On Jun 20, 2013, at 5:37 AM, Benson Schliesser <bens...@queuefull.net> wrote:
> Right. By "sending peer" I meant the network transmitting a packet,
> unidirectional flow, or other aggregate of traffic into another
> network. I'm not assuming anything about whether they are offering
> "content" or something else - I think it would be better to talk about
> peering fairness at the network layer, rather than the business /
> service layer.
In that case, it's essentially never an issue, since essentially every packet
in one direction is balanced by a packet in the other direction, so rotational
symmetry takes care of the "fairness." I think you may be taking your argument
too far, though, since by this logic, the sending and receiving networks also
have control over what they choose to transit and receive, and I think that
discounts too far the reality that it is in fact the _customers_ that are
making all of these decisions, and the networks are, in the aggregate,
inflexible in their need to service customers. What a customer will pay to do,
a service provider will take money to perform. It's not really service
providers (in aggregate) making these decisions. It's customers.
-Bill
