[IP] "settlement based traffic exchange" (4 IP if u wish)
Begin forwarded message:
From: Mike O'Dell <mo@xxxxxxx>
Date: June 11, 2005 11:02:11 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: "settlement based traffic exchange" (4 IP if u wish)
the telcos in the US have been trying to move
away from settlements for 50 years and it's
finally starting to happen. the US will finally
be on a "bill & keep" model within a year or three.
i find it particularly depressing to see the ITU
attempting to reset the clock 50 years,
although certainly not surprising.
the entire notion of "settlements" is based on
an imputed "benefit flow". in the voice world,
placing a call and receiving a call have been
deemed to have different value, and hence it
is possible to ascribe a benefit flow. Note that
this decision as to differential value was a
*completely* arbitrary decision - either
caller or callee could be deemed more valuable.
the two important ideas are that caller and callee
are trivially distinguished and that
the value imputed to each end is different.
for the Internet to have settlements, it would
be necessary to decide which party is accruing the
greater benefit in any particular packet flow,
not to mention keep track of that asymmetry at
some level of aggregation.
Here's the problem: is the human accessing a web site
accruing more benefit than the web site receiving
advertising revenue from for the human having viewed page,
or is it the other way around? and for which sites and
which viewers?
is opening a TCP connection more or less valuable
than being able to receive a TCP connection?
what about UDP packets and flows?
No, it is impossible to rationally impute a
value chain, hence it is impossible to have
rational settlements, other than by pure
dictatorial fiat of course.
-mo
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