Inter-provider relations

Thu Oct 24 19:25:40 UTC 1996

	Interesting speech from Peter Kline at NANOG today...it seems that
AGIS's peering requirements are now so strict that AGIS today would not
peer with AGIS of only a few months ago.
	Then there's Peter's comment to Ron Burleson, Cheif Operating
Officer of CAIS Internet (some of you know that CAIS had a very good
relationship with Net99, which continued for a while under AGIS.)  "Ron,
we're going to squish you like a bug."
	Peter is doing wonders for inter-provider relations.  What do
y'all say that the rest of us follow the older, more friendly model,
instead of trying to kill each other?
	Sure, a lot of us are in competition.  From today's speech, it
seems that AGIS is is more competition than the rest of us.
	But personally, if I were a small or mid-size provider, I'd rather
buy service from somebody that I've seen to be in /friendly/ competition
with their peers -- that way, once I got big enough to strike out on my
own, I could stay friendly with my old provider on a peer instead of a
customer level.  This was the intention with the Net99 deal, back when
Net99 was known as "the backbone that doesn't suck."

	Back to the point -- like it or not, we all rely on each other and
each others' networks to make the Internet happen.
	We can follow the AGIS model and cut each others' throats until we
really are just a bunch of autonomous systems with the occasional path
between, or we can interconnect -- network, to use a more laoded term. 
	I think we should be a network. 

	(Please note that while I am speaking only for myself, CAIS's
business plan is more on the friendly side.) 

--
J.D. Falk                                              <lart at cais.net>
Network Operations Center                               <noc at cais.net>
CAIS Internet                                    Office (703) 448-4470
McLean, Virginia, USA                               NOC 1-888-CAIS-NOC