RE: Peering, Large ISPs, and You
See my comments below...
-----Original Message----- From: David Barak [mailto:thegameiam@yahoo.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 1:14 PM To: nanog@merit.edu Cc: dan@netrail.net; jeblinton@corp.earthlink.net; peeringresistance@yahoo.com Subject: Peering, Large ISPs, and You
I'll interleave my comments.
Quoth Daniel Golding:
The large ISPs have finally started to work together, to potentially exclude smaller providers. That isn't good.
are you arguing that the situation of the past several years does NOT exclude smaller providers? Most of the really big ISPs (you know who you are) rely primarily on private peering already. How exactly does this change matters?
Smaller providers have certainly felt the squeeze. This changes matters because previously the big players were working seperately, with distinct sets of rules. From my reading of these comments, it looks like they are starting to work together, and plan jointly. If this is true (and at least one non-anonymous poster has seemed to confirm it), than thats bad.
Certain colo facilities are being choosen. Others are not. This has a major business impact on the ones who aren't choosen.
s 'are being'/'had been' and you'll see that this is not only nothing new, it's nothing which is particularly undesireable. In fact, you can look at this as colo-competition - those colo spaces which provide services which the really big ISPs want will get their business.
Yes. But previously, all these ISPs made independent decisions, which encouraged competition. If all of them jointly choose a single player in a certain market, thats bad for competition. That has NOT happened previously.
Earthlink is a huge consumer of transit bandwidth, so it would seem to be in your shareholder's best interest to keep competition high, and thus keep prices low.
True. So tell me this: how will providers reducing their costs on settlement-free interconnections cause overall costs to rise? If anything, this period of severe cost-sensitivity should drive the really big ISPs to pay very close attention to pricing, in an attempt to maintain and maximize revenue.
There are numerous examples of this in real life. The best one if the airline industry. At any rate, once the pricing variability is taken out of the transit game, syncing of pricing will happen. There seems to be a hope that this will supress pricing. This may happen, although it is difficult to see how transit can be delivered, at a profit, for lower prices. But be careful to see the other side of the coin - it makes price increases much easier.
-David Barak "Quis custodes ipsos custodiet?" - Juvenal
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
- Dan
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Daniel Golding wrote:
sets of rules. From my reading of these comments, it looks like they are starting to work together, and plan jointly. If this is true (and at least one non-anonymous poster has seemed to confirm it), than thats bad.
Dan, this secret "cabal" of all controlling, all knowing large ISP's working in concert to the detriment of the "small" ISP is bullshit. The processes and politics are so bad that chances of a _single_ ISP's divisions making a coherent plan are far more likely than developing a lighter than air pig. Now apply that across 10 of these ISPs.
Yes. But previously, all these ISPs made independent decisions, which encouraged competition. If all of them jointly choose a single player in a certain market, thats bad for competition. That has NOT happened previously.
This solution mandates many things, including entrance facilities, the provider being willing to work with the fiber folks at pulling in the strands, providing the power, space and cooling. Security, cross connect, and remote hands. Given the state of the colo market, I am surprised anyone got the business, and chances are, to get the business someone had to be very willing to commit to meeting the requirements and so they got the business. Capitalism at its finest as it were. /vijay
Having done time in the US Military and had both employment and consulting in and with large organization, some of them in this industry, I would tend to be in wholesale agreement with Vijay. Large organization don't conspire well, not even within themselves. Heck, it's hard to get more than seven people to agree on anything. I worked at one company where the board of directors had a two month argument about office stationary design. I do think it would lance a few boils if the nine locations where released to the community. At 17:26 -0400 25-07-2001, Vijay Gill wrote:
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Daniel Golding wrote:
sets of rules. From my reading of these comments, it looks like they are starting to work together, and plan jointly. If this is true (and at least one non-anonymous poster has seemed to confirm it), than thats bad.
Dan,
this secret "cabal" of all controlling, all knowing large ISP's working in concert to the detriment of the "small" ISP is bullshit. The processes and politics are so bad that chances of a _single_ ISP's divisions making a coherent plan are far more likely than developing a lighter than air pig. Now apply that across 10 of these ISPs.
Snip -- Joseph T. Klein +1 414 915 7489 Senior Network Engineer jtk@titania.net Adelphia Business Solutions joseph.klein@adelphiacom.com "... the true value of the Internet is its connectedness ..." -- John W. Stewart III
participants (3)
-
Daniel Golding -
Joseph T. Klein -
Vijay Gill