Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are a new emerging industry in the current age of the Information Revolution. At the top of the chain are a few major Internet backbone providers. Although there are numerous amounts of ISPs dispersed in all areas, companies such as WorldCom (UUNET and ANS), GTE (formerly BBN), and AT&T (the former Cerfnet) make up the major ISPs that are known for their quality and service (Turner). The market of ISPs cannot be classified as a monopoly since there are thousands of ISP businesses and no one business is in full control of the industry. ISPs are not in perfect competition either because in this economy, perfect competition is near impossible due to government regulation forces regardless of how minute they may be. For the purpose of this paper, an ISP is defined as an organization that provides a basic Internet connection and manages its own network, regardless of its size. The focus of this paper is to present the issues regarding peering!

Interconnection between all parties is one of the primary facets of the Internet. Every computer that is connected to the Internet has the ability to communicate with any other c

http://www.tmcnet.com/articles/ctimag/1298/horiz1298.htm (29 October 2000).

GOVERNMENT REGULATION vs. FREE MARKET

Vermette, Charles E. "To Peer or Not to Peer." Boston Software Newspaper. October 1997.

Due to the lack of public exposure concerning most peering agreements, there is an uncontrolled amount of uncertainty as to who exactly is subject to these notices of additional payments for services (for smaller ISPs). With this guesswork arises the belief for the potential need of government regulation (Turner). Even though the government's intentions are to keep the market fair, regulations might have an inverse effect because in the long run government intervention defeats the purpose behind the principles of free market. Industry players are trying to prevent the government from interfering. It is feared that the ISP industry would have the same type of regulations that the telephone industry currently has. This would inhibit various aspects of the Internet such as e-mail and e-commerce (Gareiss). Some industry players feel that the ISP industry can resolve this issue on their own. There are other options available.

Cukier, Kenneth Neil. "Peering and Fearing: ISP Interconnection and Regulatory Issues". 1998.

http://www.farber.net/archive/3787.html. (31 October 2000).

Some common words found in the essay are:
MARKET Due, BBN AT&T, Network ARN, Skycache Instead, Instead UUNET, PSINet Vermette, Baake ISP, CONCLUSION ISP, ISPs ISPs, ISP UUNET, peering agreements, larger isps, isp industry, october 2000, government regulation, peering agreement, concerning peering, services isps, backbone providers, isp customers, 31 october 2000, agreement commercial isps, competition backbone providers, peering agreement commercial, internet cloud baake,
Approximate Word count = 1907
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)