North American Network Operators Group

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RE: multi-homing fixes

  • From: Roeland Meyer
  • Date: Tue Aug 28 01:34:19 2001

|> From: David Schwartz [mailto:[email protected]]
|> Sent: Monday, August 27, 2001 10:06 PM
|> 
|> > If I am paying for those routes then I have a contractual 
|> > right. If you
|> > don't want my redundant feed, and the route advertisements 
|> > that go with it, then don't take my money.
|> 
|> > Please detail the exact costs of a, BGP inserted, routing 
|> > table entry. Is
|> > it, maybe, 50 cents? Now, how much are you getting for a DS1
|> > link? What does that cost, exactly, considering that an
|> > outfit capable of setting up
|> > multi-homing are probably the folks that your techs never 
|> > hear from, but once a year? That appears to be a margin that
|> > is far above keystone. How greedy do you want to be?
|> 
|> 	The point you're missing is that the important issue is 
|> not whether or not
|> your ISP will carry and advertise your routes, since you are 
|> paying them to.

So far, we're on-track...

|> The important point is whether or not anyone else will carry 
|> your route.
|> There's no reason for a RIR to make a microallocation just so you can
|> advertise it to your ISP. If the advertisement was purely between
|> contracually bound parties, the block could be part of a 
|> provider's larger
|> block and there would be no difference. The only reason for a
|> microallocation is to get a party with whom you do not have 
|> a contract to
|> accept a route that they would not otherwise accept.

This is a lot like derivatives. Only in this case, the upstream cost is part
of your COGs. You pay your upstream to take those table entries, as part of
your contract with them. As is customary, the cost is forwarded down to the
actual user(yes Virginia, it does flow down-hill), in the form of fees for
that contracted service. You *are* selling services above your COGs, aren't
you? You do factor your upstream costs into your COGs, don't you?

|> 	Why else would a multihomer want a microallocation? Why 
|> not just use a chunk of a provider's IP space? The only answers are:
|> 
|> 	1) We don't want to be held hostage by a provider. (No 
|>       good, not a technical justification.)

*>boogle<*
For the life of me, I don't understand why not. Part of the current collapse
involves serious business instabilities. I maintain that those instabilities
seriously weaken any chance of recovery. If a business can't get a
trustworthy connection, or fabricate one by multi-homing existing
connections then they will stop relying on those connections at all. ALL of
us lose when general business decides that the Internet isn't ready for
prime-time. The collapse will continue for a long time. I lose customers,
you lose customers, we ALL lose customers.

I was just informed that one of [email protected]'s creditors just demanded $50M
of their money back by Friday. I don't like walking through the Valley of
eDeath, do you? I certainly don't like living there.

|> 	2) We want others to accept our smaller routes. (Why 
|>       not do it by contract?)

I *am* talking about doing it by contract and this isn't a technical
argument either.