North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Internet partitioning event regulations

  • From: Kevin Loch
  • Date: Wed Nov 05 18:06:10 2008
William Herrin wrote:
On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 12:12 PM, Larry Sheldon <[email protected]> wrote:
Lamar Owen wrote: 
There are three ways that I know of (feel free to add to this
list) to limit the events: 1.) As you mentioned, regulation (or a
government run and regulated backbone);
Which government? 

First, let me say that I think peering regulation is a terrible idea.
No matter how cleverly you plan it, the result will be that fewer
small companies can participate. That's the character of regulation:
compliance creates more barriers to entry than it removes.

The problem isn't that which networks don't peer with each other it is
that some networks don't buy transit from anyone. That is what
causes partition related outages and distortions in peering policies.
If regulation could be part of the 'solution' then that would be the place to start.

But despite the flaws with the current environment it really isn't that
bad and any regulation would likely be a disaster for the industry.

- Kevin