MIX

Sat Apr 6 19:08:36 UTC 1996

> > From: Dave Siegel <dsiegel at rtd.com>
> > > How about you?  Have you created one in _your_ metro?
> >
> > Yes, actually, but they solve a different problem ... bandwidth.
> > It doesn't provide Internet connectivity, it doesn't assign IP addresses...
> 
> What's the point if it doesn't provide connectivity?  Anything that is
> topological in nature, and yet is not reflected in the routing and
> address assignment, is detrimental to the Internet as a whole.

Who's Internet are you talking about?  Are you talking about the one where
I can't get my packets across town without running packets all the way to 
San Jose and back, and my reward for this is 10% packet loss?  Oh, yeah,
I thought that was the one you were talking about.

There are several very large problems in the Internet, and the routing table
(and route flap) is *only* one of them.

> > though it could provide backup connectivity with the appropriate transit
> > agreements in place between participating ISP's.

> How?  I certainly wouldn't want to add yet another peering arrangement
> with every Tom, Dick and Harry that showed up at any regional
> interconnect.  One interconnect, one peering arrangement.

There is an MLPA available.  None of the participants have shown much
interest in signing it...nor have they made any objections to it.  Most
people just don't want paperwork.

Furthermore, an MLPA has nothing to do with address assignments, or providing
a large pipe to a larger entity to the participants.

Why not, you say?  Because ISPs want to do it *their* way, not *your* way,
and that's why the business model doesn't work.

> > This is the model that most of these exchanges are being built around.
> > Anything else is "just a really big local ISP" and is imposing a business
> > model upon a region worse than any FCC tarriff has done.
> >
> A business model that shafts everyone else on the net so that you can
> make more money?

It's not MY business model that worries me.  It's the guy at the computer
store down the road, or the one that came from 30 years of doing real estate
startup an ISP and pronounce that "unlike everyone else in town, he has a 
connection to the 'Internet Backbone, MCI'."

You cannot expect to control how people buy, especially based on "good 
intentions".  The only way such a model would ever be adheared to is if the
Federal government suddenly started regulating the Internet, and they adopted
this model with similar effect of the IXC/LEC model.

> Better that everyone else refuse to accept routes through your AS, and
> improve their routing table size thereby.

What if I'm static routed?  What's your point?

(I'm not, but that isn't)

Dave

-- 
Dave Siegel		     Sr. Network Engineer, RTD Systems & Networking
(520)623-9663		     Network Consultant -- Regional/National NSPs
dsiegel at rtd.com		     User Tracking & Acctg -- "Written by an ISP, 
http://www.rtd.com/~dsiegel/					for an ISP."