On Wed, Jun 08, 2011 at 06:39:02PM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
Yes, both refuse to buy transit, yes. But HE is able, willing, and even begging to peer; Cogent is not. These are not "the same thing".
I'm ready, willing, and lets say for the purposes of this discussion begging to peer with every Tier 1, but some of them aren't willing to peer with me. Does that mean I should stop buying transit and blame them for my resulting lack of global reachability? If I could convince my customers to accept that line of bullshit it would certainly reduce my transit costs, but I have a sneaking suspicion they wouldn't. :) Ultimately it is the responsibility of everyone who connects to the Internet to make sure they are, you know, actually connected to the Internet. Choosing not to do so and then throwing up your hands and saying "oh I can't help it, they won't peer with me" is not a valid excuse, at least not in my book or the book of anyone who pays me money to deliver their packets. And this isn't even a case of not being ABLE to buy sufficient capacity via a transit path (ala Comcast), this is just two networks who have mutually decided two remain partitioned from each other in the pursuit of long term strategic advantage. Ultimately both parties share responsibility for this issue, and you can't escape that just because you have a tube of icing and some spare time. :)
These are not the only two networks on the v6 Internet who are bifurcated. There are some in Europe I know of (e.g. Telecom Italia refuses to buy v6 transit and refuses to peer with some networks), and probably others. The v6 'Net is _not_ ready for prime time, and won't be until there is a financial incentive to stop the stupidity & ego stroking.
The Internet is a business. Vote with your wallet. I prefer to buy from people who do things that are in MY best interest. Giving money to Cogent will not put pressure on them peer with HE & Google & everyone else - just the opposite.
Absolutely. This is just like any other IPv4 peering dispute, the only difference is IPv6 is so unimportant in the grand scheme of the Internet that there hasn't been enough external pressure from customers on either side to force a settlement. Shockingly, HE manages to buy plenty of IPv4 transit to reach Cogent and many other networks, no doubt because they wouldn't have any (paying) customers if they didn't. :)
On the flip side, HE is an open peer, even to their own customers, and _gives away_ free v6 transit. Taking their free transit & complaining that they do not buy capacity to Cogent seems more than silly. Plus, they are doing that I think is in my best interest as a customer - open peering. Trying to make them the bad guy here seems counter intuitive.
I know you're not naive enough to think that HE is giving away free IPv6 transit purely out of the kindness of their heart. They're doing it to bulk up their IPv6 customer base, so they can compete with larger networks like Cogent, and make a play for Tier 1-dom in exactly the same way that Cogent has done with IPv4. And more power to them for it, it may well be a smart long term strategic move on their part, but with every wannabe Tier 1 network comes partitioning and peering disputes, as they try to trade short term customer pain for long term advantages. Sorry to all the HE guys, but trying to simultaniously complain about your treatment at the hands of other networks and their peering disputes while emulating their actions is bullshit and you know it. :) -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras@e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)