1. "Peering" is a confusing term

    While I agree there are some unfortunate connotations of the word, that are ruthlessly exploited by some, it is globally recognised and dealt with in other countries, New Zealand need not set itself apart from this.

    Confusion is best addressed by definition not switching terminology. The chosen alternative, oddly selected by InternetNZ and Telecom, is "Internet Interconnect." "Interconnect" brings its own set of connotations, PT&T PSTN interconnect for example, that are better avoided as they are quite misleading in this context. If Wikipedia is to be believed and "The Internet" is a contraction of "The Internet is a worldwide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computer networks," "Internet Interconnect" expands to "Interconnected Network Interconnection" which is prima facae redundant and illustrates that interconnect is intrinsic to the Internet, not a tack-on the way PSTN "Interconnect" has been with the entry of competitors.

  2. Peering is about "Equals"

    Peering not about *being* equals, but *behaving* like equals.

  3. Peering is complex

    If we examine the longest operating and largest open peering exchange, WIX, we find 160 odd participants of diverse sizes and skills. If peering was complex, it is unlikely that this number of autonomous networks would participate.

    While it is possible to elaborate and complicate even the simplest concepts, look at string compared to macramé, the fundamental of peering, which is the fundamental principle of the Internet is:
    the exchange of traffic between members of different, directly connected, networks.
    As noted here, there are a number of other considerations that some are motivated to mix in, but these don't change the basic meaning.

  4. Peering is about "Circuits"

    Historically peering (and most other networking) was implemented with circuits, point to point connections, and for reasons of efficiency and administrative simplicity, there were often pairs of circuits, established by each of the peering networks.

    This is before the era of cheap metropolitan switched services like CityLINK's PublicLAN which have allowed multiple connections over a single connection with very high performance at relatively low cost. Plus the circuit model doesn't scale, to provide the connections WIX does to 160 participants would require 25,440 such circuits.

    What was once canonical is now historical.

  5. Peering is for Service Providers

    Empirically false as demonstrated by this list of registrations for the WIX, note, not all registered autonomous networks currently participate.

    The fact that changes in networking technology (the move from circuits to switches), costs of equipment (cheap BGP capable routers) has reduced the cost of entry and meant that customers are now intruding on service provider turf. Like most incumbents, this is regarded with concern.

  6. Peering is about cost saving

    Peering has a number of other benefits including performance and resiliency. Peering is often deprecated as less important as transit (global rather than local delivery) costs decline. With recent outages in NZ so topical, the benefit of alternative delivery paths to local services is illustrated.

  7. Peering is about carrying another network's traffic

    The argument runs that Network B is carrying Network A's traffic when they peer (and vice versa, but "The Folly Of Peering Ratios" by Bill Norton scotches that debate so I won't address it).

    The perspective of this view is completely wrong, Network B is carrying its customer's traffic, which is what it is paid to do. Same for the traffic while it is in Network A, it is traffic their customer has paid to send.

    Traffic does not belong to the network, it is the customers'.