Re: Provider credibility - does it matter? was Re:

[Geoff Huston <gih () telstra net>]

Its like two animals meeting in the jungle at night:

If you are of equal "size" you'll quite happily sit about, exchange
pleasantries, and even peer IP packets with zero dollar settlement.

But if either creature is bigger than the other then you can expect a
somewhat different outcome, normally involving a forced exchange of
protein.

But the problem is that you have to work out who is bigger, or work
out if you are both of the same size, and all you can see is these two
little yellow dots for eyes right in front of you in the gloom....

Zero dollar peering is not a panacea for Internet connectivity: If
party A invests a few squillion dollars in infrastructure it is
unlikely that they will peer with party B who has purchased a PC and a
couple of modems. Normally Party A would say to B - "tough luck sport,
it s a client relationship we are talking about here", simply as the
issue here is that if A offers 0 dollar peering to B, A writes off a
small part of their investment. This is not an economically stable
relationbship.  Stability comes when A and B percieve that the
exchange of traffic is of equal benefit to both parties, and in
general this happens when A and B are of equal "size".

Thanks,

  Geoff


> We have the same picture there.
>
> If we have 1000 kilimoters back-bone, we include the cost of this
> back-bone into our prices, and sell 64K for (for example) 100bokazoids.
>
> If small ISP crinix opens free-of-chsarge peering with  us, he must not
> include the cost of back-bone into their prices, and they sell 64K for
> 50 bokazoids.
>
> This mean we can't allow free-of-charge peering with them.
>
> >   Karl Denninger  <karl () Mcs Net> 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.
> >
> >   That already was beaten to death.  However, i repeat the argument:
> >
> >                                    Big Provider
> >   Customer A ---[POP] ------------- 1000 miles -----------[POP]
> >                                                             |
> >                                                            IXP
> >                                                             |
> >                             Customer B ------[POP]-1 mile-[POP]
> >                                                Small Provider
> >
> >   When customers A and B talk Big Provider pays to get them through
> >   1000 miles.  Small Provider pays for 1 mile.
> >
> >   Note that i didn't even talk about less measurabe, but way too
> >   more important things like hosting of information suppliers.
> >   Say, Big Provider connects 1000 web sites; Small Provider hosts
> >   1 site -- benefit from peering in terms of Web site diversity to
> >   the Big Provider's customers is 0.1%.  To Small Provider's
> >   customers the benefit of peering is 99.9%.
> >
> >   Zero-settlements work only when peers are of comparable size.
> >   Any attempt to extort pressure to force it upon anyone simply
> >   causes large folks to flee.
> >
> >   --vadim
>
> --- 
> Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow
> (+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 239-10-10, N 13729 (pager)
> (+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)

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