[ILUG] [OT ish] Peering - Ireland and the world

[Chris Higgins]

> ok.. think about it. Imagine 2 layers. Top layer are the Big Telcos,
> second layer are the national ISPs, via, esat, etc..

What two layers ? Are you saying then that BigTelcos don't sell
direct to end customers ?
> 
> The second layer are customers of the top layer for extra-ireland
> traffic and the second layer peer amongst themselves at INEX.

What about mister huge global corporate software company that has
a policy of only buying bandwidth from BigTelco... where is his
local peering in Ireland ? 

He doesn't qualify as an ISP so he can't join INEX... and anyway
why should he have to join INEX to get national peering - why
can't his ISP do that for him ? 

Anyway - you can't split the network into 'big' and 'small', and force 
all the customers to buy though 'small'..

So while your point is argued well, your basis is flawed. There are no
layers.. It might be fair to talk about layering in the USA context, but
then you're dealing with USA national traffic... and 'Tier 1' designations
apply... but the Internet doesn't only exist in the USA... so within the
context of Ireland Mr BigTelco is (as you rightly point out) not building
a national network... so he needs to do in Ireland - what the Irish ISPs
have to do in the USA... go to someone who has a national network and
buy Irish transit from them... but it doesn't work that way - cause the
big guys just bully their way around - and refuse to play fair with the
local yokels.

In the Irish context the national 'tier one' networks are the Eircom
(Eircom Net / Indigo), the Esat (Esat Net, IOL/PostGEM) and the HEAnet
networks.

Arriving into a country, connecting up two customers locally and then
claiming that you are servicing the country but can't route traffic
locally within the country is what caused the erroneous statement from
microsoft in the first place. 


Are you claiming that 'BigTelcos' peering at LINX and AMS-IX is somehow
more efficient that them peering at INEX ? 

> 
> What is the use of the top layer peering at INEX too? Esp. as the
> top-layer, to my knowledge, do not operate any national networks of
> any significance. (maybe their POPs, that's it.).
> 
> If you buy bandwidth from the top-layer then you are probably already
> big enough to peer at INEX yourself.
> 
> > [1] I've no objections to exporting our traffic, and I'm sure that the nice
> > people in other countries don't mind it much either... but building the
> > internet is not like building roads in Ireland.. The most direct route is
> > normally the best (assuming that the route isn't congested, but congestion
> > at this level is a matter for the protocols, not the route designers.)
> 
> exactly...
> 
> imagine:
> 
> Murphy Net - peered at INEX. have lines through GlobalFoo.
> RyanCom - peered at INEX. have lines with BigNet.
> 
> what would be the point in BigNet and GlobalFoo peering at INEX? it's
> not going reduce their traffic cause the traffic is already going
> over INEX.
> 
> The BigTelcos, and many more, are already peering with each other in
> places like LINX and AMS-IX. (Eircom and Via are also AMS-IX peers).

How can you make this statement when you responded to my [1] footnote
with 'exactly...'

> 
> regards,
> -- 
> Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org
> PGP5 key: http://www.clubi.ie/jakma/publickey.txt
> -------------------------------------------
> Fortune:
> Support your local church or synagogue.  Worship at Bank of America.

-- 
** Chris Higgins                         e: chris.higgins at horizon.ie **
** Technical Business Development        tel: +353-1-6204916            **
** Horizon Technology Group              fax: +353-1-6204949            **