[ih] History of the Economics of the Internet?

[Bill Woodcock]

> On Jul 31, 2026, at 01:49, John R. Levine via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> My impression is that for Internet interconnections, if the two parties are of comparable size they peer

Size doesn’t really have anything to do with it.  It’s two separate transactions.

>  or if one is bigger, the smaller pays the larger for transit.  

Again, this is irrespective of size.  What you’re seeing is an observation bias combined with a deception…  There are many more small ISPs than large ones, and the large ones are much more likely to hide their transit.  But you can always apply this test: can the ISP reach mainland China?  Is the ISP China Telecom or China Unicom?  If yes to the former and no to the latter, than they’re buying transit.

> I've also heard of paid peering, somewhere in between but not common.

So uncommon as to be far below the noise threshold.  It’s basically a fiction invented by telco salespeople as an onramp for potential customers to the hiding-transit mode, but it’s almost entirely unsuccessful.

https://www.pch.net/resources/Papers/peering-survey/PCH-Peering-Survey-2021/PCH-Peering-Survey-2021.pdf

                                -Bill


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