Alex Rubenstein wrote:
Further, the internet has always been a best-effort medium.
Can someone please explain how Level 3 is making a "best effort" to
connect their customers to Cogent's customers?
Various people have stated that uneven data flows (e.g. from
mostly-content networks to mostly-eyeball networks) is a good reason to
not peer. I'd love to know how it improves Level 3's network to have
data from Cogent arrive over some *other* connection rather than
directly from a peering connection. Do they suddenly, magically, no
longer have backhaul that mostly-content data across their own backbone
to their users who have requested it if it should come in from one of
their *other* peers who (in normal peering fashion) hot-potato hands it
off to them at the first opportunity, rather than coming in directly
from Cogent?
I don't think so.
So why break off peering???
AFAICT there's only one reason to break off peering, and it's to force
Cogent to pay (anyone) to transit the data. Why does L3 care if Cogent
sends the data for free via peering, or pays someone ELSE to transit the
data?
I think this is about a big bully trying to force a smaller player off
of the big guys' playing field (tier 1 peering). From where I sit it
looks like an anti-competitive move that is not a "best effort" to serve
their customers but a specific effort to put another (smaller)
competitor out of business (of being a transit-free or mostly
transit-free backbone) by forcing them to pay (someone), forcing their
costs up. Level 3 must know they are no longer putting for a "best
effort" for their own customers to connect them to the "internet" (as
their customers see it, the "complete internet" that their customers
have come to expect).
I Am Not A Lawyer. (duh?)
IMHO all L3 customers have a valid argument that Level 3 is in default
of any service contract that calls for "best effort" or similar on L3's
part.
I also believe that Cogent has a valid argument that Level 3's behavior
is anti-competitive in a market where the tier 1 networks *collectively*
have a 100% complete monopoly on the business of offering transit-free
backbone internet services. As such, L3's behavior might fall into
anti-trust territory - because if Cogent caves in over this and buys
transit for the traffic destined for L3 then what's to stop the rest of
the tier 1 guys from following suit and forcing Cogent to buy transit to
get to *all* tier 1 networks? Then who will they (TINT) force out next?
What's to stop a big government (like the US) from stepping in and
attempting to regulate peering agreements, using the argument that
internet access is too important to allow individual networks to bully
other networks out of the market - at the expense of customers - and
ultimately resulting in less competition and higher rates? Is this type
of regulation good for the internet? OTOH is market consolidation good
for the internet?
I don't like this slippery slope, I don't like it one little bit.
jc
