On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Martin Hannigan <hannigan@gmail.com> wrote:
But according to Sprint, this isn't a peering spat. This is a customer who didn't pay their bill.
Probably useful to keep that in perspective. -M<
I would say it's a "peering spat", because Cogent's press releases stated Sprint failed to meet Sprint's "contractual obligation" to peer with them on a settlement-free basis. That's a political issue that (I expect) remains to be mediated by the courts. The disconnection should have been eminently forseeable by Cogent, if the entire peering was indicated by Sprint as being on a "trial basis". To maintain connectivity, Cogent should have had a contingency in place and taken it, when Sprint rejected their request for settlement-free peering. There is something a bit worst for a single-homed customer than a Tier 1 provider that gets in peering spats; that IS: being single-homed to a provider who wants to say they're "Tier 1" when in fact: they may _really_ be a Tier 2 in disguise. And who as a result of wanting to market themselves "Tier 1" refuses to pay their paid peering fees. Because it means your provider _could_ have taken actions to preserve connectivity, but something else was so much more important to them than providing the product you their customer expect, that they intentionally allow it to get in the way. In other words, if you want to be single-homed, a Tier 2 or 3 upstream that admits they're a Tier 2 or 3, and provides you redundancy and excellent connectivity, seems like the thing to find.. Because a Tier 2 posing and marketing as a Tier 1 might prioritize their continued marketing themselves as a Tier 1 over actually providing Tier 1 connectivity. - Government regulation of peering relationships would be a disaster... I fear regulatory organizations are too easily influenced by the largest players. One can imagine per-megabit "peering taxes" imposed by the feds on interconnections between different networks that only large providers would have carved out rules to exempt themselves from. And artificial government interfering with small networks wanting to peer. Requiring reams of paperwork, registrations, design documents, waiting periods, etc.... -- -J