Subject: Hostility between ISPs?

From: Peter Tattam <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 15:49:46 +1000 (EST)

Just a small aside, I was told yesterday by our primary bandwidth provider that
they won't let us use their proxy cache unless we go single homed with them
alone.

For us bandwidth is a scarce commodity and so ways of maximizing and recycling
the bandwidth are important as the competitive pressures on pricing are
enormous.  Caching data is an important cost recovery tool.

I feel this sentiment should balanced with comments that ISPs typically have no
problem coming to amicable arrangements regarding peering & BGP exchanges as
there are implications for RFC 2260 & SMPL solutions to multihoming. 

This is not hot air, just the real world of ISPing.  Under the current regime
in Australia, I doubt if I could get 2260 or SMPL to happen.  My providers just
don't like cooperating.

I accept that both 2260 & SMPL work technically and are implementable.

Politically, I am having doubts as it leaves the small-medium ISPs at the mercy
of inter ISP politics, and we so it would have to be pushed back to the
internet regulators to find a solution to that issue.  

Solutions that give the end user greater control over multihoming issues should
continue to be sought.

Peter

--
Peter R. Tattam                            [email-masked]
Managing Director,    Trumpet Software International Pty Ltd
Hobart, Australia,  Ph. +61-3-6245-0220,  Fax +61-3-62450210

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From: Bill Sommerfeld <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 11:11:00 -0400

> Politically, I am having doubts as it leaves the small-medium ISPs
> at the mercy of inter ISP politics, and we so it would have to be
> pushed back to the internet regulators to find a solution to that
> issue.

> Solutions that give the end user greater control over multihoming
> issues should continue to be sought.

Indeed, the main attraction of multi-homing through use of of multiple
(provider-assigned) prefixes is that it doesn't require cooperation
from ISP's, and thus has far better scalability -- it stands a chance
of working if every household winds up being multi-homed.

					- Bill