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1) As you mention yourself, a congested pipe is not the same as throttling. The idea that a startup will have the same access to a consumer as Youtube under NN is simply not true.

This is a double edged sword and why throttling is very different from a congested pipe. As an ISP such as Comcast grows it's likely to have pipes that fit into one of three categories.

• Private Peering: For those not familiar is a direct connection between two providers eg Comcast & YouTube. This can either be at a geographically common point eg at a hosting facility. This is typically the most preferred way for an ISP to exchange traffic
• Public Peering: Again for those not familiar is an indirect connection through an exchange eg AMS-IX where you rent a port on the exchange and then exchange prefixes with any other ISP's you can setup a BGP session with
• Transit : Again for those not familiar is where an ISP will use as a last resort to get their traffic to the rest of the world. This is typically the least preferred way for an ISP to send and receive traffic

In a number of these occasion the route filters will be set to only allow traffic over a private peering link and as such when that gets congested a startup will get a better deal from coming over the Public peering or transit.

Youtube has (or can have) a private pipe with with every ISP on every internet exchange in the world. A startup may accomplish that in one or two cities but will rely on shared pipes and/or 3rd-party CDN's everywhere else.

A point you highlight above is quite different from NN. The point above just is a business case, the only reason the startup does not have the private pipes is the cost. And for that case YouTube does not have pipes to every ISP because some ISP's are too small for them to bother with. Again this is a business issue.
Or is the argument one of "If YouTube has a private peering agreement with one ISP it should have a private peering agreement with all ISP's everywhere on the globe" ? After all this is a Cost / Reward / Control question.

2) What does it accomplish exactly for the consumer? Suppose NN provides equal access to various video services (not true, see above)

Sorry but I don't agree with this one. As a startup you typically do not either the funds or the users to justify the global presence (would you require them to have content in every language). In many cases for the initial phases of a startup you may not even have the finances or user demand for a CDN. Again this is a StartUp vs Established business in any field. A corner store cannot compete directly with a chain supermarket in terms of discounts from suppliers, how is that a NN question. I apply the same logic.

- what prevents these video services from becoming the very gatekeepers that we didn't want ISP's to be? Does a videomaker have any chance if Youtube and Netflix refuse his videos? Don't we already see Youtubers complain that there's no viable alternative?

Is FaceBook attracting the number of users it has a NN question? Are you saying that your local cinema should be forced to show any video a local unskilled wannabe movie maker produces ?

I think lumping YouTube and Netflix into the same statement isn't the right thing argument to make. Netflix is a subscription video service where YouTube is there to host advertising (with user generated content there to attract the eyeballs for the advertisers).
YouTube has been trying to put itself in a common carrier position, so yes it should either allow anyone to post anything (legal) or it should loose the DMCA Safe Harbour status and similar legal protections it currently enjoys.

How about AppStores? So NN now gives you full access to the consumer's pipe. But Apple and Google don't allow your app in their store for whatever reason.

Again not a

Right - that's why AMS-IX opened 'their' NY location as a separate company, so that U.S. jurisdiction can't touch their Dutch operations.

https://ams-ix.net/newsitems/1...

Or so their lawyers are interpreting anyway - probably nothing a stroke of the pen in the U.S. can't make disappear.

It's a known fact they sometimes (regularly?) get donations from their US cousins to set up projects that are of mutual interest.
So far I see no problems, but Dutch privacy law is an entirely different beast to US privacy law (or the lack thereof), we do have guarantees re. privacy and consider it important to protect them.

What I do find of interest is the AMS-IX or Amsterdam Internet Exchange, it would be a great point for tapping...

The statistics that the AMS-IX gives out do not show any rise in network traffic, maybe even a slowdown.

Stats

For a Dutch provider, you would at least suspect a slight increase in traffic on the Dutch Internet Exchange.

As soon as the data leaves the providers own network, all guarantees are gone. The ISPs own uplink might be sufficient, but towards the endpoint there might be some congestion. It might just be that Comcast and Verizon have much better peering partners (with respect to the targets of the tests) than Cablevision. For example I live in a neighborhood where EVERYBODY (approx 4000 houses) has access to FttH (with only 1 plan: 100Mbps up and down), this provider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edutel) has to have an uplink and downlink of 400Gbps to absolutely guarantee full throughput for everybody at the same time. That would be about 1/3 of the total data traveling trough the Netherlands at the largest exchange at peaktimes: http://www.ams-ix.net/statistics/ . Luckily for the ISP not everyone has an subscription with them since the only appear to have 2 20GE port at the exchange. Also not everybody is using their capacity to the max, the net result is that I can get the full 100Mbps up and down at nearly any moment when using a well seeded torrent. Accessing random individual sites is usually a lot slower.

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't Iceland a geologically unstable land with an high rate of volcanoes because traversed by a fault line and thus subject to seismicity?

Right, someone could object that also some other place as well filled with important datacenters and nodes has far more seismicity or happens to be under water level in times of sea level rise, but still.

Although geografic spreading like in Akamai make a non-problem of this, at least for big data providers who can afford them: how do we confront the problem of nodes like AMS-IX and other Internet Exchange Points of NAPs potentially vulnerable, and not only to the force of nature?

Would the Net Transit survive a Big One, and then be useful as emergency service too and for communications, the reason it was initially made for, or would it miserably fail by the falling of one of its major nodes? So then does it really make sense to concentrate too many resources in the same place other than from an economic point of view?

Well, it is already implemented. Maybe not with much US based businesses but AMS-IX saw a ten fold increase in IPv6 traffic this year: http://www.ams-ix.net/mnt/verliernix/img/flow/ipv6/all/ipv6bps_yearly.png

IPv6 traffic increased quite a bit on the Amsterdam Internet Exchange. See the bottom graph:
http://www.ams-ix.net/technical/stats/sflow/?type=ipv6
IPv4 is 1000 times bigger, but IPv6 will catch up once Slashdot enters the 21st century.

http://www.ams-ix.net/technical/stats/sflow/?type=ipv6

checkout the massive growth for last year at the worlds biggest Internet exchange

A lot of local traffic will indeed never be routed through the USA.
A list of worldwide internet exchange points: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Exchange_Point
An example of how much traffic such an exchange point handles: http://www.ams-ix.net/technical/stats/

Simply put, the database server doesnt have any problem with ~10% more traffic, but has huge problems when it is out of power (a complete datacenter went down, see: http://www.ams-ix.net/technical/stats/ the dip at 16:00)

AMS-IX has more members than LINX (list of LINX members http://www.linx.net/members/index.thtml compared to AMS-IX http://www.ams-ix.net/connected/ but that's probably due to the fact that to become a LINX member you have to fork out the best part of £10,000 (GBP), whereas I'm pretty sure (although feel free to correct me) AMS-IX is no where near that amount.

Most ISPs value their LINX peering much higher than any other peering (how many web hosts have you seen state they are a member of AMS-IX before they state LINX? Also LINX is generally seen by most ISPs are the main peering point between US and Europe (not even just the UK). Large ISPs in the UK (non-Telco ones) such as Claranet, Demon, Nildram etc have 'fatter' pipes to LINX rather than other European peering points (such as PARIX or DECIX).

5 bb2-ge6-0.amsix-telecity.home.nl (213.51.158.153) 28.478 ms 27.683 ms 26.895 ms
6 r2-ge1-2-0.amsix-telecity.home.nl (213.51.158.158) 26.563 ms 35.185 ms 33.987 ms
7 core1.ams.net.google.com (195.69.144.247) 32.044 ms 32.543 ms 30.484 ms
8 64.233.175.246 32.806 ms 32.560 ms 30.529 ms
9 216.239.46.173 30.058 ms 29.058 ms 26.684 ms
10 216.239.49.254 37.532 ms 36.958 ms 39.685 ms
11 216.239.48.50 41.163 ms 41.902 ms 43.109 ms
12 216.239.49.62 35.543 ms 34.004 ms 33.173 ms
13 * * *

The AMS-IX is the largest Internet Exchange / NAP in Europe.

5 bb2-ge6-0.amsix-telecity.home.nl (213.51.158.153) 28.478 ms 27.683 ms 26.895 ms
6 r2-ge1-2-0.amsix-telecity.home.nl (213.51.158.158) 26.563 ms 35.185 ms 33.987 ms
7 core1.ams.net.google.com (195.69.144.247) 32.044 ms 32.543 ms 30.484 ms
8 64.233.175.246 32.806 ms 32.560 ms 30.529 ms
9 216.239.46.173 30.058 ms 29.058 ms 26.684 ms
10 216.239.49.254 37.532 ms 36.958 ms 39.685 ms
11 216.239.48.50 41.163 ms 41.902 ms 43.109 ms
12 216.239.49.62 35.543 ms 34.004 ms 33.173 ms
13 * * *

The AMS-IX is the largest Internet Exchange / NAP in Europe.

Move to Europe.

The AMSix is a major IPv6 peering point, where many of their clients offer IPv6 to customers.

Nerim is a major provider in France. They offer IPv6 natively to all their home users, just enable it on your router/firewall.

The UK has any number of IPv6 capable ISPs (blech, puke), you just have to keep an eye on their internal support groups for help from those who have managed to make it work. Tunnels are always a way around broken providers, but are not an answer to your question.

There are a number of other transit and peering providers all over Europe who provide IPv6, and the ISPs are all starting to follow along. Demand only started when a handful of providers realised their was a large enough market for extra added services, even though very few customers made it an important item. The problem with IPv6 is that there is no WOW! factor, it just works as well as IPv4, transparently, and currently doesn't bring any new features to the internet that users can see.

Completely off topic...
I had a great time at CeBit this year, talking to the chinese ADSL modem makers. After asking if thier boxes supported IPv6, I then told them I needed 20,000 boxes right away for a small scale test, but only with a product with IPv6 enabled right out of the box, no upgrades allowed. Once I started talking about the 20-40 million unit market over the next year, you could see their eyes light up. But if they offered an upgrade within a few weeks (in other words, they'd have their coders pull some all-nighters), I'd walk off to find another with IPv6 already built in. I have a feeling that next year there will be dozens of small ADSL routers with IPv6 capability. Once we can get cheap ADSL routers with IPv6 as a checklist item, ISPs will start offering it.

In the U.S., the term for your situation is TSOL.

the AC

I've been looking at the traffic statistics of some european internet exchanges and none of them seem to have more traffic then usual.

The 2 reasons I can think of:
1) There is no extra traffic. (maybe a little)
2) All traffic goes thru transit providers (cause it should go to U.S.)

If there are over 200.000 machines infected by MyDoom there should be noticable extra traffic.

References
Amsterdam
London
Brussel
Paris

The biggest problem is that none of the primary routers support it.

Sources please!

*cough* two core routers dual-stacked where I work, one scheduled for next wednesday, the rest to follow in the weeks following. Abilene supports IPv6 natively. CA*net supports IPv6 natively. SURFnet supports IPv6 natively. IPv6 traffic exchanged at LINX and AMSIX. NTT Europe launched commercial IPv6 service in Europe on 19th February.

Btw. Any chance you could ask your ISP for IPv6 connectivity? From your post it sounds like they could do with some customer demand. :)

The following list will keep you occupied about IPv6 for some time... oh just for the record ams-ix is doing NATIVE IPv6 since 1998 now... alongside NSPIXP6 and PAIX and some others to be found at v6nap.net.

First two nice repositories where you can find almost anything IPv6 related:
IPv6 News and Links (hs247)
Open Directory Project Computers/Internet/Protocols/IP/IPng/

And some others important ones which can also be found there:
6bone
Belnet
Bieringer's Linux IPv6 FAQ
Euronet Belgium
IPng
KAME
Kitame's Debian IPv6 Packages
Microsoft IPv6
PuTTY IPv6
SiXXS
Sun Solaris IPv6
Surfnet IPv6
Trumpet IPv6

IPv6 for the future (or something advocating like that :)