elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
join:2006-08-30
Toronto, ON
| Please explain Peering
I think I understand, in which you allow traffic from another provider to travel over your network to it's destination.
I was looking at Torix this morning and noticed that most companies are excepting ,but some are not accepting, and others are conditional.
Not accepting makes sense, but what is conditional? |
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pstewart
Premium,VIP
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON
| TorIX is a rather "open exchange" but there is always rules/policies that certain companies adapt.
For example, sometimes conditional refers to a peering policy that says "you must be doing 10Mb/s to us currently to peer". Another example common on the larger exchanges is "you must peer east coast and west coast with us".
Another example is "you must not have been a customer for the past 6 months to peer".
Most larger peers have a public policy page showing what they expect and what they will provide. One example of a TorIX peer with a list of conditions is NLayer:
»www.nlayer.net/northamericanpolicies
Basically you must use a GigE minimum to connect to the exchange (in this case TorIX) and must be exchanging at least 250Mb/s of traffic minimum. Plus, you must connect to them in multiple geographic regions.
Peers with conditions to the degree of NLayer are not common at TorIX currently - the more common condition is a minimal amount of traffic existing to ensure it's worthwhile setting up a peering session in the first place. |
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jfmezei_anon
@vaxination.ca
| reply to elwoodblues
In the context of Torix, peering is basically a direct ethernet connection between 2 network's routers allowing free exchange of packets without having to go through the internet (without using transit capacity you have paid for to get to the internet).
Peering in the context of Torix is normally "I'll let you connect directly to me to connect to one of my IPs, but you can't use the rest of my network.
In other words, if A and B peer, B won't let A pass through B to get to C, but will happily let A conect to B's IP address.
At higher levels, "peering" (or settlement free peering) starts to get a different meaning when you are dealing with huge networks.
Some networks love peering because it reduces the load on their transit links and thus it saves them money. Some networks (like Bell) hate peering because they want to force you to either buy connectiity from them, or pay for transit via the USA to connect to them. |
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pstewart
Premium,VIP
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON
| said by jfmezei_anon :
Some networks love peering because it reduces the load on their transit links and thus it saves them money. Some networks (like Bell) hate peering because they want to force you to either buy connectiity from them, or pay for transit via the USA to connect to them.
I'll never figure out why Bell (AS577) will only do peering in the US and pretty much avoids any Canadian peering at all (private or public).
There's more to peering than saving money - in fact some networks it costs more to peer than to use transit (cost to connect to exchange, housing of additional equipment etc.) Performance, security, control are also very important components to peering. |
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HeadSpinning
join:2005-05-29
Windsor, ON
| said by pstewart  : I'll never figure out why Bell (AS577) will only do peering in the US and pretty much avoids any Canadian peering at all (private or public). Simple answer: Arrogance |
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elwoodblues
Elwood Blues
join:2006-08-30
Toronto, ON | They'll sink sooner then later. |
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CanerisErik
Caneris
Premium,VIP
join:2007-10-03
Toronto, ON
| reply to pstewart
said by pstewart :I'll never figure out why Bell (AS577) will only do peering in the US and pretty much avoids any Canadian peering at all (private or public). Because they can.
--
Erik - Caneris - Internet solutions and more. |
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pstewart
Premium,VIP
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON | Yeah, arrogance is the most likely explanation in my opinion - agreed. |
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pstewart
Premium,VIP
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON
| reply to elwoodblues
Ellwood - we got kinda side tracked picking on Bell (easily done)... did this thread answer your question? I'm a big fan of peering (from an ISP perspective) so if you're looking for more information feel free 
--
Nexicom High Speed Internet - »www.nexicom.net/ |
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jfmezei_anon
@vaxination.ca
| My take on why Bell doesn't peer is different.
When you're a large network, you want to have bilateral exchanges with transit providers so that you can eventually negotiate settlement free peering.
Bell is a glorified ISP that hosts a few web sites (banks for instance). Its network is fairly big though.
Sympatico customers generate unidirectional traffic, like most ISPs. But by forcing other canadian ISPs to go through the USA to reach a canadian bank's web site, it provides outbound traffic on the links and perhaps Bell hopes one day to have balanced in/out traffic and negotiate settlement free peering with major USA networks.
Peering with canadian ISPs would remove all the outbound traffic on Bell's links to the USA and make those like highly unbalanced.
And of course, by not peering, it forces competing canadian ISPs to pay for transit to access canadian web sites.
What I don't understand is why canadian banks are so stuck up on Bell cosnidering Bell provides the least amount of connectivitry with canadian ISPs. |
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pstewart
Premium,VIP
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON
| For Bell I'm sure it's been a business decision not to partake in TorIX (which would be the logical public peering point for them to paricipate currently) for whatever reasons - but it's also important to note that in the US they don't really do much peering neither compared to some other Canadian ISP's.
Bell (AS577) is present at the following locations that I'm aware of:
Chicago Equinix
Ashburn Equinix
New York PAIX
Palo Alto PAIX
Seattle PAIX
That's only five locations in the US of which I'm only aware of them doing public peering (versus private peering) on two of those locations. Considering their size, that's not very impressive or appealing.
When you compare it to Rogers (AS812) they are "peering friendly". Not only do they participate in TorIX but also in some selected US exchanges as well (Ashburn, Chicago, Newark, New York for public peering at least). To me, in my opinion at least - this makes a lot of sense for them to take on an aggressive role in peering with other providers.
If Bell would come out of the clouds, they could see that peering works well (in most cases) for a provider... |
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Robrr
join:2008-04-19
Toronto, ON
1 edit | QIX(Montreal) and BCIX(Vancouver) should be on that list of Bell peering locations as well |
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pstewart
Premium,VIP
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON
1 edit | said by Robrr :QIX(Montreal) and BCIX(Vancouver) should be on that list of Bell peering locations as well Sorry, you're right - I missed QIX as it's so small. Are they actually peering at QIX with anyone or just selling transit?
BC - I've heard of BCNET and rumours of some others... any details by chance? Just curious as nearby Seattle is a hot spot for peering... |
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Robrr
join:2008-04-19
Toronto, ON
 ·TekSavvy Solutions..
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
| I'm not sure of exact details about what Bell is doing at each site. I do know they are partners at both sites though.
»www.bc.net/
»www.risq.qc.ca/?LANG=EN |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC | reply to elwoodblues
Risq is the scientific/education network in Quebec, so Bell sort of needs to connect to it. |
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Robrr
join:2008-04-19
Toronto, ON
·TekSavvy Solutions..
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| said by Guspaz :Risq is the scientific/education network in Quebec, so Bell sort of needs to connect to it. Unless of course Bell exec come up with a better idea  |
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pstewart
Premium,VIP
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON
1 edit | reply to Guspaz
said by Guspaz :Risq is the scientific/education network in Quebec, so Bell sort of needs to connect to it. Why? What would they be providing there? Again, just curious but I can't think of a reason that Bell needs to be there...:) |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC
·Colbanet
·TekSavvy Solutions..
| They don't, strictly speaking. But nearly all schools (CEGEP and university at least, not sure about highschools) connect to the internet with Risq as ISP, and Videotron is very well connected to Risq (might provide their transit, not sure).
Parts of the government use Bell (Nexxia), and other parts (such as the National Assembly) use Risq. So I'd imagine that the government also likes to have decent routing between its' various parts. You know those MNAs, they like to get their way... |
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pstewart
Premium,VIP
join:2005-10-12
Peterborough, ON | Thanks - I'm always curious because I like to keep a handle on which Canadian ISP's are peering where and why etc. |
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Guspaz
Guspaz
Premium,MVM
join:2001-11-05
Montreal, QC | I'm just figuring that out based on vague recollections, traceroutes, and google searches, so take things with a grain of salt :P |
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