From owen@delong.com Fri Jan 22 10:25:26 2016
However, I think your description of the scenario is rather
heavily skewed
Most posts are bashing Cogent so it's bad of me to say they are equally
free to do whatever they want with their network? Mob rule...
I favour neither side. Nobody has to buy from either of them.
especially when you consider that Cogent is basically the only
remaining major (I find it hard to call them a tier 1 given
their behavior) provider that still refuses SFI of any form
with HE.
tier 1 seems consistent with Cogents refusal.
brandon
tier 1 seems consistent with Cogents refusal.
one does not become a tier 1 by refusing to peer. an actual tier 1 will
of course most of the time refuse settlement-free interconnection with
smaller actors to protect their revenue stream, but the traffic volumes
and short settlement-free paths to large parts of the Internet are what
make them a tier-1.
do you hear me, medium-sized swedish isp full of clued people but with
a serious case of peering reality distorsion?
I disagree with this last part.
I realize that the common wisdom among execs at so-called tier-1 providers
is that refusing SFI protects their revenue stream, but I believe it’s not
true.
In fact, I think that a willingness to peer with your customers and anyone
else on the internet wherever you can do so for very little cost (for example,
where it’s just one more peering session at an IXP, no additional port cost,
circuit, XC, etc.) settlement free can only increase your business.
IMHO, a truly good tier-1 will charge for transit, set their metrics and
prefs such that their paid ports are preferred over their non-revenue
ports, and provides peer routes only on the SFIs.
This turns out to be mostly a win-win situation for everyone, including the
tier-1 in the long run.
OTOH, look what happened to SPRINT when they went on their depeering binge.
They went from the cat-bird seat of being the top Tier-1 provider on the
planet to the modern day status of “also ran”.
I suspect the only reason Cogent isn’t losing ground as fast as SPRINT
did has to do with two things:
1. They aren’t turning off existing peers as aggressively as
SPRINT did.
2. They have the cheapest transit prices of just about anyone
except possibly HE (why they are in a race to the bottom with).
However, even at their current rate, this will likely catch up with them
sooner or later and cause them some discomfort.
YMMV.
Owen
I tend to agree with Owen on this one.
We, last year, transitioned from selective to open peering - despite our
scope - in the region we serve (primarily Africa). It has only improved
the quality of our service (a great deal of Africa still exchanges
traffic in Europe), lowered costs, made customers happy and generated a
lot of community goodwill.
Obviously, we do not provide free transit across SFI ports, and we have
practical implementations in place to ensure that we only handle
customer traffic through customer-facing links, removing the potential
of handling customer traffic through peering links (particularly with
customers who are multi-homed to you and another SFI peer of yours).
While I do not disagree that larger providers looking to protect their
revenues is an economically-sound objective, I think the typical peering
policies of old do not entirely hold up in 2016.
Mark.
While I do not disagree that larger providers looking to protect their
revenues is an economically-sound objective, I think the typical peering
policies of old do not entirely hold up in 2016.
I’m pretty convinced that they never really did. I realize they’ve been popular
conventional wisdom for some time now, but that was brought about when Telcos
started being the dominant players in the ISP market and I always regarded it
as an artifact of “carrier mentality” where they were so used to the settlement
mechanisms of the traditional telephone network.
The reality is that the traditional telephone network has been getting slowly
superseded by the internet largely because of the differences in the settlement
model. If TDM and its settlement model were cheaper than VOIP, there would be
little reason to spend money deploying VOIP. Unified communications has some
benefits, but not really enough in most real world implementations to overcome
the costs if it wasn’t reducing the corporate phone-spend.
For many years, telcos tried all kinds of strange things and in some remote
regions these are still happening. For example in some places, they sought
regulatory protection of their “right to revenue” for voice calls by actually
getting laws against VOIP services and the like. Those laws still exist in
some areas and their economies are suffering for it.
Bottom line, I’ve never seen a case where any ISP has definitively benefited
from a restrictive peering policy. At best, it’s a neutral factor that most
people just sort of accept. Routinely, it drives business away from such
ISPs towards Tier-2s with good transit relationships and a better peering
policy. At worst, I’ve seen it create active bad will in various communities
as is the current case with Cogent and is a demonstrable factor in the
decline of SPRINT.
Owen
>
> Subject: Re: The IPv6 Travesty that is Cogent's refusal to peer Hurricane Electric - and how to solve it Date: Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 12:28:01PM +0000 Quoting Brandon Butterworth (brandon@rd.bbc.co.uk):
>
>> tier 1 seems consistent with Cogents refusal.
>
> one does not become a tier 1 by refusing to peer. an actual tier 1 will
> of course most of the time refuse settlement-free interconnection with
> smaller actors to protect their revenue stream, but the traffic volumes
> and short settlement-free paths to large parts of the Internet are what
> make them a tier-1.
I disagree with this last part.
So do I, actually. I was just reporting what Tier-1 operators might feel be
good for business. Not that I believe that they're right.
almost all top tier providers have closed peering policies, many
outright draconian. folk can rant on nanog all they want if it
makes them feel good or self-righteous. won't change a damned
thing. bunch of whiners, whining about something that has been
a reality for over 20 years and is not about to change.
but like spam, nanog bandwidth is cheap. so rant away.
randy
folk can rant on nanog all they want if it
makes them feel good or self-righteous.
Hi Randy,
It DOES make me feel good. And a little self-righteous.
won't change a damned thing.
Some FCC employees read this forum. My impression is that they're not
terribly far from concluding that closed peering policies are
anti-competitive. When I have such impressions I'm usually off by
years. Still, it would be nice if just once an industry cleaned itself
up -before- regulators forced the issue.
Regards,
Bill Herrin
Nothing says a better Internet than one the government pokes their nose around in.
Sadly, the law firms with big routers seem to prefer a regulatory environment that they
can manipulate, so it’s a tough situation to achieve a good outcome.
They are the ones that are blocking the industry from arriving at a good outcome without
regulation and they will likely be the ones driving regulation in ridiculous directions
away from good outcomes once we start to see regulation.
The way lawyers redefine terms and obfuscate to make regulations say what they want instead
of what any normal person would think they actually say is truly impressive.
Owen