cogent+ Level(3) are ok now

Tue Nov 1 19:59:26 UTC 2005

On Tue, 1 Nov 2005, Stephen J. Wilcox wrote:

> On Tue, 1 Nov 2005, Brandon Ross wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 1 Nov 2005, John Payne wrote:
>>
>>> What am I missing?
>>
>> That it's a pure power play.
>
> market position is important

If by market position you are referring to who needs/wants/can do without 
the traffic more, yes.

>> Peering is only distantly associated with costs or responsibilities.
>
> no, peering is entirely associated with costs or responsibilities.. what 
> other reason is there to peer ?

I was probably being a bit too dramatic with that statement.  What I'm 
trying to get across is that it doesn't matter who is "supposed to" pay 
for "their customers'" traffic.  It doesn't matter that I have a million 
dialup users, if I can use my market position to get someone else to peer 
with me "for free" that's all that matters.  The fact that those 1 million 
customers pay me is irrelevant.

>> It has to do with what company has the intestinal fortitude to draw a line in
>> the sand and stick with it no matter how many customers cancel their service.
>
> have to weigh up the gains and losses to see if that is a good or bad 
> thing tho.

Of course.

>> Those with a critical mass of traffic and the right amount of guts win.
>
> markets are always stacked in favour of the larger players in that way.. 
> saying 'hey i'm a little guy, give me chance' generally goes unheard

Quite true.

>> Everyone else loses the peering game.
>
> not peering isnt necessarily losing, there are networks who would peer with me
> if i turned up in asia or the west coast, but my cost to get there is greater
> than sticking to transit.

You don't have to tell me that, I work for Internap, we've made a business 
out of not peering, and doing quite well at it.

I said "loses the peering game".  I didn't say they lost the game in 
entirety.  Similarly, just because a company "wins" the peering game 
(fully peered with all other default free networks) doesn't mean it wins 
the business game.  Just take a look at a former employer of mine, 4006 
was default free, but that doesn't mean that we made any money.

> to get a new peer, both sides need to feel they are gaining value

Or one side needs to be more scared of the other side cutting them off.

-- 
Brandon Ross                                              AIM:  BrandonNRoss
Director, Network Engineering                             ICQ:  2269442
Internap                           Skype:  brandonross  Yahoo:  BrandonNRoss