Re: different thinking on exchanging traffic

["Damian O'Gorman" <damian () cyberdude com>]

> Of course, not every local ISP participates.  The state subsidized
> education network doesn't connect, nor do some the dialup ISPs.  But
> it gets a reasonable level of support from several of the larger
> area providers.

The same type of project was attemted in Toronto. CANIX was essentially set
upto cross connect traffic rather than having to traverse the entire US
network to get
to the other side of Toronto. The problem was, it became an exclusive
bilateral peering
arrangemt with 6 players. That was 1 1/2 years ago. Currently only 2 are
peered. What in fact was the point. UUnet and Sprint were the big players up
here and nobody appears to want to cooperate.

> But exchange points are one of those weird creatures.  If I'm paying
> a big expensive backbone, why would I get anything from a local exchange
> point?  And of course, the ever popular "What's the catch?"  Since
> local exchange points are generally run on a non-profit basis, that
> means there isn't a large marketing organization, or a huge gaggle of
> salespeople trying to sell it.  If you like, we can call it a "managed
> connection" and charge you $1,000/month.  But that seems steep for
> essentially a port on a catalyst switch.

Damian O'Gorman