net neutrality and peering wars continue

Thu Jun 20 14:58:01 UTC 2013

On Jun 20, 2013, at 5:37 AM, Benson Schliesser <bensons at queuefull.net> wrote:
> Right. By "sending peer" I meant the network transmitting a packet,
> unidirectional flow, or other aggregate of traffic into another
> network. I'm not assuming anything about whether they are offering
> "content" or something else - I think it would be better to talk about
> peering fairness at the network layer, rather than the business /
> service layer.

In that case, it's essentially never an issue, since essentially every packet in one direction is balanced by a packet in the other direction, so rotational symmetry takes care of the "fairness."  I think you may be taking your argument too far, though, since by this logic, the sending and receiving networks also have control over what they choose to transit and receive, and I think that discounts too far the reality that it is in fact the _customers_ that are making all of these decisions, and the networks are, in the aggregate, inflexible in their need to service customers.  What a customer will pay to do, a service provider will take money to perform.  It's not really service providers (in aggregate) making these decisions.  It's customers.

                                -Bill