a little thought on exchanging traffic

Wed May 20 15:36:49 UTC 1998

> L3 Forwarding devices implement policy.  The policies, in their most
> basic form, tell the forwarding agents where, when, and how to handle
> various classes of traffic.  What happens when competitive entities 
> need to interconnect their L3 devices in order to build a larger 
> network?  Does the current NAP model work well?  Do peering
> agreements, as we understand them today, work and scale well? 
> 

What I am curious about here is the view from the big networks.  A small
number of networks carry a very large percentage of the traffic.  I'd like
to know what piece of their traffic actually crosses a public exchange,
rather than being delivered to a customer or another big network over a
private peering arrangement.  The answer to this question will put some
level of relevence on this discussion.  If those who carry 80% of the
domestic traffic exchange 80% of their off-network traffic privately then
NAP architecture and growth stratagem don't really make a difference.

  Brian Horvitz