Sprint peering policy

Sat Jun 29 09:37:09 UTC 2002

On Sat, 29 Jun 2002, Joseph T. Klein wrote:

> Mike alludes to something here that is not often discussed.

I thought this was discussed quite regularly round here and is well known?

> It can be argued that some conditions exists where a traditional backbone
> provider gets an economic value from peering, especially with large broadband
> providers. A broadband provider who takes a "hell no, I won't buy" attitude
> with a large tier 1 can drive Gigabits of traffic away from the tier 1's
> revenue stream by peering around that provider and directing traffic down
> paths that avoid the tier 1.

But bearing in mind that by peering they only see the provider and the
provider's customer's routes the tier1 would most likely have been receiving the
traffic anyway just via a different route (another tier1 providing transit to
the broadband operator)

"Peering around" only works if the networks the broadband provider wants to
reach are buying from another network that they can get peering with, as most
tier1's have similar i'll call it 'fascist' peering regimes they will not be
able to peer around.

They will of course be able to get peering with smaller providers but these are
individually small gains..

Steve

> If the large tier 1 peers and demands high traffic levels, the tier 1
> then moves more traffic through revenue producing pipes. This gives
> the tier 1 more cash.
> 
> I have seen data that seems to indicate that the major Cable and DSL
> providers - if you subtract the flows that cross the tier 1s - haul a
> significant percentage of the traffic ... a percentage that is growing
> faster than the traditional B2B tier 1s due to explotion of P2P traffic.
> 
> It also seems to me that tier 1s that try to get revenue from hosting
> and data centers ends up shooting themselves in the foot when they
> refuse to peer with broadband providers. They get paid by people who
> want good connectivity. Big web customer wants the guy at the end of
> the broadband connection to have a good experience. Tier 1, by depeering
> or not peering is keeping paying clients from have an optimized network
> environment. The smart customers start checking out alternatives
> where they are not blocked from optimum network performance
> by the policies of a peer unfriendly tier 1 hosting company.
> 
> Vijay is correct that the peering is based on both parties perceived
> value. IMHO - Some of the tier 1 highly over value themselves (in terms
> of network importance) to the detriment of those tier 1s' customers and
> cashflow.
> 
> Demanding traffic levels, geographical diversity, x size backbone and
> a 24x7 NOC as conditions for peering is not unreasonable.
> 
> Demands for large aggrigated route table size without a consideration
> of traffic as a condition seems to me to be an exclusionary policy
> of the type that attracts regulation and reduces revenue.
> 
> I admit to being corrupted by my prospective ... ;-)
> 
> BTW
> 
> Bill Norton's peering strategy paper gives some excellent guidence for
> inflicting "pain" on non peers.
> 
> --On Friday, 28 June 2002 22:31 -0700 Mike Leber <mleber at he.net> wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > On 29 Jun 2002, Vijay Gill wrote:
> >> Mike Leber <mleber at he.net> writes:
> >>
> >> > Sprint's peers aren't equal to Sprint or each other when considered by
> >> > revenue, profitability, number of customers, or geographical coverage.
> >>
> >> A good proxy for the above is to ask the question:
> >>
> >>  Do X and Y feel they derive equal value (for some value of equal) by
> >>  interconnecting with each other?
> >
> > This incorrectly presumes that being equal is necessary, when in truth
> > each party is going to have a threshold and method for determining the
> > value of the exchange that is independent of the other parties
> > preconceptions.
> >
> > Point in case, most networks care significantly more about what they get
> > out of a peering session than what the their peers get out of it.  And
> > this is correct and valid because only by paying attention to the actual
> > underlying economic reasons for making peering decisions will they be able
> > to ensure they stay in business.
> >
> >>  If they think they do, then an interconnection is set up between X
> >>  and Y. However, if one party feels that they do NOT derive equal
> >>  value by interconnecting with the other, than that party usually
> >>  balks.
> >
> > By your reasoning all ventures should be 50/50 partnerships, which they
> > aren't.
> >
> > I'll concede if a network were to percieve themselves as a majority share
> > holder and think themselves large enough to effect the underlying price of
> > bandwidth in the market then they might focus primarily on how to prevent
> > another network from making more money than them from a peering agreement,
> > as you describe.  However, based on all the bankruptcies they should be
> > more focused on their own immediate operational costs and staying in
> > business than worrying about any single competitor.
> >
> >>  X states that they would only feel equal value is derived by both
> >>  parties if traffic between X and the other party is n mb/s with a
> >>  ratio of p:q.  Y disagrees. They do not interconnect. This causes
> >>  pain.
> >
> > Again, this is proof of my first point above, that each network has its
> > own method of evaluating peering and that their method matters more to
> > them than what the peer thinks.
> >
> >> > to make sense of their peering policy, just accept the fact that each
> >> > company has policies that they believe to be in their best interests and
> >> > omit the pretense of justifying this by the movement of heavenly bodies in
> >> > the spheres.
> >>
> >> I think we are in agreement here.
> >
> > I figured, I just couldn't let you get away with the equal remark lest
> > onlookers pickup bad attitudes.  :-P
> >
> > Mike.
> >
> > +------------------- H U R R I C A N E - E L E C T R I C -------------------+
> >| Mike Leber             Direct Internet Connections     Voice 510 580 4100 |
> >| Hurricane Electric       Web Hosting  Colocation         Fax 510 580 4151 |
> >| mleber at he.net                                           http://www.he.net |
> > +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> --
> Joseph T. Klein                                         jtk at titania.net
> 
>     "Why do you continue to use that old Usenet style signature?"
>                                                                 -- anon