Peering versus Transit

Bill Woodcock woody at zocalo.net
Mon Sep 30 02:11:16 UTC 1996


        > * _Stealing_ is when B uses A's resources without permission or
        > agreement.
    
    Okay, for the sake of perpetuating an argument which should be at
    least a little more interesting to you, Randy, than you let on, let's
    try reversing those labels...
    
    A = Little ISP 
    B = Sprint or MCI 
    C = Other transit provider
    
    B collects money from B's customers in exchange for giving them access
    to resources on the Internet.  Let's say that A, which uses C for
    transit, sells a connection to, for instance, a library, with the
    assumption that they're providing a connection which library patrons
    will use to browse resources on the Internet.  Instead, the library,
    A's customer, puts up their card catalog and a popular reference web
    site.  B's customers all want to get to A and download big honking
    gifs. The "legitimate" path for this would be through C, to whom A has
    to pay money, but B does not.
    
    So let's look at the proposed definition of "stealing" again:
    
        > * _Stealing_ is when B uses A's resources without permission or
        > agreement.
    
    In this case, the resource is transit purchased by A from C, for the
    use of A's customers.  In this case, B is "stealing" A's transit
    resource for the use of B's customers, without compensating A.  C is a
    hapless bystander who now has to carry a lot of unneccessary traffic
    which could be flowing directly between A and B.
    
    Please explain to me how this creates a better, faster, cheaper, more
    reliable Internet.
  
                         -Bill 

________________________________________________________________________________
bill woodcock  woody at zocalo.net  woody at applelink.apple.com  user at host.domain.com





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