The Compelling Peer Pitch

Ask Dr. Peering

DrPeering -

We have a new service offering that in two years will be the most compelling content in the world. I am now ready to strategize to leverage the desirability of my content to obtain free peering.

When do you think the tides will change and the Tier 1 ISPs will willingly pay me for my content like the cable TV model?

Steve Austin, MMA

Don’t hold your breath.

There is a saying that “Eyeballs love Content, and Content loves Eyeballs.” This describes the generalized traffic flows for the majority of the traffic flows across the Internet. You will notice that these flows are inherently asymmetric, with small requests resulting in relatively large content responses flowing towards the eyeballs.

So both sides benefit from peering, right?

Today, the power resides on the network side of the equation, and these networks tend to value the traffic volume and symmetry more than the end-user experience or the desirability of the content. As a result, the network operators tend to seek peering with other network operators of “similar scope and scale” with a more or less “balanced traffic ratio” (Out:In <2.5:1). These artificial ratio metrics are really hiding the underlying desire not to peer with potential customers.

You can argue that the ISP’s customers will want a great experience on your site, and that the ISPs should want that as well. Peering is a way to ensure high-performance direct transport of your content to their eyeballs. But these arguments often fall on deaf ears. Many of these ISPs will agree about the desirability of a great end-user experience, but their way to achieve this is to have you as a paying customer.

Paying comes in two forms. Some offer a “Paid Peering” service, roughly the same price as transit. The pitch is that if you can get your content to the eyeballs more directly, at the same cost, with better performance, then why not just buy paid peering and be done with it? Throughout 2013, people were increasingly buying into this paid peering argument. Just about all of the major CDNs today pay access networks for direct access to their eyeballs.

The other form or paying of course is Internet Transit, metered access to the global Internet. One can prefer or “de-pref” the routes learned from the service, depending on a variety of metrics.

In either case, you will pay. Having said that, you will find many ISPs that will peer openly with you, especially if they have a soft spot for your service.

I remember when the RIAA was sending legal notices to the Universities across Michigan, demanding that they take steps to stem the tide of copyright violations on these peer-to-peer networks. The CIOs of the universities forwarded the emails to their IT Directors asking them to “do something about this,” who in turn formed teams to investigate solutions and “do something to placate the RIAA.” Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) boxes were deployed and configured, and the response emails went back up the chain of command tot he CIO. The CIOs then sent letters back to the RIAA saying that they had deployed boxes to stop the flows. They had done that which was prudent, and the RIAA patted themselves on the back and let the recording industry know of their fine progress. However, the engineers in the trenches that implemented the DPI solution were also fans of peer-to-peer for their own personal use, and so were disinclined to continuously apply the signature updates to evolve as the peer-to-peer services evolved. When the peer-to-peer clients changed their code, the DPI devices ceased to be effective. The lesson learned here is that the motivations of the people involved are at least as important as the technology deployed.

But what I can share are some tips....

7 Recommendations: Meet Peers at Peering Events

I helped a few content companies obtain peering, by introducing them around, by coaching on who they approach, what they said, and most importantly, what they should not say. Here are a few recommendations I typically make:

1)Bring your network map, highlighting current and planned deployments. This will help position you as a fellow network operator as opposed to a free loading content provider.
2)Bring statistics demonstrating adoption and traffic growth, and highlighting why the ISP’s customers will demand high performance interconnections to your service. This will help the peer to internally bolster the case to peer with you.
3)Bring giveaways - free account upgrades, professional editions of your software or service, brochures or demonstration kits, etc. Examples might be Free Pandora accounts, free DropBox disk space, upgrades to LinkedIn professional, etc. Some peers bring T-Shirts, chocolates, or location relevant giveaways. The more desirable the giveaway, the more likely people others will find out and start seeking you out to have the peering conversation.
4)Identify what makes the other peer want to peer. In some cases it is to save money, or to improve end-user experience, or to attract new customers. At a Asian peering conference for example, a content company client was actively courted by mobile ISP operators to get their content directly onto their mobile network service. The mobile operator lists the logos of directly attached content peers, and get more customers to sign up that way. I had never seen access networks actively go after peering with content ; this was a first.
5)Bring a lot of business cards and find appropriate people to help introduce you around. The Peering Coordinators are a friendly bunch and often like to be helpful in this way. The exchange point operators also tend to know a lot of people, so meet them and leverage their contacts.
6)Understand your network, who peers where, where your traffic goes to and comes from. There is nothing worse than an ignorant peer requesting peering. It signals that you don’t value their time or their network, and that getting peering set up will be similarly treated with disregard.
7)Start small. Get a few peering introductions going in an informal setting, exchange cards, and get used to the flow of information. When I would assist with peering introductions, it usually took about 5 or so introductions before the new peering coordinator was ready to go off on their own and establish some peering relationships.

DrPeering -

Thanks for writing The Internet Peering Playbook. When is the next edition coming out?

Jock Lindsey

Jock -

The 2014 Internet Peering Playbook is available in French now for the Kindle!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HG2SG38

The French Edition in print will be available from Amazon.com mid-January, and the English Edition for Kindle, iPad and Print will also be available in January. Thanks to Irina Trentea and her team at the Lyon-IX for handling the translation.

The new editions feature a ton of data center photos from Equinix, CoreSite, DuPont Fabros, DE-CIX, AMS-IX, etc. There are also two new chapters on Remote Peering and International Peering. The business case for peering is updated with some 2014 price points as well.

These books are being used by the Internet Society for the AXIS peering training across the French-speaking parts of Africa. This is a peering outreach activity, and those of us working to evangelize peering are thrilled to see the progress that ISOC is making with these books, helping to grow the peering community across Africa.

Speaking of thanks...A heartfelt thanks to all of the Ask.DrPeering.net readers - there are a few thousand of you out there now! According to my hosting company, we are getting 1300-1700 page views per day, which is a lot of interest in peering!

Based on the DrPeering.net inBox, I believe that many of these page views are from financial institutions and investors in the data center space. Many are interested in the recent shifting dynamics surrounding the regional peering points and the leaders in the IXP space. Many are very knowledgeable about the massive and growing colocation market and the emerging cloud maneuvers.

Thanks for the questions, the comments and suggestions. We will continue to evolve the DrPeering portal and the books based on your feedback, so keep the comments coming.