"A Visit To Mum"

To put "peering" into a more "real world" example, here's a number of network interconnection situations and how they are handled.

My Mum wants me to come and visit. She calls me from her home phone to my cellular phone.

In addition to the invite, Mum offers me a ticket to fly to her town, and explains that she will post my ticket to me.

Finally, on the day, I buy a ticket to the airport, where I board the plane with the ticket Mum sent me and fly off.

All this is as normal, and what we would expect.

In the case of the postal networks, since there is no charge to receive postal mail (unless you rent a PO Box), some charge must be paid by the sending network for delivery by the receiving network.

But imagine if the airline was to decide that the bus company should pay it before it would carry me, even with the ticket paid for by my Mum!?

I'm pretty sure arguments about the size of the airline network, or its costs, or even the number of passengers delivered by the bus company wouldn't sway anyone into thinking the airline was entitled to ask additional payment.

How does this relate to the Internet?

Well, the bus company operates a transport network that meets with the airline network at an exchange called an airport (complete with piers).

Both networks have been paid and so demands for further payment are unjustified.

There are no "free riders" on the transport networks, nor are there on networks who participate in the Internet.

The operators of internetwork services charge their customers for traffic receive and traffic sent, thus any requested traffic has a "pre-paid ticket" to ride to the recipient.

To claim such traffic should pay again is unreasonable.