FUDBusters: ISP Dispute Causes Congress to Consider New Legislation

FUDBust: Congress may just be discovering the tenuous nature of peering points, but IT managers and service providers have lived with it for decades. E-mail, Internet traffic and even telephone calls all rely on a convoluted collection of interconnections among local, regional, national and international service providers. These providers have one thing in common: If their interconnections don't work, they're out of business. Do they really need a law requiring them to keep their interconnections operational? That's like passing a law mandating airlines to keep their planes in the air. Level 3 and Cogent will pay the penalty for their dispute in the form of lost customers--nobody needs to call the cops.