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

Fri May 16 19:23:58 UTC 2014

Matthew,

There is a difference between what should be philosophically and what
happened with Level 3 which is a contractual issue.

Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ZCorum
(678) 507-5000
--------------------------------
http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
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On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 3:15 PM, Matthew Petach <mpetach at netflight.com>wrote:

> On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Christopher Morrow <
> morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
> >
> Traffic asymmetry across peering connections
> was what lit the fuse on this whole powder keg,
> if I understand correctly; at the point the traffic
> went asymmetric, the refusals to augment
> capacity kicked in, and congestion became
> a problem.
>
> I've seen the same thing; pretty much every
> rejection is based on ratio issues, even when
> offering to cold-potato haul the traffic to the
> home market for the users.
>
> If the refusals hinged on any other clause
> of the peering requirements, you'd be right;
> but at the moment, that's the flag networks
> are waving around as their speedbump-du-jour.
> So, it may be very "1990", but unfortunately
> that seems to be the year many people in
> the industry are mentally stuck in.  :(
>
> Matt
>