[2883] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Worldly Thoughts
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave Curado)
Fri May 10 21:44:47 1996
Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 21:44:19 -0400
From: Dave Curado <dcurado@neteng.nis.newscorp.com>
To: curtis@ans.net
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
> Let me turn the question around a bit. Suppose N small providers peer
> at M places and together represent p% of the Internet. If they simply
> appear at one NAP and don't contract for transit, they may reach
> 100%-(%p/(M-1)) of the Internet. Is that something to encourage? If
> they must contract for transit and as a result reach all major
> interconnects, they get 100% (possibly minus a small epsilon for other
> reasons). They then don't need to be at any of the NAPs. Are some
> providers trying to show up at one NAP only with the aim of not
> contracting for transit through anyone even though they can't really
> reach others like themselves at a different interconnect?
Or, possible some small providers buy a multi-megabit circuit from a
large provider who gives them transit. The small provider then connects
at a single NAP and picks up bilateral peering sessions with a bunch
of people there. The result is offloading traffic from their
"transit link", which stands a good chance of being priced as a
"burstable" link. (pay for what you use) That gives the small
provider an economic incentive to operate in this manner.
No comment on whether this is a good idea or bad, but I understand
the thinking.
davec
