When private peering arrangements go bad
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Cable & Wireless likely didn't make any new friends on the Internet last week when it started enforcing its newly revised peering policy, cutting off service to more than a dozen ISPs.
Cable & Wireless terminated private peering network agreements with 14 ISPs, including troubled PSINet, which Cable & Wireless said no longer met the ISP's peering requirements. Private peering is the act of two ISPs establishing dedicated connections to their respective networks. These connections are used to exchange traffic that is destined for each ISP's network. ISPs do not pay service fees for these connections.
After much discussion, Cable & Wireless restored PSINet's connections late on June 5 after PSINet signed a letter of intent stating that it would soon meet Cable & Wireless' requirements. It appears that PSINet was the only ISP of the 14 that was given a reprieve. In the meantime though, Cable & Wireless and PSINet were unable to directly exchange traffic for three days and customers suffered.
One Cable & Wireless customer who asked to remain anonymous told Network World that it was forced to come up with alternative means to communicate with partners on PSINet's network. The official at the Southwest chain of stores say it lost 300 transactions that were being sent from a vendor on PSINet's network to the company's headquarters. They had to fax these transactions until Cable & Wireless restored the peering connections.
Clearly this was not the only Cable & Wireless customer affected - most customers associated with PSINet experienced delays or were unable to reach other users. While this situation was set in motion over the termination of a single private peering agreement, it demonstrated the frail nature of the Internet with its series of sometimes loosely interconnected, providers.
ISPs that were cut off by Cable & Wireless can simply go to another provider or set up public peering connections at the congested Metropolitan Area Exchanges or Network Access Points on the Internet. But small and midsize ISPs would be driven out of business if all of the large ISPs changed their policies and started charging all providers with smaller networks.
Standards in peering |
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| Cable & Wireless’ private peering requirements make it more difficult for small and midsize national ISPs to set up cost-free direct network connections with the company. Here’s how Cable & Wireless’ requirements compare: | |||||||||||||||
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Cable & Wireless, like all of the large IP network service providers, has policies that govern which ISPs are peers and which should pay for transit service. The idea behind private peering is that both ISPs are exchanging about the same amount of traffic and are operating similar networks.
Cable & Wireless requirements include: the peer must operate an OC-48 backbone with a network operations center that includes a contact person available around the clock. The requirements that Cable & Wireless includes in its policy are not unusual, but its specific OC-48 network prerequisite is. For example, WorldCom's UUNET says its peers must operate an OC-12 network, Genuity says its peers at a minimum must operate an OC-3, as does AT&T.
This requirement eliminates the majority of some 4,000 ISPs from setting up private peering connections with Cable & Wireless. "There are about 10 to 20 ISPs that operate OC-48 networks," says Pat Sheridan, a director at Cable & Wireless. Some of these ISPs include Williams Communications, Level 3 Communications, UUNET, AT&T and Genuity, but not Verio, Savvis Communications or Infonet.
While Cable & Wireless' rules are more stringent than its competitors', the ISP may also be more strictly enforcing its rules. PSINet was not shut down because it does not have an OC-48 network, but because it wasn't sending Cable & Wireless enough traffic. Peers are restricted on how much traffic they can send, but they are also expected to maintain a certain level of traffic.
Cable & Wireless' traffic requirements are the same as Genuity's, AT&T's and actually more liberal than UUNET's. But no other ISP shut down PSINet's peering connections at press time. And while Cable & Wireless says that it's likely leading the pack with its new requirements, others do not agree.
"Some companies engage in posturing to see if the rest of the industry will follow, but that's likely not going to happen in this case," says Craig Uthe, IP product management director at AT&T.
"Some of the smaller ISPs might resent this new policy and will then just switch to another provider, especially if no one follows," he says.
That may be fine with Cable & Wireless. Some have theorized that the ISP is simply trying to develop a new revenue source. Transit fees or wholesale Internet access services can easily cost $20,000 to $100,000 per month for OC-3 to OC-12 connections. Or it may be trying to reserve its network resources for paying enterprise customers. But the service provider says it is simply updating its peering policy to match its upgraded network.
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