Did Internet Founders Actually Anticipate Paid, Prioritized Traffic?

Thu Sep 16 05:15:30 UTC 2010

The problem I have with the concept is that paid prioritization only
really has an impact once there is congestion.  If your buffers are
empty, then there is no real benefit to priority because everything is
still being sent as it comes in.  If you have paid prioritization, there
is a financial incentive to have congestion in order to collect "toll"
on the expressway.  So if I have a network that is not congested, nobody
is going to pay me to ride on a special lane.  If I neglect upgrading
the network and it becomes congested, I can make money by selling access
to an express lane.

I believe a network should be able to sell priotitization at the edge,
but not in the core.  I have no problem with Y!, for example, paying a
network to be prioritized ahead of bit torrent on the segment to the end
user but I do have a problem with networks selling prioritized access
through the core as that only gives an incentive to congest the network
to create revenue.

G

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hank Nussbacher [mailto:hank at efes.iucc.ac.il]
> Sent: Monday, September 13, 2010 12:22 AM
> To: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Did Internet Founders Actually Anticipate Paid, Prioritized
> Traffic?
> 
> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/09/paid-prioritized-traffic
> 
> -Hank