[11432] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Anonymous)
Sat Apr 2 15:02:44 1994
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 94 12:09:18 -0500
From: "Anonymous <nowhere@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>"
To: com-priv@psi.com
" automated anonymous remailing service."
Subject: re: Use market forces to deal with routing questions & charging
karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger) writes:
>Boy, that sounds like restraint of trade, doesn't it? "Banding together" eh?
No. I did not advocate any action that would remotely correspond to
restraint of trade. Simply choosing to state that "we think policy X is
will hurt customers, and provider Y is doing this" is in no way related to
restraint of trade. This comment doesn't make any sense to me, in what way
is what I mentioned restraint of trade?? Simply pulling the phrase
"banding together" out of context means nothing. We could all band together
and say "prodigy is great", that wouldn't make it true or affect customers
in any way (except the gullible ones). Simply jointly acknowledging
something seems to be an appropriate use for voluntary industry
associations.
>Now, you said that providers shouldn't care what you do with the link. Ok,
>let's take that as a given.
>Get ready to pay 5x what you're paying now for that T1 line. I believe the
>common wording is "bend over and grab your ankles".
The *only* thing the provider needs to care about is how much bandwidth
I'm using on that link. They have *no* need to care where that bandwidth
comes from. If its resold to one ISP vs. ten says *nothing* useful about
the load if you don't know the size of those ISPs. If providers start
assuming the worst case perhaps prices will go up, they might instead price
based on average bandwidth usage or whatever. I don't see how having
commercial providers pay the CIX has anything at all to do with the price
of T1s, or the philosophy that you pay whoever you directly connect to. In
terms of charging only those you connect to, as I said thats the only thing
you can do since you don't get enough useful information anyway by charging
per ISP or customer or whatever.
If anything, huge companies are being subsidized now by getting T1s at the
same prices as small companies (from most providers at least).
>I've done this pricing, I've built national backbones, I've done the
>engineering and installation for nationwide service.
It doesn't matter who I am since I am trying to argue from reason,
"argument from authority", I've done X so I must be right about "statement
Y, rational or not", doesn't wash.
>I know EXACTLY what this kind of infrastructure costs,
>because I was one of the guys doing the negotiation and PO generation --
><and> I saw the invoices when we were done.
Especially when it is an irrelevant statement, what has this got to do
with anything? The point is infrastructure costs whatever it costs. A
provider has X customers, and Y providers he needs to pay, and he'd better
make sure that he prices things so he comes out ahead. If he makes the
mistake of overselling his pipe, thats his problem. He may sell to a huge
company who uses more bandwidth than another ISP. What he cares about is
the bandwidth the customers are using (statistically I'm talking about, not
packet charges or anything). If people can go down the chain and start
demanding money from their customers customers, etc., then you'll have
double, triple, quadruple... dipping. (and loops, etc.). The point is the
only *real* control you have is over direct connects, you sell someone a
pipe or buy a connection or you don't, and need to be prepared to deal with
whatever volume comes through that pipe.
>No, its not that simple. You can't drive up to a Shell gas station in
>your car and siphon off Amoco's gas! But as an ISP you <CAN> do this, by
>manipulating your route tables and administrative distances in interesting
>ways. That is the root of the problem -- this is NOT as simple as
>purchasing other commodities, as the chain of "buying" isn't nearly as
>clear as it is with other things you might purchase.
Lets say the gas stations did have interconnects. If you are connected to a
Shell station pump, you would pay for all the gas coming through that. If
some of it comes from Amoco, that means there is a pipe between Amoco and
Shell, and Amoco had better be charging Shell for whatever it sells to
Shell via that pipe. If they don't thats their problem. Amoco would charge
Shell, and Shell would pass along the cost as part of what they charge
their customers.
It is exactly because the network has multiple paths, etc, that it is
*more* important to only pay and charge those directly connected to your
ISP.
>> I think the CIX is mixing up the issues of providing a backbone with
>> guarenteeing cooperative routing, because it should be extremely cheap for
>> agreements to be signed, and would encourage much more of the industry to
>> come on board without blinking an eye rather than charging what they are.
>Those who have think the CIX is the best thing since sliced bread, because we
>KNOW what the alternative costs to negotiate and operate, and we KNOW that
>we couldn't afford it.
A standard cooperative routing agreement like the CIX has doesn't cost
anything to negotiate, either places sign it or they don't. Each place
signing the agreement would be paying the $100 or whever for
administrative costs once for dealing with it (it seems actually its
probably much less than that, copy something, file it, etc).
>Restraint of trade again. Join the real world, Mr. Anonymous. We're out
>here, with our names on our messages. People may disagree with my
>position, but at least they know that I have the courage of my convictions.
Again, a comment that doesn't make sense. Price fixing and things like
that are restraint of trade. Cutting off routing to places that won't join
your association seems to be the same type of thing. All I advocated was
ways for companies voluntarily to cooperate in a way that helps them, but
which doesn't hurt the competition (except in terms of talking about
business practices that hurt the competition). Would a consumer reports or
better business bureau organization funded by an industry be considered
restraint of trade because it made availible negative reports of some
members of the industry?
My words stand behind themselves, either they are rational or they aren't
and deserved to be attacked. My identity has *nothing* to do with the
correctness or incorrectness of my arguments. Neither does yours, for all
some of us know who've never met you, that could have been a pseudonym. I
could care less if you say you stand behind your convictions (I'm not sure
what if anything that means in this case really), all that matters is
whether there is logic standing behind them. In some sense since we aren't
a member of the CIX we *are* standing behind our convictions. However, I
see no reason, if there is a chance that some ISP or CIX might decide to
cut us off, to force customers and other people involved with this ISP to
be impacted by my statements. I'm willing to stand behind my own
convictions, but not to place other people in the line of fire (except to
whatever extent I might have simply bringing up the flaws I see in the CIX
concept).
