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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Peering versus Transit
Sean, It almost makes one think the evil telcos are plotting a new service/product that would be damaged by legacy contracts, eh? -alan internet engineer for the enquirer? > > >These days peering agreements are business deals. > > They have always been business deals. I'm just amazed as some of the > lengths some providers go to justify what should be a plain-old > business decision. If you don't intend to peer with another provider, > just say so. The only providers I tend to get really peeved at are > the ones that keep changing their stories. > > AGIS told me in January '96 that their peering agreement was being > revised by their lawyers and they would send it as soon as it was > ready. Since I hadn't heard from AGIS in a while, I sent another > note to AGIS and was told they now require DS3 connections to four > exchange points. No idea what happened to that peering agreement > from January. > > MCI told me in February '96 that their peering agreement as > on hold pending review by their lawyers and they would let me know > when it was ready. The last response I've received from MCI is the > person in charge of peering had changed. No word from the new guy. > And MCI took their peering policies off their web page. No idea > what happened to MCI's policies in the mean time. > > Since March of 1995 (yes '95) I've gone through three product managers > for Sprintlink who have told me their peering agreement is on the way, > under legal review, on hold, or being revised. DRA met Sprint's peering > 'requirements' a couple of times now. But by the time I hear back from > their product manager du jure, they've changed their requirements again. > > I'm puzzled why these providers seem to have new peers show up at the > same time they are telling me new peerings are on 'hold.' Should I > start taking this personally? If you don't intend to peer with other > providers, why not say so? Why go through the trouble of making > peering questionaires and listing peering requirements, when you are > just going to come up with a new excuse if you don't want to peer > with the other provider. > > >They happen to > >be business deals that have $0 attached to them for all sorts > >of reasons Sean D et al explained far more eloquently than I could, > >but they are still business agreements. Just like any other contract, > >be in breach at your peril. > > Breach of contract is a civil matter, not criminal. If you have a > peering agreement that says thou shalt not next-hop third-party routes, > and they do, you get to terminate the agreement and/or sue the other > provider, not arrest them. > > People seem to be very quick to call things they don't like illegal. > Not all misrouted packets are the result of illegal activities, most > of them are just misrouted packets. MCI didn't plan to send me packets > across mae-east, they just happened to believe some bad routing information. > > If you are going to start arresting people simply because packets are > misrouted, big providers misroute a lot more packets than little providers > simply due to size. This is a dangerous game to start playing because > it can easily blow up in your face. > > >Which leaves the case where you send traffic to say ISP X > >*without* any form of peering agreement with ISP X. Contracts > >with the IXP should prevent this from happening. If you > >try this, I hope they filter your MAC address. > > Some IXPs do this, but the operators aren't always able to keep up with > the changing arrangements of the various providers and end up blackholing > a bunch of traffic every so often for varying lengths of time. The routing > protocols have problems dealing with networks which don't have the 'shared- > fate' property. > > Most other IXP contracts are silent about relationships between ISPs. > -- > Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO > Affiliation given for identification not representation > -- Alan Hannan Not Employed Networking, Ltd. email: [email protected] phone: 402/488-0238 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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