North American Network Operators Group

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Re: Regulatory intervention (Redux: Who is a Tier 1?)

  • From: Erik Haagsman
  • Date: Fri Oct 07 08:49:51 2005

On Fri, 2005-10-07 at 07:44 -0400, William Allen Simpson wrote:
<snip>
> I repeat my initial assertion, to wit:
>  >> This partitioning is exactly what we predicted in many meetings when
>  >> discussi[ng] the terms of the contracts.
>  >>
>  >> Markets are inefficient for infrastructure and tend toward monopoly.
> 
> When the "internal policies" -- which in this case are not technical,
> but rather commercial advantage -- are against public policy, that is
> the realm of governments.

So we want to revert to a model where the goverment starts influencing
company policy based on what criteria...? Networks are commercial
endeavours by default, since they cost money to run and need to generate
revenue stay in existence, at least last time I checked. Unless you'd
like the entire Internet to be under governmental control I don't see
how you'd want a government to enforce any policy. This sounds very much
like trying to turn ISP's into semi-public companies, which they're not
and IMO shouldn't be.

> > One
> > network only peers with a select few, the other only on basis of
> > bandwidth profile and some with as many peers as possible. Without one
> > telling the other what to do or someone sitting behind a desk trying to
> > come up with a Grand Unified Peering Policy that everyone should adhere
> > to. Fine by me.
> > 
> I'm afraid your head-in-the-sand approach doesn't appear to be working
> well at this time.  Major network partition, affecting thousands of
> networks and tens (or hundreds) of thousands of actual people, 48 hours
> and counting.

This is definitely a bad thing but not a problem for governments to
solve. Bringing the government to the table will create more problems
than solve them.

> Moreover, I thought it might be worthwhile to check what you might have 
> posted previously, and found that you started posting on NANOG in 2004,
> during another L(3) partition. 

Glad you take an interest.

>  Methinks thou doeth protest too much.

Perhaps, but I'd like companies and market forces to solve these
problems, not governments. ISP's are free to choose (multiple) upstreams
they wish for, people are free to choose whichever ISP they want, and
SLA's and contracts *should* be there to protect people from stupidity
like this Cogent/L(3) pissing contest.

> I'm not entirely sure that you are a shill for L(3), but please explain
> your personal interest?  Especially as a Northern European posting on a
> North American operator's list?

I never knew I was Swedish, but thanks for telling me.
We've got L(3) as one of our transits, so I do take an interest. Most of
my larger upstreams are fully or partly NA based and we send quite a bit
of traffic to these parts so I *thought* I'd follow the list and pitch
in when I felt like doing so. 


-- 
---
Erik Haagsman
Network Architect
We Dare BV
Tel: +31(0)10-7507008
Fax: +31(0)10-7507005
http://www.we-dare.nl