Limited peering battle (was RE: C&W Peering Problem?)

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

On Fri, 01 June 2001, Mike Leber wrote:
> On 1 Jun 2001, Sean Donelan wrote:
> > So, can anyone explain why C&W, UUNET or Genuity care about traffic
> > balance, other than to limit competition by providers who are better
> > at attracting particular types of customers than them?
>
> You have the cart before the horse (effect before cause), there are really
> two principles that come before the example policy effect above.  They are
> truisms.

I understand that, however my interest was much more limited than launching
an incindary device into another peering battle.

I'm want to understand why a 1.5:1, or 2:1 balance is required.  What
technical purpose does it achieve.

I've asked folks from large and small providers about this, and they've
told me a variety of reasons.  But none of the reasons, so far, have held
technical merit in the final analysis.  There were always alternatives
which did not require maintaining a inverse market share balance between
providers.  

ANS used to require cold potato routing, is it time to bring it back?
I know, provider-based CIDR makes that difficult.