generator, and a little better priceing. If they did that then I think other would come. The hard part (and it is very very hard) is to get the first few people to come, after that it is all down hill. Just look at how fast MAE-East and MAE-West have grown, and that is with hardly any colo space at all. Nathan Stratton President, NetRail,Inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phone (888)NetRail NetRail, Inc. Fax (703)534-5033 2007 N. 15 St. Suite 5 WWW http://www.netrail.net/ Arlington, VA 22201 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34
On Jan 17, 1997, Nathan Stratton wrote:
I hope not, I have got a lot of people asking about Atlanta-NAP. I think MFSs problem is they way they start them. I mean yes it may take selling the first few people a gigaswitch port for next to nothing, but it will grow after that. MFS has taken the cheap way out to start most of the other MAEs. I think they needed to start with Gigaswitch, UPS system, generator, and a little better pricing. If they did that then I think other would come. The hard part (and it is very very hard) is to get the first few people to come, after that it is all down hill. Just look at how fast MAE-East and MAE-West have grown, and that is with hardly any colo space at all.
The reason MAE-east and MAE-west have grown so much is because they are located in areas where there is lots of traffic flowing. The popularity of peering points has almost nothing to do with the interconnect costs, those are peanuts to most companies. Why on earth would I drag a DS3 n-thousand miles to some city that doesn't have any traffic flowing to/from it? I wouldn't, because it would be a waste of money. Also, I daresay MFS has substantially more experience in selling access to and operating peering points than you do, as they've been running the two biggest ones for years, and obviously haven't had any problem whatsoever selling access to them. The newer MAEs might not have all that many connections into them yet, but the pricing of the connection to the switch is not the limiting factor. It's the tens of thousands of dollars for the DS3/OC3 to the colo point. Alec -- +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ |Alec Peterson - ahp@hilander.com | Erols Internet Services, INC. | |Network Engineer | Springfield, VA. | +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
On Fri, 17 Jan 1997, Alec H. Peterson wrote:
The reason MAE-east and MAE-west have grown so much is because they are located in areas where there is lots of traffic flowing. The popularity of peering points has almost nothing to do with the interconnect costs, those are peanuts to most companies. Why on earth would I drag a DS3 n-thousand miles to some city that doesn't have any traffic flowing to/from it? I wouldn't, because it would be a waste of money.
You would not, but most providers have DS3 or OC3 to Atlanta anyway, so it is not a lot to extend a 0 mile DS3 or even OC3. Also Florida is one of the fastest growing ISP markets in the US and it is MUCH better to go to Atlanta-NAP to exchange traffic then to go to MAE-East or MAE-Dallas.
Also, I daresay MFS has substantially more experience in selling access to and operating peering points than you do, as they've been running the two biggest ones for years, and obviously haven't had any problem whatsoever selling access to them. The newer MAEs might not
Ya, and most of them will work for me, I get so many calls form MFS people it is not even funny. I don't know what is going on over there, but they want to jump.
have all that many connections into them yet, but the pricing of the connection to the switch is not the limiting factor. It's the tens of thousands of dollars for the DS3/OC3 to the colo point.
Well I am not saying Erols should drop a DS3 to Atlanta-NAP, you need to connect to the NSF NAPs first. Atlanta-NAP is not the place for people like you who just sit off MAE-East and buy transit from other ISPs that do that same. It is more for people who have a nationwide network and would like to spend a little money to exchange traffic in Atlanta and not bring it all to MAE-East. Nathan Stratton President, NetRail,Inc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Phone (888)NetRail NetRail, Inc. Fax (703)534-5033 2007 N. 15 St. Suite 5 WWW http://www.netrail.net/ Arlington, VA 22201 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:34
I'm not going to bother continuing this argument in public, as Nathan seems to desire to turn this into a personal flamewar (which was not at all my intent). Apologies. Alec -- +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ |Alec Peterson - ahp@hilander.com | Erols Internet Services, INC. | |Network Engineer | Springfield, VA. | +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
I almost would venture a guess that the whole value in public interconnects is largely dead, due to the restrictive peering polices in place by the larger networks, and the lack of interest/clue in smaller providers.
Several influential people I know of share that view, though with different justifications in some cases. In spite of the EMRED error Randy reposted earlier (A host is a host from coast to coast...) the fact is that at some strata, traffic *does* tend to stay local. Certainly a workstation has more to say to its local file/mail/news/whatever servers, on a counted bit basis, than it has to say to more distant servers of any protocol. (Here, "local" is defined primarily as the LAN but is intended to sweep the "campus" or even "corporate Intranet".) Conventional thinking is that beyond that threshold, if a workstation wants to trade packets with some host outside the local administrative region -- that is, something out on the "public internet" -- that there is no blip on the histogram for servers in a campus or intranet which is topologically close to theirs. The flat rate (per distance if not necessarily connect time or packets sent/received) pricing paradigm that dominates the North American internet market gives no _cost_ incentive for getting something locally if there are also copies of it to be had "long distance." There are, however, performance and reliability incentives for avoiding the long distance links if you know that there is a way to do it and still reach your objective (another copy of GNU Emacs, or an X rated GIF, or whatever.) I would like to know if anyone has measured this one way or the other, since if there is a demonstrated tendancy toward local traffic, it may open some currently-closed minds on the value of joining *hundreds* of regional IXPs and regionalizing our routes so that we can inject a subset into each such IXP without giving anyone unintended transit or subsidizing their long haul costs.
On Thu, 16 Jan 1997, Jeremy Porter wrote:
I almost would venture a guess that the whole value in public interconnects is largely dead, due to the restrictive peering polices in place by the larger networks, and the lack of interest/clue in smaller providers.
My own experience is that the vast majority of networks at the MAE's are happy to peer with DataXchange. The present system of n*(n-1) negotiations and the lack of easy to obtain contact information makes the process much more difficult and time consuming than it has to be. I recently spoke with the new Director of CIX about this, and she agreed that CIX would setup a database to make this process a bit easier, by listing the contact information of those networks who *do* wish to generally peer. Of course the largest networks will not participate, as lately it seems to be a matter of pride to have the most restrictive peering policies. But for the rest of us, it will make life a little easier. Regarding "having a clue", I find nearly every MAE connected network to have knowledgable and capable people, who just usually have more to do than time to do it. I do not think the size of the network corralates well to the "clueness" of the personal. Best Regards, Robert Laughlin ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- DataXchange sales: 800-863-1550 http://www.dx.net Network Operations Center: 703-903-7412 -or- 888-903-7412 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (7)
-
ahp＠hilander.com -
Brett L. Hawn -
Jeremy Porter -
Nathan Stratton -
Paul A Vixie -
Robert Laughlin -
sob＠academ.com