[44543] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: a question about the economics of peering
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Chrisy Luke)
Fri Nov 30 19:44:19 2001
Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2001 00:43:45 +0000
From: Chrisy Luke <chrisy@flix.net>
To: up@3.am
Cc: nanog@merit.edu
Message-ID: <20011201004345.B16052@flix.net>
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In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.10.10111301730040.93032-100000@richard2.pil.net>; from up@3.am on Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 05:35:09PM -0500
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
up@3.am wrote (on Nov 30):
> I thought the whole idea of "transit" was that you got connectivity to
> networks that you can't peer with. Obviously. the packets can't tell if
> money changes hands or not.
Well, it's hardly "the point" of it. Transit is the purchase of all
the prefixes a network sees and the service of having your prefixes
advertised to all their peers. This much egg-sucking everyone knows.
Whether peering is the mechanism by which you
- Reduce transit costs/requirements
- Increase network performance
- Increase control of your network (exit point for traffic, choice beterrn
use of peering/transit, etc)
- Increase the "value" of your sales proposition (ergo, by implication, the
fact you have all of the above)
- boast to your mates down the pub how big your network is
is down to your personal/company view.
To me, connecting (directly) to those networks which operate within your
market (eg, the UK, the EU, etc) is essential to be considered a viable
player in said market.
To connect (directly) to those outside involves other factors, mostly to do
with either cost or marketability - if it's outside the place where your
customers are, the relative "feeling" of where the peers are is often
overshadowed by the cost/distance/whatever of getting traffic to/from that
place anyhow.
Within my markets, I'd pay (something) to peer with people. Outside, I
need to show I'm saving cash by doing so.
Chris.
