Re: ISPACs

["John W. Stewart III" <[e-mail]>]

 >    Ok, now I am /dependant/ upon my direct
 >    competitors (other ISPs of the same size, and presumably in the same
 >    geographic region in order to make a small internal network for internal
 >    transit purposes wotrthwhile).  If /any one/ of my competitors is either
 >    unethical or incompetent, it affects me and my users.  I'm sorry, but I'd
 >    rather eat the IPv8 typed on razorblades than do that.  It just isn't
 >    good business sense from my perspective.
 > 
 > Then there's a whole lot of business that goes on today that must not make
 > sense to you.  Lots of folks team up together with direct competitors for
 > ad hoc projects.  Heard of the Frame Relay Forum?  
 > 
 >    I am suddenly dependant on someone who
 >    I am /not/ paying, who is likely a direct competitor of mine, and who can
 >    likely provide me no garuntee as to the technical ability of their staff.
 > 
 > And they're dependent on you.  Can you cooperate?  Mebbe you personally
 > can't, but I'd like to think that there are many who could and would if
 > they saw the benefits.

i'm not sure what i think of ISPACs yet, but relative to the
above exchange, the internet of *today* already has inter-
dependence between parties that don't pay each other.  imagine
that i connect to ISP1, ISP1 and ISP2 peer, and My-Favorite-
Web-Site connects to ISP2.  now imagine that ISP2 does
something to permanently cut itself off from ISP1.  even
though it's not ISP1's fault, i would consider changing
providers (i.e., stop paying ISP1)

i'll grant that today's inter-dependence doesn't involve
shared address allocations, but the point is that providers'
businesses already depend to some degree on other providers
working, so it's not a *fundamental* change .. just a new
detail

/jws