peering charges?

Mon Jan 27 12:03:56 UTC 1997

> >Computers (third party?) on the edges of my network count the number of
> >packets that transit my network over a certain time period. Periodically I
> >issue invoices.
> 
> Ok. How do you translate the number of packets into figure in $s?
> 
> In a capitalist economy, price generally follows value.
> 
> What is the value of a packet?  It is not even clear if packet crossing
> from your network to my network gives _me_ any value.  It can as well
> be for _your_ benefit.

There's a much more simple flaw in this one. If you count packets
(for TCP protocols anyway), every packet full of lovely http data
doing one way tends to be matched by an equal number of ACKs. Hang on,
that gives us zero settlement. Maybe not such a bad idea after all :-)

Alex Bligh
Xara Networks