Hot-potato and Cold-potato Routing - Hot-potato Routing

Hot-potato Routing

Hot-potato routing is the normal behavior of most settlement-free peering agreements. Hot-potato routing has the effect that the network receiving the data bears the cost of carrying it between cities. When the traffic ratio (the ratio of traffic flowing in one direction to the traffic flowing in the other direction between peers) is reasonably even, this is considered fair, because the networks will share evenly in carrying traffic exchanged by their customers between cities.

The marginal cost of carrying traffic between cities depends on how the network has purchased those links; some networks own dark fiber, which can be upgraded by merely replacing the equipment on each end of the fiber, and possibly the amplifiers along the path between cities. In other cases, the network has an agreement with a telco that allows for a specific amount of bandwidth, and upgrading involves paying more money to the telco.