IP: A watershed event has occurred with no fanfare...

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

>Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 13:41:14 -0700
>From: Rodney Joffe <rjoffe@centergate.com>
>To: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
>Subject: A watershed event has occurred with no fanfare...
>
>Hello Dave,
>
>As you probably know from your time at the FCC, as well as your earlier
>'net history, probably the most controversial and secretive subject
>relating the the true backbone, and infrastructure of the Internet, has
>been that of peering and peering relationships. For clarification,
>peering in the Internet sense is the exchange of traffic between two
>networks without filtering, limitation, or fee.
>
>As the founder of the original Genuity, in 1993-4 I was the last of the
>networks to be party to the multi-lateral peering agreement that made
>the commercial Internet work. From that moment on, it became virtually
>impossible for anyone else to connect and exchange traffic with the rest
>of the Internet without paying a transit or traffic fee to someone else.
>The whole subject became mired in obfuscation and secrecy, and over the
>next 7 years, the company that everyone needed to peer with but no new
>company could was UUNet (now Worldcom/MCI/UUNet). Even with the other
>major networks at the time (Sprint, MCI, BBN, AT&T, IBM etc.) this was
>difficult, because the secret sauce seemed to be finding out what a
>given network's peering requirement was, and then meeting those
>requirements. And no major network ever published it's requirement.
>
>The requirement was generally political, but articulated in some vague
>technical specification (e.g. to be present at 5 public exchange points,
>with a point-to-point clear channel T3 between all points, and at least
>one redundant path between any two exchange points, etc.).
>
>So the rest of the Internet industry basically gave up on ever being
>able to join the chosen few who peered at the center of the Internet
>without paying any form of settlement fees.
>
>Then, apparently in the last few days, a clear statement on peering
>policy and requirements has appeared on the UUNet website - see
>http://www.uu.net/peering/ This is a remarkable document in that for the
>very first time ever, in a public form, it sets standards for
>settlement-free (i.e. no charge) peering with UUnet, the world's largest
>Internet network.
>
>If I understand the document correctly, anyone who meets their clear
>requirements will be able to exchange traffic with them at no charge.
>
>This will undoubtedly change the landscape of the Internet.
>
>Regards,
>--
>Rodney Joffe
>CenterGate Research Group, LLC.
>http://www.centergate.com
>"Technology so advanced, even we don't understand it!"(SM)



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