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"settlement based traffic exchange" (4 IP if u wish)
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 12:15:45 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Mike O'Dell <mo () ccr org> Date: June 11, 2005 11:02:11 AM EDT To: dave () farber net Subject: "settlement based traffic exchange" (4 IP if u wish) the telcos in the US have been trying to move away from settlements for 50 years and it's finally starting to happen. the US will finally be on a "bill & keep" model within a year or three. i find it particularly depressing to see the ITU attempting to reset the clock 50 years, although certainly not surprising. the entire notion of "settlements" is based on an imputed "benefit flow". in the voice world, placing a call and receiving a call have been deemed to have different value, and hence it is possible to ascribe a benefit flow. Note that this decision as to differential value was a *completely* arbitrary decision - either caller or callee could be deemed more valuable. the two important ideas are that caller and callee are trivially distinguished and that the value imputed to each end is different. for the Internet to have settlements, it would be necessary to decide which party is accruing the greater benefit in any particular packet flow, not to mention keep track of that asymmetry at some level of aggregation. Here's the problem: is the human accessing a web site accruing more benefit than the web site receiving advertising revenue from for the human having viewed page, or is it the other way around? and for which sites and which viewers? is opening a TCP connection more or less valuable than being able to receive a TCP connection? what about UDP packets and flows? No, it is impossible to rationally impute a value chain, hence it is impossible to have rational settlements, other than by pure dictatorial fiat of course. -mo ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- "settlement based traffic exchange" (4 IP if u wish) David Farber (Jun 11)