The IPv6 Travesty that is Cogent's refusal to peer Hurricane Electric - and how to solve it

Thu Jan 28 05:52:36 UTC 2016

On 28/Jan/16 03:36, Owen DeLong wrote:

> I disagree with this last part.
>
> I realize that the common wisdom among execs at so-called tier-1 providers
> is that refusing SFI protects their revenue stream, but I believe it’s not
> true.
>
> In fact, I think that a willingness to peer with your customers and anyone
> else on the internet wherever you can do so for very little cost (for example,
> where it’s just one more peering session at an IXP, no additional port cost,
> circuit, XC, etc.) settlement free can only increase your business.
>
> IMHO, a truly good tier-1 will charge for transit, set their metrics and
> prefs such that their paid ports are preferred over their non-revenue
> ports, and provides peer routes only on the SFIs.
>
> This turns out to be mostly a win-win situation for everyone, including the
> tier-1 in the long run.

I tend to agree with Owen on this one.

We, last year, transitioned from selective to open peering - despite our
scope - in the region we serve (primarily Africa). It has only improved
the quality of our service (a great deal of Africa still exchanges
traffic in Europe), lowered costs, made customers happy and generated a
lot of community goodwill.

Obviously, we do not provide free transit across SFI ports, and we have
practical implementations in place to ensure that we only handle
customer traffic through customer-facing links, removing the potential
of handling customer traffic through peering links (particularly with
customers who are multi-homed to you and another SFI peer of yours).

While I do not disagree that larger providers looking to protect their
revenues is an economically-sound objective, I think the typical peering
policies of old do not entirely hold up in 2016.

Mark.