[wg-review] Whom owns what?

[Roeland Meyer <rmeyer@mhsc.com>]

WRT recent discussions about who pays for the Internet and what kinds of
rights the individual has. The members of this group might like to see some
<much needed> background info on how the Internet is built,  what makes it
work, and who pays for it all. More importantly, how it works,
business-wise.

NANOG = North American Network Operators Group.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean Donelan [mailto:sean@donelan.com]
> Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 7:57 PM
> To: rjoffe@centergate.com
> Cc: nanog@merit.edu
> Subject: Re: UUNET peering policy
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 11 January 2001, Rodney Joffe wrote:
> > I also don't believe that it was a coincidence that 
> Genuity/GTE was the
> > first to make a public statement of it's peering policy. 
> 
> Sometimes I think "Internet Time" also applies to its long 
> term memory.
> 
> One of the reasons why I asked for copies of old peering policies is
> because essentially every major provider has publically 
> announced their
> policy at one time or another in the last decade.  Saying 
> "First" about
> anything should mean more than the last 18 months.
> 
> InternetMCI had their peering policy on their web site for 
> several years
> (1995-1996) prior to its acquisition by Worldcom.  I believe 
> InternetMCI
> removed their peering policy from its public web site about 
> the time Farouq
> took over peering at MCI.
> 
> The first peering battle was ANS. The agreement was brokered 
> by BBN arranging
> for ANS to connect to the CIX router.  At that point, the 
> definition of
> "being on the Internet" changed from being connected to the 
> NSFNET to being
> on the commercial Internet, and the set of providers 
> supplying commercial
> Internet service.
> 
> The second peering battle was one of packet loss.  Sprint 
> tried to make things
> as painful as possible by never upgrading its connection to 
> the CIX router
> above a T1.  So even though other providers were exchanging 
> traffic at 34Mbps
> to 45Mbps, Sprint kept their quality of service limited to 
> 1.5Mbps at the CIX.
> This one was never directly resolved.  But by this time most 
> providers were
> exchanging a majority of their traffic via MAE-East.
> 
> Around this time BBN transitioned from being a customer of InternetMCI
> to being a peer of InternetMCI using its connections via several old
> NSF regional networks (BARRNET, SURANET and NEARNET).  BBN and MCI may
> have had the first "private" circuit peering.  Because InternetMCI had
> sold connectivity as a loss-leader to the old NSF regionals, 
> some folks
> throught MCI was happy to get out of the customer contract.
> 
> The third peering battle involved disconnectivity.  BBN was 
> one of the first
> providers to terminate its connection to the CIX router, 
> which had previously
> acted as the peering point of last resort, and began the 
> second round of
> peering disputes.  When all the major providers connected to 
> the CIX, it was
> difficult for any provider not to peer because the CIX router 
> always offered
> a way to exchange traffic.  In less than three months, BBN, 
> MCI and Sprint
> actions eliminated CIX as the router of last resort.
> 
> It should be noted, UUNET has maintained its connection to the CIX
> router.  Any provider interested in exchanging traffic with UUNET has
> always had the option of sending traffic via the CIX.  This 
> option does
> not exist for Genuity or Sprint.
> 
> The fourth peering battle involved AGIS announcing its new peering
> policy at the least NANOG meeting held at the University of Michigan.
> It generated a lot of noise, but eventually AGIS's peering policy
> became irrelevant.  Towards the end, AGIS was actively trying to get
> peering with new providers.
> 
> The fifth peering battle involved UUNET.  UUNET notified some number,
> I've heard between 10 and 20, providers UUNET would terminate their
> peering.  At this time in the Internet's history only a few providers
> had written peering agreements.  There were very few NDA's involved
> with peering before this time.  It probably wasn't a breach 
> of NDA, but
> someone leaked the story to the press.  UUNET eventually was able to
> shutdown the story, but that lead to the next problem.  Everything is
> a secret, so people imagine things were in peering agreements.
> 
> The sixth peering battle involved once again BBN/GTE and the 
> MCI/Worldcom
> merger.  GTE worked very diligently to bring the issue of 
> peering to the
> attention of regulators in the US and Europe.  Eventually the 
> EU Commission
> issued administrative inquires of all the major providers 
> about the nature
> of the agreements, the amount of traffic, the types of connections and
> so forth.  In the end, the nature of peering agreements 
> wasn't clarified,
> but Worldcom had to spin off its InternetMCI division to 
> Cable & Wireless.
> 
> The seventh peering battle involved again BBN/Genuity/GTE and 
> Exodus.  This
> time it was the battle over imbalanced traffic flows.  BBN 
> and Exodus had
> a dispute, but it was settled and as they say on TV the terms were not
> announced.  The imbalance issue has come up a few more times 
> with other
> providers such as PSI, Abovenet and others.
> 
> So, even though some folks like to point to UUNET as the big bully on
> the block, if you look at history; BBN has more often than not been
> the power behind the throne in these peering battles.
> 
> 
> 
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