[152509] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: CDNs should pay eyeball networks, too.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Patrick W. Gilmore)
Tue May 1 15:07:13 2012
From: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick@ianai.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAP-guGWsbibkn4gCWxvkY++n_7S+ZziOpxTKTijAnuf7_M-AEA@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 1 May 2012 15:06:08 -0400
To: NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On May 1, 2012, at 14:43 , William Herrin wrote:
> On 5/1/12, Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick@ianai.net> wrote:
>> On May 1, 2012, at 13:26 , William Herrin wrote:
>>> If I'm willing to go to your location, buy the card for your router
>>> and pay you for the staff hours to set it up, there should be *no*
>>> situation in which I'm willing to accept your traffic from an =
upstream
>>> Internet link but am unwilling to engage in otherwise =
settlement-free
>>> peering with you.
>>=20
>> I disagree with this. In fact, I can think of several possible cases =
where
>> this would not hold, both using pure business and pure technical
>> justifications.
>=20
> Hi Patrick,
>=20
> Please educate me. I'd be happy to adopt a more nuanced view.
First, define "upstream Internet link" - i.e. upstream to whom? If I =
peer with your upstream, then peering with you could easily drop me =
below their requirements, causing me to lose a much bigger peer for what =
I may consider no real benefit.
Let's assume you meant upstream to me. Many people negotiate volume =
discounts, peering with you may drop me to a lower tier, which may cost =
me more than your peering saves me.
Let's further assume it is upstream to me. Perhaps I am trying to turn =
that upstream into a peer. This devolves into the first situation.
Irrelevant on what you meant by upstream, I may have operational issues =
such as space & power, that disallow me from adding another port pointed =
at you in the location you want the port. I don't care if you buy the =
card, if there is no slot or power for the card, buying another rack - =
if possible in the first place! - may not be worth the benefit of =
peering with you. And I haven't even covered the CapEx & OpEx of adding =
a chassis to deal with your port irrespective of the power & space.
Etc.
Hopefully you get the gist.
>>> Your customers have paid you to connect to me and my customers have
>>> paid me to connect to you. Double-billing the activity by either of =
us
>>> collecting money from the other is just plain wrong.
>>=20
>> Wrong? My rule is: Your network, your decision.
>=20
> Yes, wrong. Some decisions fall in to areas covered by general ethics.
>=20
> You sell a customer a red ball when you know you can only deliver
> green balls, it's a lie. Unethical. Wrong.
>=20
> You work for a company (W2 salary) and in the course of your work
> contract something to another company where you're an officer it's a
> conflict of interest. Unethical. Wrong.
I see your point here, but neither of those examples are peering =
related.
> A customer pays you to build a piece of software by the hour. Another
> comes along and asks for the same software. You bill both for each
> hour. Double billing. Unethical. Wrong.
This is far less clear. Should the second customer get it for free just =
because you already wrote the code? Or is it the fact you billed "an =
hour" instead of "software" that bothers you?
Not that it matters, since this has nothing to do with peering.
> A customer pays you to deliver a packet to "the Internet." You talk to
> the packet's destination and say, "Hey, I'll deliver it to you
> directly but only if you pay me. Otherwise I'll just toss it out in a
> random direction and hope it gets there." Double billing. Unethical.
> Wrong.
I think if you look closely at any transit contract, almost none of them =
(cough Akamai cough) guarantee delivery t the end user. They typically =
only guarantee delivery to the edge of their own network, and make zero =
promises about _which_ edge they will use to get to the next network. =
Plus those "guarantees" are weaker than almost any other guarantee in =
any industry.
Of course, if someone sold me "full transit" and could not reach a =
significant fraction of the Internet, I'd claim breach of contract. But =
A !=3D B.
So the straw man above _may_ be morally wrong (I'm not 100% certain of =
it, need to ruminate some more), it doesn't actually exist in the real =
world. And certainly is not related to the original post.
Besides, "double billing" is not unethical in your example above. Using =
your exact straw man, if I go to the destination, make that threat, and =
they cave, I haven't harmed my customer at all. If they don't cave and =
I send them the packet directly anyway, I still haven't harmed my =
customer. Double-billing in-and-of itself is not morally wrong.
All that said, if a provider sucks, change providers. <Cue discussion =
about being unable to change providers and how wrong that is. :->
> None of these things is necessarily illegal although like spam some of
> them are illegal under specific conditions. Yet all of them (and spam)
> are Wrong.
We can agree that spam is wrong. :)
--=20
TTFN,
patrick
