I can give you the historical situation, although this is slowly
changing as the Net is becoming slightly less 'US-centric'.
The philosophy for international connection to 'the Internet' (ie USA)
was exactly the same as with in the US itself. That is, those wishing
to connect could do so at some financial cost levied by the US ISP/NSP
in addition to the cost of the transport.
In the international case, this means a huge cost to those wishing to
connect as they must pay the whole cost of trans-oceanic capacity. In
general, because of the fact that the Internet is still US-centric,
this results in high traffic flows outgoing from the US compared with
much smaller incoming traffic flows. In the the case of New Zealand,
only aobut 20% of the total traffic is incoming at the US end.
Traditionally (and I speak for Oceania only), there were virtually no
peering agreements internationally, with the result that the cost of
all traffic and all transport was borne by the country connecting to
the USA. This is changing slowly as large US ISP's find the need to
service their multi-national customers in countries other than the US.
To answer your questions more specifically:
1) I'm not sure of the answer you want here, but in general the
peering rules internationally are similar to those in the US; that is,
the international connection would appear in a similar manner to any
normal ISP connection.
2) Peering agreements are now being considered internationally and
these are generally very much 'ad hoc'. There are no hard and fast
rules and the agreements are generally based on the perceived benefit
to each of the parties. This may be done purely on a 'guesstimate' of
traffic ensuing from requests emanating from each of the parties and a
settlement made on this basis. The peering arrangement may be at
either end of the international links although the 'normal' situation
is for the agreement to be held at the 'busy' end - normally the USA,
in the case of that country.
3) The international connectivity (cables and satellites) is owned by
various consortia and capacity is 'sold' to interested parties. This
may be done on a 'wholly-owned', end to end basis (depending on
connection and operation agreements in place between the countries) or
on a 'half-circuit' basis where the purchase of the (say) cable would
be made by one party. For example, New Zealand would purchase the
capacity to half-way across the Pacific, in the case of a New
Zealand-USA connection. The remainder, from that point in the Pacific
to the US, say, would be purchased by some US ISP/NSP. Traditionally
the American half would be leased back to the remote country, who
would then effectively pay for the whole transport cost.
Hope this helps...
Steve Barr
Netway Communications
+64 9 357-1566
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