Re: Favorites (Re: UUNET peering policy)

[Travis Pugh <tpugh () shore net>]

On 15 Jan 2001, Sean Donelan wrote:

> On Sun, 14 January 2001, Paul Vixie wrote:
> > sean () donelan com (Sean Donelan) writes:
> > > If you look at Abovenet's traffic graphs, you'll notice Abovenet has a wide
> > > variety of traffic balances with different providers.  Some in Abovenet's
> > > favor (such as 3:1 with Sprint, 5:1 with Teleglobe) and some in the other
> > > provider's favor (such as 1:3 with Exodus).  ...
> >
> > "Favor"?  What, precisely, connotes "favor" in this regard?  Sending more, or
> > receiving more?  And: why?
>
> Which side of the debate do you want to take?
>
>
> The traditional arguement is a network composed mostly of a few large data
> centers, with lots of servers sending traffic is getting a "free ride" on
> the network which built out nationwide and has POPs in every LATA.
>
> UUNET deserves a return on its investment on all those wholesale dialup
> POPs and circuits to underserved rural areas.  Abovenet is just cream
> skimming in a few large metro areas, while UUNET does the hard work of
> carrying that extra traffic imbalance.  Abovenet selling "cheap" bandwidth
> because it doesn't have the cost of delievering the traffic that UUNET
> has to pay.
>
> The opposite side is Abovenet has invested a lot into its sites and MFN
> into its networks.  It just choose to do it in a different way than UUNET.
> Its more expensive to lay fiber in metro areas than rural areas.  It costs
> a lot of money to operate the centers.  Whether the traffic is being paid
> by the millions of $19.95 dialup users on UUNET's wholesale ports or
> by the hundreds of hosters in Abovenet's sites, the traffic is paid.

Warning: the following is oversimplified:

I think what it comes down to, and what it has come down to at least since
the inception of hosting companies who spew large amounts of traffic back
at the access networks, is who gets paid twice for carrying the
traffic?  Does UUNET get paid twice for carrying the traffic, once by
their customer that pays for dial or leased line access and once by the
hosting company that pays for peering because their traffic ratio is
off?  This seems to be the status quo.  The other way around would mean
that the hosting company got paid twice for carrying the traffic.

-travis