The large ISPs and Peering

Robert E. Seastrom rs at seastrom.com
Thu Jul 26 17:30:12 UTC 2001



Curtis Maurand <curtis at lamere.net> writes:

> A rose by any other name...  The fact is, and history shows us, that when
> cartels form, things get bad for the consumer.  Oil, Electricity,
> telecomm.  However, The placement of the NAP's is disconcerting, because
> the process for choosing them was closed.   Does it make sense for all of
> my traffic going to maine.rr.com from lamere.net (both in Maine and in the
> same communities) to exchange traffic at MAE east 650 miles away?

See other mail on this same topic.  The placement of the NAPs was not
a closed process.  If you want to exchange traffic directly with
maine.rr.com, you should approach them directly and see if you can
work out an arrangement with them.  Be prepared to make a business and
technical case that is appealing to both sides.

This may come as a surprise to you, but being at an exchange point is
not a guarantee that any particular organization that is there will be
willing to trade traffic with your organization.  There's no advantage
to being at an exchange point other than quickness of provisioning
connections between companies; you still have to meet whatever criteria
your prospective partner sets forth for traffic exchange.

> > I don't see this as a bad thing. What you say about price equalization
> > followed by increases may be true, but it seems unlikely to me for a few
> > reasons.
> >
> > 1. There's a fiber 6glut.
> 
> There won't be if the Tier-1's all form a "consotium."  They will collude
> on network build out and stop competing with each other.  If you think
> that's not true, think again.

It's hard enough to get backbone providers to cooperate on legal
stuff, let alone collude to perform illegal restraint of trade.  If
none of the big boys takes you seriously, it is probably not a
conspiracy, just confirmation that you're small fry.

But hey, we could all be wrong, in which case you can at least hitch a
ride of Vijay's flying pig...

                                        ---Rob




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