Re: Chinese bgp metering story

[Fred Baker <fred () cisco com>]

On Dec 18, 2009, at 10:32 AM, Steven Bellovin wrote:

> Could you post a summary, in appropriate technical terms, of  
> precisely what is being requested, and what changes to BGP they want?

Really.

I can read tea leaves with the best of them, and the tea leaves I see  
tell me the reporter (in the story the blog points to) doesn't have a  
clue. What is the substance of the proposal?

Depending on objectives, I would expect that this means that China  
wants to look at routers (which run BGP), and

(a) use IPFIX-or-something to measure traffic rates and charge for  
trans-China transit,
(b) use interface statistics to measure traffic rates and charge for  
trans-China transit,
(c) tax Chinese ISPs for transit services they provide, or maybe
(d) use IPFIX-or-something to map communication patterns.

It would be (d) that the reporter might seriously want to worry about.

But what is all this about "is the ITU interested in changing BGP"? If  
the word "metering" makes any sense in context, BGP doesn't meter  
anything.