Depeering never makes sense to me. Customers of both companies are
expecting their vendor to connect them to the customers of the other
company. These customers are each paying their respective vendor for
this service. Why should one vendor pay the other for this traffic that
is mutually beneficial to them while the other pays nothing? Why does
the amount of bandwidth or the direction it travels make any difference?
The customers are PAYING for the bandwidth. If each vendor pays their
own costs to a peering point then they should be passing that cost onto
their respective customers as part of the *customer's* bandwidth bill.
Perhaps someone wants to make this argument before a judge
in order to set a legal precedent for mandatory peering
with settlements?
--Michael Dillon