ISPANZ Calls For Action On Internet Peering

2 March 2007

ISPANZ Calls For Action On Internet Peering

In the wake of entrepreneur Rod Drury's call (see NZ Herald story) for a national fibre network with multiple independent peering exchanges, The Internet Service Providers Association of New Zealand (ISPANZ) calls on Government to take immediate steps to fix internet peering in New Zealand. ISPANZ also calls on the country's dominant telecommunications firms to peer with all ISPs and content providers as soon as practical at existing peering exchanges, for the exchange of local data.

Peering is about ISPs and network operators exchanging local data locally, which ISPANZ president David Diprose says is just common sense.

"Data shouldn't be traversing national and international links unnecessarily, particularly when there are clearly capacity issues in broadband and huge costs in international connectivity."

ISPANZ has just completed a Position Paper on peering, which is attached and can be found on the ISPANZ website www.ispanz.org.nz. This paper outlines what peering is, why it's important, what the issues are, and what needs to be done. The Government can do a lot to encourage peering by mandating that its own agencies require their telco suppliers to peer. This would send a strong message.

From the Position Paper: "In 2004 the dominant telecommunications firms in New Zealand stopped peering at internet exchanges (after 6 years), and began charging ISPs and content providers for connection to all their Internet customers without distinguishing between whether the traffic was local or national."

"Not peering affects the distance of travel of data, and can even cause data to "trombone" internationally when travelling between two service providers. This can cause unacceptable data delays, affect the operation of internet applications, and could thwart implementation of new services such as Internet-based video-on-demand. It can also potentially raise national security issues when sensitive Government data is being exchanged internationally.

"Some telcos are holding back a robust New Zealand internet by charging for other ISPs to connect and failing to distinguish between local and national traffic. This is short-sighted and leads to unnecessary higher costs and poor performance for all ISPs and their customers.

"Lack of local or regional data exchange and the resultant tromboning of data overseas are unacceptable and unnecessary failures in the internet environment in New Zealand and demonstrate how market forces have failed to deliver, in a market dominated by two national players.

ENDS

© Scoop Media