NANOG67 - Tipping point of community and sponsor bashing?

Fri Jun 17 07:16:48 UTC 2016

Hi Dave,

> On 16 juni 2016, at 16:40, Dave Temkin <dave at temk.in> wrote:

<snip>

> Nothing in my presentation said "Netflix seeks to get better port fees". You'll find that I, not once, in my deck or oral presentation, mentioned Netflix. I spoke at length with LINX after the presentation and pointed out that I seek to help the entire market, not just my employer, better understand how IXPs price their services, what things are negotiable, and what things need to change. Call it thinly-veiled, but I didn't even use my employer slide master - this was geared as a community discussion.

Ok.

> And I don’t represent a membership-based IXP.
> 
> An important distinction. Poring through http://www.netnod.se/about/documents , there is very little transparency into the actual operations of NetNod. 

Well, we do describe our governance structure and we are always clear about being owned by a foundation on our information material. We even present financial figures at our Netnod meetings. 

But ok, maybe this could be better documented on our website. Fair enough. Our current website sucks somewhat and we’re in the process of reworking it, so I’ll take your point onboard and we’ll try to improve this. 

>  If you stop adding value to those networks peering at the IX, you will slowly become irrelevant.
> 
> And therein lies the rub, we (many of us, not just you and I) disagree about what "adding value" is defined as. I'm glad we can have this conversation.

Yes. And we will never agree. You and I may of course agree in one point in time, but all the world’s operators will never agree. I think this thread has proven that. Some seem to argue that all IXPs should simply be a donated L2 switch sitting in free rack space, while others clearly need more than that. 

Having a discussion about that is useful, I agree. And it’s a discussion that will continue to evolve as the industry evolves. And it will maybe also reach different conclusions for LINX, as opposed to INEX, LONAP or Netnod (which was the point I was trying to make about diversity). Also, as we know, IXPs is not the only solution to interconnection.  

To me it was not clear that this is the conversation you wanted to have. If that’s the case, then great!

<snip>

> We work in a similar way with our pricing. (You mention that there is a lot of negotiations on pricing with IXPs.) I would like to be 100% clear that for the Netnod IX, we don’t negotiate or give “sweet deals” to anyone. We publish our fee schedule and we stick to it. Whenever someone wants a special deal (which happens often, particularly with the larger customers), our response is that we treat everyone equally. If you want a cheaper deal, then another customer is basically funding your reduction. So we don’t do this. We believe this is more fair and transparent.
> 
> That's fantastic, and I agree with this approach. And that's why it's important to make this a community discussion, not a "Netflix and Netnod" discussion.

This is slightly different (although somewhat related) to “what value do IXPs bring?”. This is about keeping the IXPs honest. Like Nick, I’m all for that. 

> As for a general discussion about costs, service levels and IXPs, I think there is a very interesting discussion that could be had with a more focused discussion. How do “we” best serve today's very diverse set of operators? How does an IXP strike that balance? How do operators best solve their interconnection needs (through IXPs, private peering, transit etc) and is that changing? What type of interconnection environment do we believe best scales Internet growth in the future? What is the total cost of interconnection, where are the big costs, what are the different models and where is the whole industry moving? Now THOSE are discussions I personally would find very valuable!
> 
> We agree. I'm really glad that this has sprouted so many threads of discussion. This seems to have kicked off the discussion within the larger community beyond just the four examples, and I think that what we've seen thus far is healthy discourse. 

Sure. A broader discussion would be both useful and interesting.

Nurani