North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Private and Public Peering

  • From: Steve Feldman
  • Date: Mon Jun 19 00:45:42 2000 
The closest to a real distinction that I've been able to come
up with is whether or not a third party is involved
*and* whether packets (or cells) are switched.

For example, peering through a FDDI, Ethernet, or ATM switch
is always called "public" (unless perhaps the switch is
owned by one of the peers).  And peering through a wire or
SONET/SDH circuit seems to always be called private,
even though the data might pass through SONET/SDH
multiplexers, cross-connects, and switches operated by
a third party.

	Steve

On Sun, Jun 18, 2000 at 04:06:56AM -0400, HANSEN CHAN wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> Can someone tell me the difference between private and public peering? A
> peering paper I have read explained the switch is shared in the case of
> shared and non-shared in the case of private. I still do not understand.
> Appreciate if someone could shed some light on this matter for me.
> 
> My guess is that public peering is done in a commerical internet
> exchange while private peering is done in a facility owned by either one
> of the ISP.
> 
> Thanks,
> Hansen
>