Re: Provider credibility - does it matter? was Re: Inter-provider relations

[Jim Dixon <jdd () vbc net>]

On Fri, 25 Oct 1996, Azeem Azhar wrote:

> > > Any provider that does not recognize the value of bilateral, no-settlement
> > > peering anywhere that its cost-effective for both parties (ie: if you have
> > > traffic destined for me, get it on MY network where I'm being paid to
> > > carry it and let ME figure the rest out!) deserves what they get.
> >
> > Zero-settlement peerings open to anyone are demonstrably amount to
> > subsidies from large peers to small.
>
> Absolutely correct: can I direct you to two of our articles on the subject
> (and a useful graphic):
> http://www.economist.com/issue/19-10-96/ld4401.html
> http://www.economist.com/issue/19-10-96/sf0774.html
> http://www.economist.com/issue/19-10-96/sf1.gif

Not at all necessarily correct.  We are a UK backbone provider.  We carry 
much of our traffic 6000 miles to California over very expensive Atlantic
circuits, where we pass it off to American providers, who use very cheap
and much shorter US links.  We ship about 5% more traffic to the USA than
we get back.  So on balance we are subsidizing the US Internet:

*       we pay more to carry the packets
*       we give more than we receive

The Internet is more complicated than the Economist's model of the Internet.
 
> That's true: in a conversation with Phil Lawlor (CEO of AGIS), he told me
> that one of his customers ISPs, who was also peering with AGIS at the
> Mae-E, indulged in "bandwidth stealing" by receiving their Usenet news feed
> across Mae-E rather than as an AGIS customer across the few T-1s they had
> to AGIS.

There is some extremely strange logic here.  Exactly how is any Agis 
bandwidth being stolen if a customer chooses to get a newsfeed from a
third party over MAE East?
 
> That way you have a hierarchy as follows:
>
> Bacbkbone providers who may peer with each other
> Large regional providers who are customers of the backbone providers (so by
> DS-3s or whatever from BBNplanet, UUnet) and who may peer regionally. While
> also present at bix exchanges, they are unlikely to peer with the big
> six/seven/eight but may well peer with foreign ISPs at those exchanges.

This is the model of the world preferred by the big US providers -- and by
those who don't want the headaches that come from trying to build a more
realistic model of the Internet.

--
Jim Dixon              VBCnet GB Ltd +44 117 929 1316  fax +44 117 927 2015
http://www.uk.vbc.net  VBCnet West   +1  408 971 2682  fax +1  408 971 2684

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