On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Joe Abley wrote:
The crux of the matter is that some network operators in New Zealand have started thinking about peering as a business issue rather than a technical one. This is nothing new in the context of the whole network, and it's not unknown within NZ either -- how many small ISPs were ever able to do zero-settlement peering with 4648?
Paying Telecom for bandwidth so ones own Jetstream customers can download for your own pop server isn't a lot of fun. Especially since they in turn pay Telcom for the bandwidth again.
The question of whether the business decision in question is the right one is really a matter for TCL and their owners. But if you assume for a second that as a business decision it makes sense, then all TCL are doing is what they are supposed to be doing as a commercial company -- trying to maximise their profits. They're not a government department, and they're not a charity.
I think the best solution is to ensure that Telstra doesn't profit from this little exercise. For one thing I notice that the amount of money they want to charge is huge. $25/64k/month is way out of whack especially compared to costs. Over in Australia it's often cheaper to route National traffic via your upstream rather than pay Telstra transit pricing, I suspect for some it'll be the same here (see below). It now means that a single Jetstart customer can cost a lot of money even if they only do National traffic. Which means that ISPs will now have to look a lot closer at their National traffic costs. A couple of things come to mind. * Free National traffic might soon go away for Jetstart customers, Of course since Telstra and Telecom will make money on National traffic they will have a big incentive to keep it. * Some ISPs who are paying for fixed sized International links might have spare outgoing bandwidth which is effectivly free. In that case it'll probably be cheaper for them to route some traffic out via that link rather than expensive National links. It's suggest starting with traffic destined for non-peering customers of Telstra and Netgate. * Same as above except for hosting providers. A few more ideas are in the links here: http://www.nanog.org/listfaq.html#peering Trust me guys, we don't want to end up like Australia where it's cheapest to peer with Telstra at PAIX. -- Simon J. Lyall. | Very Busy | Mail: simon(a)darkmere.gen.nz "To stay awake all night adds a day to your life" - Stilgar | eMT.