Peering versus Transit

Mon Sep 30 03:37:25 UTC 1996

On Sun, 29 Sep 1996, Nathan Stratton wrote:

> > It would be helpful if these things were more clearly defined in writing
> > so that newcomers can zip up the learning curve faster. 
> 
> Yes, but can we agree that dumping data to someons router at a NAP
> without asking is steeling?

No. It's not that simple. In most any data transfer over the net there are
two parties involved, one of which initiates the transaction and the other
which responds. Sometimes the initiator transmits more data (SMTP) and
sometimes the responder does (HTTP). Most of the time both the initiator
and the responder are paying different providers for their network
connection. 

I can see no natural law here that makes it obvious which of the two
providers should be responsible for carrying which portion of the traffic
other than the 50/50 rule and I see no obvious and simple way to decide
where that 50/50 split point is other than to count and record every byte
transferred. Thus I see no obvious way to determine what is stealing.

Of course, the providers and carriers and exchange point operators are at
liberty to make contractual agreements which define what stealing is but
in the absence of such a contractual agreement, the concept of "stealing" 
cannot exist. In other words, unless you have a contract with either
Sprint or the XP operator which forbids you from dumping packets into
Sprint's router which are destined to a Sprint customer, then you are not
stealing anything.

Now I don't know if any XP operators have contracts that are this
detailled, but IMHO if this kind of behavior proves to be a problem, the
XP operator is the one who could solve it both contractually and
technically within their switching fabric.

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