[158750] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Why do some providers require IPv6 /64 PA space to have public
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Siegel, David)
Sun Dec 9 17:18:10 2012
From: "Siegel, David" <Dave.Siegel@level3.com>
To: "Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick@ianai.net>, NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2012 22:17:55 +0000
In-Reply-To: <29EF8093-7C57-49B9-B65F-A6182D78C49C@ianai.net>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
That's a really good point, Patrick.
We've received an interesting analysis from our customers recently where th=
ey reviewed the accounting on all the services they need in order to peer o=
ff approximately 1/3rd of their total traffic.
They took their national wavelength cost, local access, colocation at carri=
er-neutral facilities at it came to roughly $.95/mbps.
Although this is considerably less than what they spend on transit, their a=
nalysis failed to consider depreciation on their capital (routers and other=
hardware), associated warranty costs and the incremental operational overh=
ead to operate a large national network. When all is said and done, they a=
re probably spending as much on "free peering" as they are on transit. In =
the case of this customer they would have a lower total cost by simply stay=
ing regional and purchasing transit.
In other cases, peering will only lower your marginal cost if there are str=
ategic reasons for building and maintaining that backbone.
Dave
-----Original Message-----
From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patrick@ianai.net]=20
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2012 8:23 PM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Why do some providers require IPv6 /64 PA space to have public=
whois?
> So no, it's not true. Costs come from needing to buy bigger routers,=20
> bigger waves or fiber to the exchanges, bigger ports on the exchanges,=20
> etc.
>=20
> "Peering is a scam."
The vast majority of AS-AS boundaries on the Internet are settlement free p=
eering. I guess that makes the Internet a scam.
As for the costs involved, "free" is a relative term. Most people think of=
peering as "free" because there is zero marginal cost. Kinda. Obviously =
if you think of your 10G IX port as a sunk cost, pushing 11 Gbps over it is=
not 'free' as you have to upgrade. But again, most people understand what=
is meant.
Bigger waves & bigger routers are not due to peering, they are due to custo=
mer traffic - you know, the thing ISPs sell. Put another way, this is a Go=
od Thing (tm). Or at least it should be. Unless, of course, you are tryin=
g to convince us all that selling too many units of your primary product is=
somehow bad.
Peering allows you, in most cases, to lower the Cost Of Goods Sold on that =
product. Again, usually a Good Thing (tm). Unless you are again trying to=
convince us all that selling at a higher margin (we'll ignore the lower la=
tency & better overall experience) is somehow bad.
--
TTFN,
patrick
