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Re: BBN/GTEI

  • From: Karl Denninger
  • Date: Fri Aug 21 21:50:21 1998

On Fri, Aug 21, 1998 at 04:43:51PM -0700, Michael Dillon wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Aug 1998, Karl Denninger wrote:
> 
> > > > In fact, what you're advocating is billing the sender for *solicited data*
> > > > from the recipient's point of view! 
> > > 
> > > Not at all. I am advocating paying for transit. 
> > 
> > On the contrary.  
> > 
> > If I buy a DS1 for transit from your network, I'm expecting the person I pay
> > to provide transit - ALL OF THE TRANSIT.
> 
> Of course, and I agree with you 100%. But I was not talking about a
> transit customer. 

YES YOU ARE!

Let's look at the instant case - BBN <> Exodus in a PEER relationship

BBN claims that Exodus sends more traffic (by a LOT) than they send.  
To which I say "so what" - BBN'S TRANSIT CUSTOMERS ASKED FOR IT!

Now, if BBN wishes to claim that they have the right to bill Exodus for that
which THEIR TRANSIT CUSTOMERS ASKED FOR, I say "bullshit".  Further, I
suspect that BBN's transit customers, upon learning that Exodus refuses to
pay, will ALSO say *bullshit* and demand that BBN either carry the traffic,
as they PAID for it be carried, or they will find a provider that will!

Now if BBN has MISPRICED their transit, that's THEIR problem.  To try to
offload that problem on their PEERS, when those peers are sourcing that
traffic at the EXPLICIT request of their customers, is IMHO nuts.

> I was talking about a peer whose traffic interchange is
> asymmetric and who therefore uses some regional transit in the other guy's
> network. I'm saying that instead of slamming the door in his face and
> telling him to buy transit, we need to have a scalable peering option that
> is a blend.

You're simply wrong here.  No traffic passing over a peer connection is
"using some transit that is not paid for".  That's an argument that in its
logical conclusion (two or three levels down the tree of logic) means that 
someone has been ripped off and/or deceived - that they paid for something 
that the provider in question doesn't intend to provide!

ALL traffic passing between peered providers is BY DEFINITION sourced by a
TRANSIT customer of one provider and sunk by a TRANSIT CUSTOMER of the other
network.  The correlary to this is that all traffic passing between peered
providers was REQUESTED by one of the transit customers of one of those
networks, who PAID for that transit to be provided to them!

THIS is why claiming that "well, you're asymmetric so you pay!" is baloney.

Were I to find myself in that position my response would be "Bite me!",
followed same-day by a letter to EVERY ONE of the denying provider's
customers - on paper - announcing that their provider had just tried to bill 
me for what the target of those letters might think they had already bought 
and paid for!

The fallout from THAT would be immediate and severe.

> Maybe I am headed in the wrong direction with this but I do believe we
> need a better solution for peering with asymmetric peers that reduces the
> barriers to entry to $$$. Right now there are barriers to entry that
> probably will not pass the scrutiny of the DOJ.

NO barrier to peering will pass the scrutiny of the DOJ.  Sorry, that's 
the facts.  A peer relationship is by *definition* not assignable as
something which has disparate value to one end or the other, since by
definition each provider involved is being paid to provide transport by
their customers, and those customers won't be if they can't get where they
want to go.

> > No, its actually becoming MORE suitable.  Instead of burning the entire
> > circuit in both directions, you're only burning half of it now (one
> > direction).
> 
> You still have to pay for the whole circuit.

And you have the unused half over which you can run other traffic.

--
-- 
Karl Denninger ([email protected])| MCSNet - Serving Chicagoland and Wisconsin
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