Peering versus Transit

Mon Sep 30 00:54:31 UTC 1996

On Sun, 29 Sep 1996, Randy Bush wrote:

> > You mean that if I have data to go to Sprint, typically a Sprint customer
> > who has requested said data, that I'm not supposed to route it to Sprint
> > unless *I* have some agreement with Sprint?!?
> 
> It scares me to see this question on this list.

Maybe you should be frightened more often.

There is one and only one reason why this question is on this list.
Growth. If the Internet was not growing, this kind of question would not
appear here.

However, anybody who believes that the small network known as the global
Internet still has 3 to 4 orders of magnitude of growth left in it should
welcome such a question on a public list because it indicates several
things:

1) There are people on the list who don't know everything.

2) Those people want to learn how things work.

3) These people are brave enough to come where the experts are
   in order to learn.

Of course it is much easier to flame up and coming ISP's than to educate
them. Many people take great satisfaction in doing this because it not
only gives them great personal satisfaction but it also ensures that the
up and comers will make dumb mistakes due to their lack of education and
cause endless heartburn as their routes flap and they crash your BGP
sessions, etc. Some people love this heartburn since it gives them more
fuel with which to flame people.

Now who has the great strength of character to swallow their pride and
humbly assist these up and coming ISP's to learn the ropes? Who
understands that network engineers must all hang together lest they
hang separately on the gallows of Metcalfe's Infoworld audience?

After all, the purpose of a mailing list is to share information. If you
really want to share emotions such as anger or fear, you would be best
advised to do so on a voice telephone call. Internet phone would be fine
too. :-)

Michael Dillon                   -               ISP & Internet Consulting
Memra Software Inc.              -                  Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com             -               E-mail: michael at memra.com