North American Network Operators Group
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Re: PSINet and C&W peering

  • From: Joseph T. Klein
  • Date: Tue Jun 05 12:27:22 2001

If exchange of IP traffic is ruled to be commerce then peering
policies would be regulated under the Sherman antitrust act.

It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, to be a party to, or assist in, any transaction of sale, or contract to sell, which discriminates to his knowledge against competitors of the purchaser, in that, any discount, rebate, allowance, or advertising service charge is granted to the purchaser over and above any discount, rebate, allowance, or advertising service charge available at the time of such transaction to said competitors in respect of a sale of goods of like grade, quality, and quantity; to sell, or contract to sell, goods in any part of the United States at prices lower than those exacted by said person elsewhere in the United States for the purpose of destroying competition, or eliminating a competitor in such part of the United States; or, to sell, or contract to sell, goods at unreasonably low prices for the purpose of destroying competition or eliminating a competitor.

... if IP traffic exchange is interstate commerce ...

At 16:47 +0100 05-06-2001, Neil J. McRae wrote:
 > That's a couple of hundred megabytes of
flow that they can no longer bill to those customers. I'd ALWAYS rather
have my customers use our network for transit than have them peer directly
with my peers and bypass the toll booth. 
What an ideal carrot to ensure that we operators plan our networks
well, if we do - we keep our customers. If we don't our customers find
alternative means to provide what we are supposed too, and
one way or another thats going to cost you.

Personally speaking, I'm a little worred that this isn't the last
C+W peering issue that we will hear about in the near future, unless
of the new flows of customers abandoning them changes a few minds
at corporate HQ, I've certainly heard from a large European C+W customer
who is now seriously thinking about finding alternatives because of
this action.

Also, I couldn't recommend buying connectivity from any organisation who
randomly disconnects people without consultation/communication to their
customer base, and operates draconian and stupid peering policies.

Regards,
Neil.

--
Joseph T. Klein                                         +1 414 915 7489
Senior Network Engineer                                 [email protected]
Adelphia Business Solutions                [email protected]

    "... the true value of the Internet is its connectedness ..."
                                                 -- John W. Stewart III