And if they don't get their collective acts together, I am certain they will both lose a lot of customers.
[Hijacking the thread here a bit] I think this is a good point you brought out. Neither provider is providing _full_ transit to their customers. If this becomes acceptable to a set of customers [say the multihomed ones] then providers will have to set a new price point probably significantly lower than the price point today for "partial transit". In this case, partial transit is defined by the provider as the set of ASes they may or may not have connectivity to at a certain point in the contract -- rather than the other case of partial transit where the customer decides what ASes are interesting. I think both providers in these depeering conflicts would be unhappy with where the customers would price this new partial-transit level of service at. Essentially, the responsibility of maintaining full-connectivity is pushed further onto those who have 2 connections.. now they need 3 or more to ensure they have 2 reliable/consistent paths to each destination of interest. I for one think that the providers that force their customers into this role should not be compensated at the same level as the providers that do a much better job of universal connectivity. In other words, "break routes at your own risk." Smart customers will be watching [sooner or later ;)].. disclaimer: I am not a customer of cogent, teleglobe, opentransit, and most companies that practice rabid peering discussions -- even for layer 1/2 transport if I can help it. Deepak Jain