Re: Is the MIXP a white elephant? (was: Mauritius Telecom and Emtel peering at MIXP)

From: Daniel Shaw <danielshaw_at_protonmail.com>
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2015 03:08:29 -0400

Hi Logan,

You are still misunderstaning the role of an IXP (any IXP) and internet peering.

An IX or IXP is a platform, and infrastructure. It's a tool made available to ISPs and other networks. It's role is nothing further than making the tool available, 24/7. Which ISPs choose to make use of it in which way is not the role of the IXP. And should not be. Ever. Read the Dr. Peering book to understand why this is. (I can lend you a hard copy if you like).

And in regards to peering: It's not something to be 'fixed'. You see it as something mandatory, and that means something is broken if it's not there. However, peering between ISPs does not work that way. Peering is done when it makes business sense. This mostly boils down to finacial incentives, either due to savnigs on transit or in terms of customer retention due to providing a better quality of service in a competitive market.

You cannot and should not try to *force* anything on any ISP. Not only is it going to fail, it's not the sort of thing that makes for an open democratic capitalist business environment, which is what you want if you want to attract more competition, which is ultimately what you want to keep prices down and service up.

ISP do not always understand the finacial insentives that are almost always there for them when they peer. So the best action is to, where possible, point this out clearly. If the incentives are there, the ISPs will follow - that is business sense.

However, you also need to understand and accept that in some cases there are other incentives you may not be aware of, and as such some networks may never peer, no matter what their customers say, and not matter how "good" of an IXP they have access to. This is reality in the business of running ISP networks. I am not saying that is the case here in Mauritius. At least as far as I know it's not. But then I don't work for any of the ISPs.

So, if ISP X and ISP Y don't see a financial incentive to peer (whether that is valid or not) how do you change that. You get folks to vote with their feet. Take the business elsewhere.

- Daniel


On Oct 24, 2015, at 9:10 AM, Loganaden Velvindron wrote:
> I think that due to the lack of co-operation between the different ISPs for fixing peering, unless an informed
> customer raises the issue. As Selven said on another mailing list, the co-operation problems between the
> different ISPs is not good at all. In order to make any significant progress, we would need to force them to
> co-operate for the benefit of the wider internet users in Mauritius.
Received on Sat Oct 24 2015 - 07:08:47 PST