This whole debate is fast becoming redundant now, as Telecom is starting to roll out direct-to-the-customer internet access products. (Nb: This is a Global Gateway product, not Xtra) examples of which are frame relay services where the customer get a raw feed and only has to pay for data and their frame relay access circuit. There is no PVC charge (Regardless of where you are in NZ) and no separate ISP-end circuit charges. Thus basic internet access is becoming another telco provided commodity, almost just another layer of the telco network. Michael Hallager
Am I the only person who finds this incredibly amusing? We have, on one side, TCL, who're determined to play the "peering game" like the big boys in the US do it (similar-sized players peering, and selling transit to smaller players), and, on the other side one of the true behemoths of international connectivity saying that not even NZ's largest player would meet T1-level peering requirements in the US. Does put TCL (and TCNZ) into perspective, really. Shame that beanies are generally incapable of seeing the situation in such terms.
Even though we're now drifting very far off topic...
TCL has informed me that they will not peer with MCI NZ after they decomission their APE/WIX peering, as they are not a "Tier 1 carrier".
It seems that TCL think that in order to peer with them, you need to operate a national IP network (MCI is only in Auckland -- coincidentally, in TCL's colocation facility), on your OWN NATIONAL FIBER network.
They also said that "MCI won't peer with us in the US, so we won't peer with them here". Now, MCI has a standard peering policy for a reason: so they don't get accused of unfair practise with regards to peering. If you can meet their standards, then you peer. I doubt TCL has even close to a single OC48 of traffic to MCI, much less multiple OC48s. Reach, maybe, but that's not TCL.
Incidentally, TCL is an MCI transit customer in LA.
So, if you buy MCI NZ transit as a corporate, you'll get routed to Sydney to reach TCL. Which doesn't bother MCI, because they have tons of bandwidth and money. It might bother some NZ people trying to talk to other NZ people that connect to MCI though (eg. GE.)
It was with great pleasure that I cancelled our TCL-provided APE circuit last week, after shifting to another carrier.
To keep it on topic: What do people think will happen with TCL's de-peering once UBS rolls out? ISPs will suddenly have to fork out a lot more for domestic transit to TCL because of all their extra UBSified DSL customers.
Although, they'll be saving the costs of Telecom transit because they won't need to push so much traffic to Fast IP Direct!