BBN/GTEI

Fri Aug 21 23:49:03 UTC 1998

How about if everyone just joins the BPP?

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Dillon <michael at memra.com>
To: nanog at merit.edu <nanog at merit.edu>
Date: Friday, August 21, 1998 4:49 PM
Subject: Re: BBN/GTEI

|On Fri, 21 Aug 1998, Dave Rand wrote:
|
|> Traffic is an obvious one.  Is that measured in packets per second, or
bits
|> per second?
|
|Bits, not packets. And I think that aggregate octets per hour or per day
|is a more reasonable way to measure it.
|
|>  Since, in the USA (where the vast majority of traffic
|> originates) circuits are provisioned as full duplex, _does it matter_
which
|> direction the bits are flowing in?
|
|Yes. In and out should be measured separately.
|
|> Assuming it does matter, in which direction does the value flow?
|
|Here's the complex part. The value is not expressed in bits and it depends
|on the destination within the peer's network. I am assuming that we can
|map the IPv4 address space by city and that we can set some value to each
|intercity link. This means that a stream of bits entering a peers network
|in San Jose with a final destination in San Jose would be free. But if the
|stream of bits was destined for Santa Cruz there would be a small cost.
|And if it was destined for Sacramento there would be a somewhat larger
|cost because Sacramento is further.
|
|> Another one is route-miles.  A provider with 1,000 route-miles of
circuits
|> 'obviously' has less value than a provider with 10,000 route-miles of
|> circuits.  How does speed of those circuits factor in?  Perhaps the
metric
|> should be DS0-route-miles (64K-circuits per mile).  Of course, one WDM
dark
|> fiber run of 250 miles would nuke this metric.
|
|Route-miles between cities might be the metric for determining the cost
|multiplier. Of course, this would assume some standard city-to-city
|mileage and a standard boundary, rather like a LATA boundary, that would
|make Santa Clara considered to be equivalent to a San Jose destination
|since it is only a couple of miles from San Jose.
|
|> How about dollar value of the network, in total bills paid to the telcos?
|> Does this mean that networks that are owned by telcos have an almost-zero
|> cost, or an "full retail price" accounting cost?
|
|I think that we need some standard way to calculate such costs. Since we
|are discussing how to account for regional transit I think that one way
|would be for the peer who would receive the payment to publish to a
|pricelist to their peers for city-to-city transit and use this pricelist.
|The arrangement would give the peers the option to buy circuits from the
|other peer at that rate. We would use some formula based upon how much
|traffic a reasonably standard intercity circuit could carry to determine
|the rate per bit over that link.
|
|> Are networks that
|> have reciprical agreements with telcos unduely penalized, or do they
|> benefit?
|
|I would expect that they would neither benefit or be penalized.
|
|> Another good metric might be number of customers.
|
|There is too much variation between customers for this to work.
|
|> How about number of network advertisments, or routes?
|
|Same thing, too much variation, i.e. big aggregates and little ones.
|
|> We haven't even got to the hard points, which is *how much* each of
|> these metrics are 'worth'.
|
|Agreed. This is likely going to require an industry council to come up
|with the metrics and algorithms and specific numbers. Does this sound
|suspiciously like regulated peering? Yes. It is regulated peering but my
|intention is for the providers to work out the regulations within the
|industry and only have government involvement on a review basis. For
|instance such a council would need to satisfy the government that it was
|not acting in an antitrust fashion and they would likely review this on a
|regular basis.
|
|> We also haven't begun to address sites like gatekeeper.dec.com,
|> ftp.cdrom.com, and the like.  Nor networks with plently of suck bandwidth
|> (but not much content) such as MSN and AOL.
|
|I think that this suggestion addresses all sorts of asymmetry because I
|believe that the bottom line is that it costs more to transfer a given
|number of bits over a larger distance than a smaller one and that this
|cost can be quantified.
|
|> It's harder than it looks on the surface, folks.  Clues appreciated.
|
|I agree with this. However when I look ahead to a world in which the IP
|network is the only data communications infrastructure carrying voice,
|video, web, email, etc., then I think that the hard work must be done to
|create a scalable peering system. If we succeed at this then we will never
|have to go through the pain that the telephone network experienced with
|the forced AT&T government regulated monopoly followed by its forced
|dissolution still under government regulation. It is my opinion that the
|only way out from the specter of increased government regulation of the
|Internet is to pre-empt government action by working out a system that
|would be considered fair under existing antitrust laws. If we can go a
|significant way down the path to such a system, even if we have not yet
|implemented it, then I believe we will be able to secure support from the
|government for a self-regulated industry peering council.
|
|But that's just my opinion. I don't have all the answers.
|
|--
|Michael Dillon                 -               Internet & ISP Consulting
|Memra Communications Inc.      -               E-mail: michael at memra.com
|Check the website for my Internet World articles -  http://www.memra.com
|
|