Re: Paying for delivery of packets (was about Sprint Peering, and Importance of Content)

["E.B. Dreger" <eddy+public+spam () noc everquick net>]

JD> Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 08:37:01 -0700
JD> From: JC Dill


JD> It is my opinion that eventually the Internet will be mostly
JD> funded by those who send packets, and will be mostly free for
JD> those receiving said packets, much in the way that 800
JD> numbers are funded in the telephone system.  In order for
JD> that to work, we will need a settlement system.  I predict
JD> that something like this will start happening before 
JD> 12/2005.

Agreed, except is any fancy settlement really needed?  I predict
asymmetric pricing.

Consider peering ratios.  I know of at least one up-and-coming
provider (currently in SJC, IAD, and NYC as I recall) that gives
free core-to-edge bandwidth in a effort to meet ingress:egress
quotas.  Some established providers will entertain asymmetric
pricing, too.

Content hosting can be moved to large cities.  Easy.  Saves
money.  Many people do it.  Viewers cannot be herded into the big
cities.  It seems that eyeballs are more distributed, and content
is more localized to the large MSAs.

We therefore have asymmetric traffic flows, with more leaving
large metro areas.  Surplus edge-to-core bandwidth means cheaper
edge-to-core bandwidth, unless fiber/wavelengths get provisioned
asymmetrically to model the traffic flows.