BBN Peering issues

Michael Shields shields at crosslink.net
Sun Aug 16 20:28:09 UTC 1998


> Well that's all fine and dandy. however the internet has worked for 20 years
> that
> I have been asssociated with it, on the working principal that no one
> hassled or
> encumbered peering charges and there were no board rooms or stockholders
> and that is why it worked, because people knew what they were doing.

The reason it's worked is that connecting network A to network B
generally provides value to both, so we've had a multi-decade
connectfest.  Value of connecting exceeded cost of connecting.

Lately we are seeing shadings between the traditional "customer/peer"
dichotomy.  Traditionally peers treated each other as true equals
because the cost of determining the relative value to A of connecting
to B and to B of connecting to A in order to determine who should pay
whom, including badwill cost, exceeded the expected payment.

BBN thinks is no longer the case and if you are going to convince them
otherwise, you'll have to convince them that it is in *their* best
interest to continue free peering with Exodus, not that it is in
"the Internet's" best interest.

As Karl says, an effective way to do that is to cancel your BBN
contract.  In fact this is almost certainly the only effective way to
convince them.  If you're not a BBN customer there is no reason they
should listen to you.
-- 
Shields, CrossLink.



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