Re: Peering and Network Cost

[Tore Anderson <tore () fud no>]

* Mark Tinka <mark.tinka () seacom mu>

> On 16/Apr/15 07:25, Tore Anderson wrote:
> > We're in a similar situation here; transit prices has come down so
> > much in recent years (while IX fees are indeed stagnant) that I am
> > certain that if I were to cut all peering and buy everything from a
> > regional tier-2 instead, I'd be lowering my total MRC somewhat,
> > without really reducing connectivity quality to my (former) peers.
>
> I wouldn't say exchange point prices are stagnant, per se. They may
> remain the same, but what goes up is the port bandwidth. It's not
> directly linear, but you get my point.
>
> Again, the burden is on the peering members to extract the most out of
> their peering links by having as much peering as possible.

You appear to be assuming that an IP transit port is more expensive
then an IXP port with the same speed. That doesn't seem to always be
the case anymore, at least not in all parts of the world, and I expect
this trend to continue - transit prices seems to go down almost on a
monthly basis, while the price lists of the two closest IXPs to where
I'm sitting are dated 2011 and 2013, respectively.

Even if the transit port itself remains slightly more expensive than
the IXP port like in the example Baldur showed, the no-peering
alternative might still be cheaper overall because even if you're
peering most of your traffic you'll still need to pay a nonzero amount
for a (smaller or less utilised) transit port anyway.

Tore