[AusNOG] Is there such thing as peering with Telstra in Australia

[Mark Newton]

If an Australian network operator has offshore transit, and doesn’t peer domestically with another Australian network operator, then the traffic between the two operators will generally hairpin across the Pacific.

That’ll cause a performance degradation between the two networks.

The solution to that performance degradation is not to complain about net neutrality, and implicitly expect the smaller operator to pay the bigger operator whatever price they name for transit.

I don’t know if they still do, but Optus has historically delivered GoF prefixes (including AS1221) on domestic transit at a fraction of Telstra’s cost. Maybe get in touch with them and see if that’s still an option: Minimize cost by preferring domestic peering, domestic transit, then “none of the above”, with a domestic transit supplier who can give you Telstra.

Telstra will definitely sharpen their pencils to win the business back if you have a better deal, too.

There are probably few serious reasons for anyone on this mailing list to be a committed Telstra customer anymore. Transpacific transmission is pretty cheap, Level(3) global transit costs almost nothing, and there are lots of options for picking up domestic prefixes. If you’re regularly using your own cash to enrich an organization who wants you to not exist, and don’t have a strategy to grow your business until you can stop, maybe you should question some of your life choices.

  - mark

> On Mar 6, 2017, at 7:24 AM, Joseph Goldman <joe at apcs.com.au> wrote:
> 
> > Also, it shows that big hosting companies could choose to penalise such ISPs in terms of performance.  That could be an incentive (possibly the only one) for them to adopt net neutrality policies.
> 
> So they break net neutrality to force net neutrality?
> 
> On 03/03/17 19:57, Corrado Fiore wrote:
>> Hi Paul, hi All,
>> 
>> to add some perspective on why Telstra and other tier1 operators are restrictive on peering, I suggest these two resources:
>> 
>> http://drpeering.net/white-papers/_presos/WhyTelstraWontPeerv1.0.ppt
>> 
>> https://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Double_Paid_Traffic/en
>> 
>> The second link is a mini-essay discussing the situation in Germany.  It is interesting because the dynamics described are very similar to what we're discussing here.  Also, it shows that big hosting companies could choose to penalise such ISPs in terms of performance.  That could be an incentive (possibly the only one) for them to adopt net neutrality policies.
>> 
>> Best,
>> Corrado Fiore
>> 
>> ____________________________________________
>>> On 3 Mar 2017, at 3:46 PM, Andrew Khoo <Andrew.Khoo at amaysim.com.au> wrote:
>>> 
>>> i guess if there was some economic value for telstra to peer with you settlement-free they would have done it already?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> From: AusNOG <ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net> on behalf of Alex Samad <alex at samad.com.au>
>>> Sent: Friday, March 3, 2017 9:09:50 AM
>>> To: Ausnog
>>> Subject: Re: [AusNOG] Is there such thing as peering with Telstra in Australia
>>>  Has any one thought of challenging that now that there has been a change / enough time has passed ?
>>> 
>>> Alex
>>> 
>>> On 2 March 2017 at 16:14, James Andrewartha <trs80 at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au> wrote:
>>> Hi Paul,
>>> 
>>> On Thu, 2 Mar 2017, Paul Holmanskikh wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Is there any way to peer with Telsta AS1221 within Australia? They are not
>>>> present on any IX in Australia. But it seems the only way to peer with Telstra
>>>> is to buy transit from them.But transit from Telstra costs absolutely insane
>>>> money. I'm looking for peering because Telstra's customers generates good
>>>> amount of traffic on our transit links.
>>> No. Since you're not a member of the Gang of Four, Telstra has no
>>> obligation or desire to peer with you (or anyone else). Some history:
>>> 
>>> http://blog.internode.on.net/2011/05/16/peering-policy-gaps-nbn/
>>> 
>>> "Historically, the ACCC recognised this problem in 1998 and took
>>> enforcement action to require peering between IP networks. However, the
>>> determination made at the time was fatally flawed. The ACCC decided
>>> (incorrectly) at the time that the (then) dominant four players had to
>>> peer – but no requirement was placed upon those four to peer with anyone
>>> else, ever. All subsequent requests and attempts to peer with Telstra and
>>> Optus since then have been rejected by those network providers."
>>> 
>>> See also https://blog.cloudflare.com/bandwidth-costs-around-the-world/
>>> 
>>> --
>>> # TRS-80              trs80(a)ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au #/ "Otherwise Bub here will do \
>>> # UCC Wheel Member     http://trs80.ucc.asn.au/ #|  what squirrels do best     |
>>> [ "There's nobody getting rich writing          ]|  -- Collect and hide your   |
>>> [  software that I know of" -- Bill Gates, 1980 ]\  nuts." -- Acid Reflux #231 /
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