Verizon acquiring Terremark

Tue Feb 1 06:10:03 UTC 2011

On Jan 31, 2011, at 10:25 PM, Jimmy Hess wrote:
> 
>> What does neutral really mean anyways?  Terremark has sold, is selling and
> 
> It is the same concept as network neutrality.
> An example of a non-neutral IP network is  one where a competitor's website or
> service is blocked by the network operator.
> 
> A facility is carrier neutral if it is operated by an independent organization.
> An example of a non-neutral exchange is one that  only allows specific
> tenants  to connect to other tenants;   other tenants besides the chosen ones
> are forbidden from connecting to anyone besides a preferred tenant,
> or  have to pay higher rates for each connection to another provider who
> is not a 'preferred' tenant.

I don't know - it's an oversimplification.  Even the "independent organization" is still trying to pull in revenue.  Given the opportunity to make money on interconnections, they do so.  And the idea of "neutral" is pretty hard to define, when you mix together all of the participants' different business relationships and incentives, operating margins and price variations, etc.

They'll say: "Sure you can connect to anybody you want.  As long as you pay a monthly cross-connect fee. And as long as the other party is paying for a presence in my facility, too."  But do you know who pays how much?  In the end, are you sure that a carrier "neutral" facility offers a better price than a non-neutral facility, for any given connectivity?  I'd suggest that "carrier neutrality" is subjective and isn't really the metric you need in a colo / datacenter facility.

Cheers,
-Benson