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Open Peering Policy

An Open Peering Policy is a reflection of the value of Internet Peering - the value of the local optimization of routing.

Brokaw Price (Yahoo!) calls this "Pulse Peering" ; if you have a pulse, we will peer with you.

Others in the Peering Community call Open Peers "Peering Sluts" ; they will peer with anyone.

In either case, we tend to see Open Peering Policies from the Large Scale Network Savvy Content Providers and many of the CDNs and Tier 2 ISPs who seek to reduce transit costs, improve performance, gain some marketing benefits, etc.

It is interesting to note that in 2008, Brokaw Price highighted the fact that they had an OC-48 global backbone supporting thousands of peering sessions, and the operational overhead of peering was not an issue. For a content company, they have impressive network infrastructure to support the directive of a high quality end-user experience. Google, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, and the other Large Scale Network Savvy Content Providers have embraced an Open Peering Policy for the same reason - end-user experience.

Peering Policies can be described in these these rough categories:

• Open Peering Policy - Will Peer with Anyone (aka "Pulse Peering", or being a "Peering Slut")
• Selective Peering Policy - Will Peer but have some requirements
• Restrictive Peering Policy - Not generally interested in peering with anyone else. "We have all the routes we need"
• No-Peering Policy - Not peering at all. "We buy transit and that works just fine for us."

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