from Dave Farber's list: Ireland to regulate peering

Mon Jun 16 06:40:14 UTC 2003

Sean Donelan wrote:
> If I'm willing to pay list price, I can get "peering" or an
> interconnection with almost any ISP in the world.  I can call the
> sales offices of any provider, and on request most of them will sell
> me a connection to their network.

That isn't peering. That's transit or 'paid peering'.

To me peering has always been an equitable exchange of traffic on a shared
cost basis. UUNET and others have exploited their SMP over the last ten
years to force foreign ISPs to pay them both ways to get to their content
and access customers. That should be regulated (IMHO) - globally. I think we
all know how much fun NDA based peering agreements have been and continue to
be.

"You are a net contene provider - pay to get to our access customers."

"You are a net content consumer - pay to get to out content providers."

"Our customers all pay us."

Hmm. Never liked the abuse/misuse of a 'captive' customer base.

> Ireland appears to be saying, if I don't like the price I can ask the
> Irish government to order ISPs in Ireland to charge less.  If I think
> a grocery store in Ireland is charging too much for potatoes, can I
> ask the Irish government to order the grocery store to change its
> price
> on potatoes?

Actually, yes. At least AFAIK. In the UK you certainly can, but Eire has
similar regulations as a result of the EU. From recent UK experience, the
supermarkets were recently investigated if any had SMP on a regional basis,
and if so should controls be imposed on both pricing (under as well as over)
and also costs - what they pay to suppliers. Sadly, lobbying killed this
issue - this time.

Peter