Re: UUNET Pulling Peering Agreements & replacing them with charging under non-disclosure?

[Karl Denninger <karl () Mcs Net>]

On Fri, May 02, 1997 at 09:56:38AM -0700, Wayne Bouchard wrote:
> > The argument about national backbones costing money is a red herring.  OF
> > COURSE they cost money.  But they open business markets to you that are
> > otherwise closed - being able to sell in multiple cities without the customer
> > having to backhaul on their own, VPNs across geographical areas, etc.  If you
> > don't like the price:performance balance of that equation, then you shouldn't
> > build one.
>
> Well, this goes into "cutting off peers means your customers can't
> access mine." There's two problems with this: First, the key point is
> YOU can't access THEIRS without buying transit. Most ISPs aren't gonna
> permit this loss of connectivity and will buy transit.. it just won't
> be from the company that pulls the plug. Lets also note who its gonna
> hurt more.. the company with fewer customer sites that need to get
> accessed. The complaint ratio between the two groups are gonna be
> wholly lopsided. The smaller ISP will receive far more complaints than
> the larger one.

That sounds like extortion and a violation of the Sherman Act.  Someone 
ought to look into this.  I note that violations of the Sherman Act are
criminal as well as civil matters, and if done in collusion (and lock-step
changes in policy by "competitors" are one of the tests for this) you can
even raise a RICO charge.

> In my view, whats being proposed has more or less been in the works
> for quite a while. Because of the customer's demands for 100%
> connectivity, there's not a whole lot to stand in the way. And as long
> as MFS/UUNET/WorldCom run the two biggest exchange points (and are
> thus getting paid exorbatant amounce for connectivity INTO that NAP --
> thus making it so you really pay *3* times for a packet to cross the
> network -- along with various customer circuits into that NAP because
> of the "near exit" -- making it actually 4 times if you consider loop
> charges), there's no reason it can't continue. 

There's a fix for this.  Set up another peering point.

--
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