Re: The Gorgon's Knot. Was: Re: Verio Peering Question

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2001, Sean M. Doran wrote:
> The arrival of money to connect directly to Sprintlink and thus
> avoid the filter (and there was some) was what kept other people
> at Sprint from putting in the energy to overcome the inertia,
> otherwise the filter would have been gone gone gone a long time ago.

Ding, Ding, Ding, we have a winner.  We didn't need the filters, but
it got more money by filtering routes, so it kept them.

Although many people suspected that was the reason, Sprint's sales
and marketing people denied it for years.

> Sales guys weren't saying "because our routers can't handle the
> full routing table" or anything of the sort.  Weren't you trying
> to buy from Sprint sales people then?  You *know* what they were like.
> Indeed, some of the cleverer ones were thrilled that their jobs got easier.

I didn't say Sprint sales guys were saying "because our routers can't
handle it."  In fact, if you re-read my message just the opposite.
They said buy your circuit from Sprint and you can bypass Sprint's "save
the Internet" filters.  If you asked a Sprint sales guy why Sprint had
the filters, the answer was generally along the lines "if Sprint didn't
have the filter, the Internet would collapse."