Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman (Level3) (was: RIP

[Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists () gmail com>]

On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 3:11 PM, Blake Hudson <blake () ispn net> wrote:
> Christopher Morrow wrote the following on 5/16/2014 1:52 PM:
>
> > On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Blake Hudson <blake () ispn net> wrote:
> > > in the context of this discussion I think it's silly for a residential
> > > ISP
> > > to purport themselves to be a neutral carrier of traffic and expect
> > > peering
> > > ratios to be symmetric
> >
> > is 'symmetric traffic ratios' even relevant though? Peering is about
> > offsetting costs, right? it might not be important that the ratio be
> > 1:1 or 2:1... or even 10:1, if it's going to cost you 20x to get the
> > traffic over longer/transit/etc paths... or if you have to build into
> > some horrific location(s) to access the content in question.
> >
> > Harping on symmetric ratios seems very 1990... and not particularly
> > germaine to the conversation at hand.
>
> I agree about the term being passe ...and that it never applied to ISPs
> ...and that peering is about cost reduction, reliability, and performance.

ok.

> It seems to me that many CDNs or content providers want to setup peering
> relationships and are willing to do so at a cost to them in order to bypass
> "the internet middle men". But I mention traffic ratios because some folks

'the internet middle men' - is really, it seems to me, 'people I have
no business relationship with'. There's also no way to control the
capacity planning process with these middle-men, right? Some AS in the
middle of my 3-AS-way conversation isn't someone I can capacity plan
with :(

-chris

> in this discussion seem to be using it as justification for not peering. But
> hey, why peer at little or no cost if they can instead hold out and possibly
> peer at a negative cost?
>
> --Blake