{"id":16707,"date":"2010-11-21T14:34:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-21T12:34:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-11-21T14:34:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-21T12:34:00","slug":"three-down-one-to-go-mweb-peering-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/telecoms\/16707-three-down-one-to-go-mweb-peering-progress.html","title":{"rendered":"Three down, one to go: MWEB peering progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

November 2010 may become known as the month in which South African peering agreements changed forever. In early November, MWEB cut all of their paid transit links<\/a>, forcing other Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to either peer with them, or route traffic between the two parties internationally.<\/p>\n

This decision by MWEB sparked a great deal of criticism from MTN Business and Telkom who accused MWEB of not consulting them on the process and making a decision which “is not in the spirit of the Internet community”.<\/p>\n

MTN Business, Telkom and Internet Solutions (IS) have often been criticized for their unwillingness to peer unless a range of conditions are met, with a strong focus on symmetrical traffic flows. <\/p>\n

MWEB however seems to have achieved what many could not for years:  ‘Encourage’ players like IS and MTN Business to peer with them directly.<\/p>\n

It is well known that IS decided to peer with MWEB in a proof-of-concept arrangement even before it severed its paid transit links.  Vodacom Business and MWEB also started free peering only days after MWEB cut its paid transit.<\/p>\n

MWEB and MTN Business sharing traffic locally<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the time of MWEB’s paid transit cuts, MTN Business said that if MWEB boosts the content on their network – which in turn would result in more equitable traffic flow – they will definitely look at free peering between the two ISPs.<\/p>\n

Whether or not MWEB has satisfied MTN Business enough to change their view on peering, or whether there is pressure coming from other quarters, the good news is that MWEB and MTN Business are now sharing a fair amount of local traffic between the two networks.<\/p>\n

Recent traceroutes between MTN Business and MWEB suggest that the two parties are not routing traffic internationally any longer and are sharing traffic locally between each other.<\/p>\n

MTN Business’ Edwin Thompson explains that some traffic is directly peered and some not.  “This is historic, based on different sections of the network and will change over time. Nothing has changed at this point,” said Thompson.<\/p>\n

Thompson added that MWeb has provided statistics which suggest that they may well be in the position to meet traffic requirements for free peering. <\/p>\n

“Again, as stated previously, if this is the case we would bring up peering sessions with them. We are currently bringing up infrastructure which will validate these traffic flows and if they meet the requirements, more permanent peering sessions will be set up,” said Thompson.<\/p>\n

“If peering sessions are brought up, the MTN policy requires these to be in both Cape Town and Johannesburg,” said Thompson.<\/p>\n

While Thompson said that nothing has changed, traffic from MWEB’s ADSL network to websites like MyBroadband and Hetzner on MTN Business’ network – which was previously routed internationally – is now routed locally.<\/p>\n

MWEB was also contacted to try to get some clarity on the traffic routing changes, but it was not possible to get feedback on this issue.<\/p>\n

If MTN Business and MWEB are indeed peering it means that the only hurdle left for MWEB is SAIX\/Telkom. This may be the toughest nut to crack as Telkom previously made it clear that they will not peer with MWEB.<\/p>\n

“Telkom has an internationally benchmarked peering policy. The policy follows best practice principles that are applied by network providers in fully competitive, commercially functional and efficient Internet markets globally,” Telkom said.<\/p>\n

The wheel is turning<\/strong><\/p>\n

Traditionally the network with the most content, and hence the network which had the most traffic flowing towards the other network, had the most negotiating power in any peering agreement.<\/p>\n

This traditional way of dealing with peering and hence with charging for transit or inequitable traffic flow may however be coming to the end of its lifespan.<\/p>\n

UK Mobile operator O2 recently argued that the fees they charge consumers for mobile data is not enough to pay for the infrastructure needed to deliver content to mobile phones.<\/p>\n

O2 chief executive Ronan Dunne argues that content providers should be prepared to pay network operators like mobile and broadband providers for the delivery of their content to subscribers.<\/p>\n

According to one local industry player (who asked not to be named because of his direct involvement in local peering agreements), a local cellular provider also recently argued that their high number of potential content consumers count for a lot, and that a free peering arrangement will benefit both parties.<\/p>\n

In this case the network provider with a fair amount of content on its network saw the logic in this argument and agreed that free peering is the way to go, a departure from the previous status quo of ‘he who has the most content has the most negotiation power.’<\/p>\n

MWEB peering progress<\/strong><\/a> << comments and views<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MWEB recently severed all of its paid transit links, forcing all operators to peer directly with them or route their traffic internationally. The strategy has paid off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-telecoms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}