peering charges?

Sun Jan 26 07:04:14 UTC 1997

I don't think anyone has actually started charging "settlements" which is
what your CEO is probably talking about.  It's been a rumor for quite a
while that settlement based peering will happen.  Very similar to how the
utilities companies manage "traffic".  You would count bits into your
network from peer X and he would count bits from your network, whoever has
the lowest number has to pay the difference.  So, if you are a small
provider, your going to have to pay the big boys to carry your customers
traffic.  Welcome to the new Internet, where the bottom line is the
driving factor. Especially since the margins are so low and no-one has
made any money yet (will we ever?). 

Since some of the larger vendors (Cisco mostly) has introduced accounting
features into their software settlements could start any time.  It's just
a matter of time until someone actually announces it..  who will jump
first?   I have my guess but I don't think I want to announce it publicly.
:)

Eric

_______________________________________________________
      Eric D. Madison - Senior Network Engineer -   
 ACSI - Advanced Data Services - ATM/IP Backbone Group  
   24 Hour NMC/NOC (800)291-7889 Email: noc at acsi.net

On Sun, 26 Jan 1997, Dave Curado wrote:

> 
> Curious thing, the CEO of my company called me the other
> day and was worried about who we were peering with.
> It seems someone put a bug in his ear that the larger 
> providers were about to start charging some of the smaller
> providers for bilateral peering.  
> 
> I haven't heard anything about that at all... so either
> a) the ceo is mistaken
> b) I've missed some important annoucement recently
> 
> either is possible.
> 
> Has anyone else heard anything about this?
> 
> Thanks,
> davec
> 
> 