On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 11:52 AM, Christopher Morrow < morrowc.li...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, May 16, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Blake Hudson <bl...@ispn.net> wrote: > > in the context of this discussion I think it's silly for a residential > ISP > > to purport themselves to be a neutral carrier of traffic and expect > peering > > ratios to be symmetric > > is 'symmetric traffic ratios' even relevant though? Peering is about > offsetting costs, right? it might not be important that the ratio be > 1:1 or 2:1... or even 10:1, if it's going to cost you 20x to get the > traffic over longer/transit/etc paths... or if you have to build into > some horrific location(s) to access the content in question. > > Harping on symmetric ratios seems very 1990... and not particularly > germaine to the conversation at hand. > > Traffic asymmetry across peering connections was what lit the fuse on this whole powder keg, if I understand correctly; at the point the traffic went asymmetric, the refusals to augment capacity kicked in, and congestion became a problem. I've seen the same thing; pretty much every rejection is based on ratio issues, even when offering to cold-potato haul the traffic to the home market for the users. If the refusals hinged on any other clause of the peering requirements, you'd be right; but at the moment, that's the flag networks are waving around as their speedbump-du-jour. So, it may be very "1990", but unfortunately that seems to be the year many people in the industry are mentally stuck in. :( Matt