Observations of an Internet Middleman (Level3) (was: RIP

Fri May 16 18:52:31 UTC 2014

On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Blake Hudson <blake at ispn.net> wrote:
> in the context of this discussion I think it's silly for a residential ISP
> to purport themselves to be a neutral carrier of traffic and expect peering
> ratios to be symmetric

is 'symmetric traffic ratios' even relevant though? Peering is about
offsetting costs, right? it might not be important that the ratio be
1:1 or 2:1... or even 10:1, if it's going to cost you 20x to get the
traffic over longer/transit/etc paths... or if you have to build into
some horrific location(s) to access the content in question.

Harping on symmetric ratios seems very 1990... and not particularly
germaine to the conversation at hand.