S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge

Tue Oct 12 13:45:11 UTC 2021

On 10/12/21 14:20, Jason Iannone wrote:

> Isn't this a problem with legacy peering agreements in today's 
> internet? The same thing happened between Netflix, Level3, and Verizon 
> a few years ago. The legacy concept of settlement-free peering is 
> based on traffic forwarding parity. If what I forward to you roughly 
> matches what you forward to me, we can agree that we have no reason to 
> charge each other for access. The concept works fine when content and 
> eyeballs are evenly distributed between providers. This doesn't work 
> in today's divergent content and eyeball networks.
>
> If Netflix agreed to settlement-free peering under the legacy 
> definition, then as far as the letter of the law goes, Netflix is in 
> the wrong.

Indeed.

Traffic ratios to determine peering partners(hips) is, I think, archaic, 
and a cop out for not having to deal with peering requests. There are 
many networks with whom peering would add value, despite not matching 
traffic ratios. As you say, BigContent are such networks.

Specifically for us, geographic network scope is the most important, as 
I don't want to help you build your backbone on the back of mine, for 
free. There may be some volume requirements, but certainly not made on 
the basis of directional ratios.

Mark.