Cogent/Level 3 depeering (philosophical solution)

Sat Oct 8 11:02:00 UTC 2005


> Various people have stated that uneven data flows (e.g. from
> mostly-content networks to mostly-eyeball networks) is a good reason to
> not peer.

	I think the industry simply needs to accept that it's more expensive to
receive traffic than to send it. So yes, Cogent sends Level 3 more traffic
than Level 3 sends them. But that's because Level 3's customers want to
receive a lot of traffic, and it's just a fact about the Internet that it's
expensive to receive traffic. Sorry. Bill your customers or design your
business model appropriately.

	If I want to send you a packet and you want to receive that packet, I
should expect to pay the costs of sending the packet to you and you should
expect to pay the cost of receiving the packet from me. If one costs more
than the other, well, that's the breaks.

	The benefit isn't always equal, why should the costs be? The question is
whether the benefit to each side exceeds their cost.

	Yes, that can't possibly work. It's way too simple and actually makes
sense.

	DS