I don't believe that I am. There is no natural law of the universe (like gravity or electromagnetism) that says that peering MUST be symmetric or roughly symmetric.
A symmetric or roughly symmetric peering arrangement naturally arises when two companies which have both traffic producers and consumers on their network interconnect their networks at a peering point. But if one network operator doesn't have the right mix of producers and consumers on their own network the balance can get pushed in one direction or the other.
From their website:
"The Peering Coordinator Community put on a debate on the rationality of peering ratios as a peering discriminator at NANOG 35 in Los Angeles. During that debate, and during the subsequent informal debates afterwards, the consensus was that this metric was neither technically sound nor business rational."
Peering isn't about getting exactly identical amounts of traffic both ways. A lot of times that is the outcome, but it is NOT required.
Peering is about the point at which two companies interconnect in such a way as to keep their paying customers happy without incurring additional expenses.
Please read (and re-read if necessary) that page and look at the diagrams and make sure that you understand them before you continue to comment on this topic. Your comments thus far indicate that you don't really understand how networks work. It sounds like you've heard "peering" before and kinda understand what it means. And this dispute between Level3 and Verizon doesn't fit into the neat and tidy little "peering is symmetric" box that a naive understanding of peering would yield. I am sorry if this sounds condescending but you're making a lot of posts with no real bearing on what's actually happening or why.
> Peering is about the point at which two companies interconnect in such a way as to keep their paying customers happy without incurring additional expenses.
This summarizes it. Both sides at one time were happy, now one side is not due to uneven network usage (which they consider an additional expense).
That is all.
Unfortunately this whole thread will go round and round forever because many on HN believe no matter what Verizon / Comcast, etc do is automatically evil, and nothing will change that.
> This summarizes it. Both sides at one time were happy, now one side is not due to uneven network usage (which they consider an additional expense).
"which they consider an additional expense"
Verizon can CONSIDER it an additional expense all they like. But it is a cost of doing business that they took upon themselves as a result of the service which they have sold to their customers.
Verizon has only incurred this cost because they advertise and sell asymmetric internet connections to their customers. Which their customers then expect to be able to "collect" on, so to speak.
"keep their paying customers happy"
In this case we can see that Verizon is not acting to keep their paying customers happy. Level3 was never a paying customer of Verizon. Verizon Residential subscribers have been and continue to be customers of Verizon.
What Verizon is arguing is that Level3 should become a paying customer of Verizon in order for Verizon to be willing to spend the money required to keep Verizon's already paying customers happy.
You might call that "double charging" or "abusing monopoly power" or perhaps even "holding their own customers hostage" but I can't see how you can call it "perfectly rational".
I don't think that Comcast or Verizon are inherently evil. I've had good experiences doing business with both on the commercial side.
But when they deliberately throttle their customers network connections at peering points for the sake of extracting additional money from content providers because they have a monopoly over their residential customers I can't help but get at least a little bit upset.
If there were viable alternative choices for broadband, let them do whatever they want. I can always switch away from them to someone who provides me with better service. But when they actively lobby to prevent municipalities from constructing their own broadband networks (which would provide competition) and when they actively lobby to get the FCC to change the rules to favor themselves over consumers BY LAW I also have a problem.
Introduce enough competition into the marketplace and I don't care what any one particular player does. But lacking that competition I can't help but pass judgement on those who do not play fair.
I don't believe that I am. There is no natural law of the universe (like gravity or electromagnetism) that says that peering MUST be symmetric or roughly symmetric.
A symmetric or roughly symmetric peering arrangement naturally arises when two companies which have both traffic producers and consumers on their network interconnect their networks at a peering point. But if one network operator doesn't have the right mix of producers and consumers on their own network the balance can get pushed in one direction or the other.
From their website:
"The Peering Coordinator Community put on a debate on the rationality of peering ratios as a peering discriminator at NANOG 35 in Los Angeles. During that debate, and during the subsequent informal debates afterwards, the consensus was that this metric was neither technically sound nor business rational."
http://drpeering.net/white-papers/The-Folly-Of-Peering-Ratio...
Peering isn't about getting exactly identical amounts of traffic both ways. A lot of times that is the outcome, but it is NOT required.
Peering is about the point at which two companies interconnect in such a way as to keep their paying customers happy without incurring additional expenses.
Please read (and re-read if necessary) that page and look at the diagrams and make sure that you understand them before you continue to comment on this topic. Your comments thus far indicate that you don't really understand how networks work. It sounds like you've heard "peering" before and kinda understand what it means. And this dispute between Level3 and Verizon doesn't fit into the neat and tidy little "peering is symmetric" box that a naive understanding of peering would yield. I am sorry if this sounds condescending but you're making a lot of posts with no real bearing on what's actually happening or why.