[ppml] 2005-1 or its logical successor

[Howard, W. Lee]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stephen Sprunk [mailto:stephen at sprunk.org] 
> Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2005 3:38 PM
> To: Howard, W. Lee; cja at daydream.com; Tony Hain
> Cc: ARIN PPML
> Subject: Re: [ppml] 2005-1 or its logical successor
> 
> Thus spake "Howard, W. Lee" <Lee.Howard at stanleyassociates.com>
> >> From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net] On
> >> Behalf Of Stephen Sprunk
> >
> >> True, but in the various discussions I've seen of this idea,
> >> the natural conclusion seems to be that each geographical
> >> area would have an IX that all ISPs using the PI block would
> >> be required to connect to, and each ISP would advertise
> >> only the aggregate to their transit providers.  It appears
> >> settlements would be required for traffic coming in on one
> >> ISP's links and headed to another ISP's customers;
> >> upstream traffic would be handled as it is today.
> >
> > What's the transition plan, if these IXs don't exist now?
> 
> Interesting question, and one of the stumbling blocks to getting this 
> approach deployed.
> 
> > Are these IXs required by law, by policy, or something else?
> > Are they privately-owned monopolies, or publicly-owned
> > monopolies?
> 
> They're effectively required at a technical level, though I 
> don't see them 
> getting created without government regulation.  In the absence of the 
> latter, I'd suspect they'd be set up as non-profits owned by 
> their members 
> or something similar; if the gov't got involved, I'd expect 
> them to be 
> private for-profit companies selected by bribed politicians.
> 
> >> This model effectively trades a BGP routing problem for a
> >> money routing problem.  Given no significant improvements
> >> have been made to BGP for a long time, perhaps it's time
> >> to let the bean-counters have their shot?
> >
> > I hear a lot of support for settlements from telcos,
> > some from governments, and little from network people.
> > It effectively drives hosting companies out of business,
> > if they have to pay for transit (settlement for inbound
> > traffic) but carriers get to charge at both ends of the
> > stream.
> 
> OTOH, people with big upstream pipes, like hosters, could end 
> up receiving 
> huge settlement checks for inbound traffic on pipes that are 
> today only 
> filled in one direction.  I've seen no data to indicate that the net 
> movement of money would be substantially different under this 
> plan (or that it wouldn't, for that matter).

I don't understand.  HTTP traffic is typically lopsided
outbound from the server.  Are you suggesting hosting
companies would charge more per inbound bit than carriers,
or that they'd develop new traffic/business models?  Or
did I misunderstand which direction pays whom?


> It's arguably "better" and "faster" because local traffic 
> stays local and 
> inbound traffic takes the most direct route; at a macro 
> level, both are good 
> for the Internet.  Less long-haul traffic means transit 
> prices should drop, leading to "cheaper".

No more cold-potato routing.  OK.

> However, I don't think any ISPs in isolation would see enough 
> "better, 
> faster, cheaper" to justify making the move.  It only works 
> if everyone does 
> it, which is contrary to human nature.  We're long past the 
> days of doing 
> things for the common good, at least when they require a 
> fundamental change in business models.

Maybe we should just give very large blocks to exchanges,
which they could assign to customers for regional use.  In
addition to current policy.  

> > However, the same
> > company owns UUNET and MAE-*, so there might be some
> > interest,
> 
> I don't buy that argument.  I can't think of a reason that an 
> IX-based model 
> would improve a "tier 1's" profitability, and can think of 
> several reasons they wouldn't.  

Ehh, yeah, but they'd have a good shot at being first mover,
or beating competing IX-builders based on name recognition.

> > but I think having a single point of failure (nuke the IX) in
> > each geographical area sounds contrary to good
> > internetwork design.
> 
> Dillon points out that an IX isn't strictly required; for 

Yes, that's a good point.  I'd like it to scale, and I'm
wondering if there's an intermediate position where there's
a regional aggregate but non-IX-ians leak more specifics.
Need to sit down at a whiteboard for a few minutes on that
one.

> 
> All in all, I'm not sure I support this idea.  It's 
> technically interesting, 
> but I'm not sure if it's viable in today's market.  If we'd 
> done it a decade ago, however...

I misunderstood you then, and thought you were advocating.

Is anyone formulating a proposal for geographically-based 
allocations/assignments based on this discussion?

Lee


> 
> S
> 
> Stephen Sprunk        "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
> CCIE #3723           people.  Smart people surround themselves with
> K5SSS         smart people who disagree with them."  --Aaron Sorkin 
>