[54371] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: AOL & Cogent
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Schwartz)
Sat Dec 28 20:03:53 2002
From: David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com>
To: <bicknell@ufp.org>, <nanog@merit.edu>
Date: Sat, 28 Dec 2002 17:03:27 -0800
In-Reply-To: <20021228233401.GA74144@ussenterprise.ufp.org>
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Sat, 28 Dec 2002 18:34:01 -0500, Leo Bicknell wrote:
>All in all, I find ratios an extremely poor way of validating a
>peer. I can think of many cases where it is in both parties=
interest
>to peer, but where the traffic might be extremely unbalanced. =
Yes,
>the fact that it is unbalanced can shift costs from one=
provider
>to another, and that's a very real problem to solve. The=
correct
>way to solve it is not to force a transit model though, but to=
use
>careful circuit provisioning and various technical tools to=
move
>the cost back to something more equal. Heck, even a=
settlement,
>much as I hate them, would be better than just turning the=
thing
>off.
=09When Cogent cut off their peering with AOL, AOL customers now=
find that they
experience lags reaching content providers that use Cogent. Also,=
of course,
Cogent customers find that AOL's customers have trouble reaching=
their
content.
=09I submit, however, that the pain is suffered more nearly=
equally. Assume for
the moment that AOL is very large and all eyeballs and Cogent is=
very small
and all content. The argument would likely be made that poor=
connectivity
between Cogent and AOL hurts Cogent more as a significant number=
of people
can't reach their customer's sites well.
=09But I submit that while the harm is lesser to each AOL customer=
(since only
a small fraction of the sites they might wish to reach are=
congested), there
are more AOL customers. The aggregate harm or benefit would be=
expected to be
nearly the same. After all, each delayed or dropped packet harms=
one customer
of each company.
=09In general, however, eyeballs are more sensitive to delays. If I=
get a slow
page load of a Microsoft site, Microsoft isn't harmed as much by=
that one
delay as I am. So the aggregate benefit to AOL's customers would=
be expected
to be greater than that to Cogent's.
>What's even funnier is that most people apply them equally in=
both
>directions. They want to make the claim that being out of=
ratio
>(such as in this case) shifts costs onto their network. Well,=
many
>people do the same thing in reverse. If they saw a 1:3 they=
would
>not peer with someone /even though they are shifting cost to=
the
>other party/. I've never understood how someone can argue that=
a
>ratio is about protecting their company from bearing a=
disproportionate
>amount of the cost, and then also prevent their company from=
shifting
>that cost to someone else (assuming the other party would=
agree).
=09Well the pipes and routers go both ways at the same speed. So=
the aggregate
cost to set up, say, an OC12 peering connection is best utilized=
if the OC12
is nearly maxed both ways. It's not wholly unreasonable to say=
that if you're
going to go through the cost of setting up a peering connection=
at a
particular speed, you want to move as much total traffic over it=
as possible.
=09But, as I'm sure we all know, this whole charade is just about=
dreaming up a
way to charge someone money.
=09Currently, traffic between Cogent and AOL seems to be=
experiencing delays of
under one second each way. There is no packet loss. The situation=
is quite
tolerable though, of course, it could be better.
=09Also, one philosophical point that I think is especially=
important for
network operators to keep in mind. The usual definition of the=
'Internet' has
IP in it somewhere. While this may be what currently defines the=
Internet,
the protocol could change entirely and it would still be the=
Internet.
=09The Internet is a philosophy and what that philosophy has=
brought into
being. The philosophy is about making a genuine best effort to
intercommunicate with anyone else who makes a similar effort. An=
Internet
product is one that reflects this philosophy, not one that=
happens to work
over today's Internet. An Internet company is one that operates=
under this
philosophy, not one that happens to own routers, pipes, or pass=
IP traffic.
=09DS
