The large ISPs and Peering

Thu Jul 26 03:03:48 UTC 2001

On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Majdi S. Abbas wrote:

Majdi, I don't believe I'm going to have to do this.

> associated with large LECs, IXCs and other companies in possession of
> A) large amounts of fiber  and/or b) large amounts of transport.
>
> 	They are also typically in posession of large amounts of
> colo, usually their own, which they are already deployed into.
> Would you rather deploy into your own colo, or someone elses,
> particularly when that someone is in competition with you?  Do you
> want to be in a facility your competitors have access to?

Perhaps this is why neutral (n-th) party colo providers were given the
chance to bid on the contract. If the service is going to suck, it will
suck for _everyone_. And there are plenty of people who are dropping
equipment into competitors colos to provide service.

> 	*bzzt* Wrong again.  In order for a large carrier, particularly
> large access and transit ISPs to deploy into these facilities, they will
> require transport equipment.  ADMs and diverse fiber entrances into those
> facilities are not cheap.  They would have to fully deploy into each of
> these facilities.

Yes, but the long term traffic growth rate is constrained at the edges for
the most part (edge being the local loop). Horror stories regarding speed
of provisioning between two large promising local ISP's would fill a book.

So looks like some people have figured out that provisioning a dark fiber
cross connect is much cheaper and easier to upgrade than say, getting new
STM-4 and 16's from various people in n points across their topology.

>
> 	The total equipment, fiber, and facilities cost of such a move is
> likely to be much higher than arranging for private peering as needed.

Maybe. You can play financial capex games on equipment etc.  Once you have
this in place, it's a sunk cost; the upgrade path is clear and much easier
than getting the ilec du jour (maybe another department) provision new
circuits.

> you receive these loops at or below cost due to Ma Telco's subsidization of
> those loops, it is very possibly a non-issue to arrange for 'large' circuits,
> peering or otherwise, as long as the capacity is there.

Having been there, it is not a cost thing, it is almost completely a
lack of speed of provisioning at the local loop thing (aka the viscosity
of bandwidth is high).

> 	In my experience, presence at the same facility is only a peering
> enhancer for local and regional ISPs, who would very possibly not peer at
> all if there were a loop involved.  The larger carriers have already made
> their arrangements.

Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Having a Nx192 system in a facility where
there were lots of other large players and I could get a new connection
turned up by a cross-connect work order would be very useful.

/vijay