Off topic - RE: So why don't US citizens get this?
Grad Student thesis rsrch one page: comments welcome ;) however I have my good comments filter on... Is Internet Reachability a Net Neutrality Issue? ----CRTC Chairperson Konrad von Finckenstein introduced Net Neutrality in his speech to the 2007 Broadcasting Invitational Summit and again at the 2008 Canadian Telecom Summit mentioning that the CRTC's New Media Initiative will include "striking a social, cultural and economic balance to deal with Internet traffic prioritization". ----Traffic prioritization or traffic shaping is a small part of the entire concept of a neutral network. ----The internet has no minimum standard of acceptable performance for reachability of websites and data. As an information tool it becomes useless without this reachability addressed as far as possible. ----The most famous example of non-neutrality in Canada occurred during the Telus labour dispute (2005). Telus blocked access to a pro-union site by blocking the server on which it was hosted. Researchers at Harvard, Cambridge and the University of Toronto (OpenNet Initiative) found that Teluss actions resulted in an additional 766 unrelated sites also being blocked for subscribers. Dealing with blocking access to servers and blocking access to other networks are very important aims of a neutral internet. ----Example: A York University professor was sitting at his desk at work in March 2008 trying to reach an internet website located somewhere in Europe. It was important to his research so when he repeatedly could not reach the site he contacted his IT department at the University. They were mystified why this would be the case. The Professor went home after work and found that he could reach the website from home consistently, for many days and was not ever able to reach the website from the University campus network.Yorks bandwidth supplier is Cogent which had severed a peering relationship with a bandwidth provider in Europe called Telia, which was the bandwidth network provider for the website that the Professor was trying to reach. However at home, the Professor purchased bandwidth from Rogers (and its upstream providers) who did not sever their peering relationship with Telia. Cogent did not proactively inform the University of the issue and the loss of connectivity. Unreachability due to arbitrariness in network peering is unacceptable. ----Parts of the internet become unreachable for a great many reasons such as line failure, cable cuts, misconfiguration of equipment and human error but to add significantly and deliberately to this unreachability due to arbitrariness in peering is unacceptable. End users whether award winning scholars, backyard astronomers or teenage scientists require as much reachability of data as the technology will allow. Political and economic persuasions should not be permitted to condition and alter the media or the content. ----Recommendation: Bandwidth purchase agreements (Service Level Agreements) that specify bandwidth, uptime and cost actually define connectivity thus they should contain a list of peers or network interconnections that will be maintained for the length of the agreement. Prepared by Nancy Paterson, York University July 23, 2008 nancyp@yorku.ca PS anyone willing to proof read a few technical pages of thesis paper? pls contact off list
Le 08-07-28 à 17:12, nancyp@yorku.ca a écrit :
----Example: A York University professor was sitting at his desk at work in March 2008 trying to reach an internet website located somewhere in Europe. [...] York’s bandwidth supplier is Cogent which had severed a peering relationship with a bandwidth provider in Europe called Telia [...] which was the bandwidth network provider for the website that the Professor was trying to reach. [...] Cogent did not proactively inform the University of the issue and the loss of connectivity. Unreachability due to arbitrariness in network peering is unacceptable.
There must be more to this story. If Cogent de-peered from Telia the traffic would normally just have taken another path. Either there was a configuration error of some sort or else some sort of proactive black-holing on one side or the other. As the latter would be surprising and very heavy handed, I would tend to suspect the former. Peering relationships are made and severed all the time with no particular ill-effects, unless you can point to examples of outright malice (i.e. of the black- holing kind) I don't think there is much basis for any public policy decisions in this example. Unreachability due to configuation error is of course relatively common; perhaps I am wrong, but I don't think the CRTC would really have much to say about that. Cheers, -w
On Jul 28, 2008, at 11:24 AM, William Waites wrote:
Le 08-07-28 à 17:12, nancyp@yorku.ca a écrit :
----Example: A York University professor was sitting at his desk at work in March 2008 trying to reach an internet website located somewhere in Europe. [...] York’s bandwidth supplier is Cogent which had severed a peering relationship with a bandwidth provider in Europe called Telia [...] which was the bandwidth network provider for the website that the Professor was trying to reach. [...] Cogent did not proactively inform the University of the issue and the loss of connectivity. Unreachability due to arbitrariness in network peering is unacceptable.
There must be more to this story. If Cogent de-peered from Telia the traffic would normally just have taken another path.
One should check one's assumptions before posting to 10K+ of their not- so-close friends. Neither network has transit. What other path is there to take? Once you answer that, I'll read the rest of your e-mail. -- TTFN, patrick
Either there was a configuration error of some sort or else some sort of proactive black-holing on one side or the other. As the latter would be surprising and very heavy handed, I would tend to suspect the former.
Peering relationships are made and severed all the time with no particular ill-effects, unless you can point to examples of outright malice (i.e. of the black-holing kind) I don't think there is much basis for any public policy decisions in this example.
Unreachability due to configuation error is of course relatively common; perhaps I am wrong, but I don't think the CRTC would really have much to say about that.
Cheers, -w
Le 08-07-28 à 17:29, Patrick W. Gilmore a écrit :
One should check one's assumptions before posting to 10K+ of their not-so-close friends.
Firstly I missed the actual incident since I was off the 'net for an extended period about that time, so apologies for any rehash.
Neither network has transit. What other path is there to take?
http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/03/he_said_she_said_cogent_vs_tel.shtml "Then Cogent de-peered Telia and suddenly Verizon and others started providing a path between the two and their respective customers." Which is as it should be. Then somebody (not clear who) apparently took explicit steps to stop the traffic from taking these other paths. Surprising. Severing a peering relationship is one thing, purposely filtering large swathes of the Internet over other all links is quite another. As I said, this is surprising behaviour, but not simple de-peering. And I'm sure that any Tier 1 has enough peering relationships with enough other Tier 1 networks that they can always buy temporary transit privileges over an existing link. -w
Which is as it should be. Then somebody (not clear who) apparently took explicit steps to stop the traffic from taking these other paths.
Surprising. Severing a peering relationship is one thing, purposely filtering large swathes of the Internet over other all links is quite another. As I said, this is surprising behaviour, but not simple de-peering. And I'm sure that any Tier 1 has enough peering relationships with enough other Tier 1 networks that they can always buy temporary transit privileges over an existing link.
This is not surprising at all. One of the networks making arrangements to purchase transit immediately may help the customers of both networks in the short term, but the reality is that peering problem still exists and it immediately shows a weakness on one side. If they're willing to pay, they may agree to peering with settlements as well or just continue to buy transit. No transit free network is going to allow this to happen. It is in their best interest to make the de-peering as painful as possible to get a quicker resolution that satisfies both parties. Maybe not the greatest analogy, but think labor strikes and scabs (temporary workers willing to cross the picket line). If there were no repercussions to allowing scab workers to cross a picket line (lack of training leading to mistakes/accidents, pressure placed by the unions, negative publicity causing customers to boycott the company, etc), then unions wouldn't exist, or at least wouldn't have the strength needed to put the issue to rest as quickly as possible. When your customers (and the other networks customers) are complaining, the issue gets resolved much quicker. The Telia/Cogent depeering went longer than most, but it usually gets the job done.
-w
Randy
On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, William Waites wrote:
Neither network has transit. What other path is there to take?
Bit bucket path.
http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/03/he_said_she_said_cogent_vs_tel.shtml
"Then Cogent de-peered Telia and suddenly Verizon and others started providing a path between the two and their respective customers."
Which is as it should be. Then somebody (not clear who) apparently took explicit steps to stop the traffic from taking these other paths. Surprising. Severing a peering relationship is one thing, purposely filtering large swathes of the Internet over other all links is quite another.
As I said, this is surprising behaviour, but not simple de-peering. And I'm
Why is it surprising? Sounds more like a repeat performance to me. Back when Level3 depeered Cogent, it was said that Cogent was already buying transit from Verio to reach at least some networks they weren't peering with. After the depeering, why didn't Cogent get to Level3 (and vice versa) via Verio? Was the reason ever made public?
Tier 1 has enough peering relationships with enough other Tier 1 networks that they can always buy temporary transit privileges over an existing link.
Tier 1 means you don't buy transit, no? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
Tier 1 means you don't buy transit, no?
Presumably it follows that tier 2 networks do buy transit. Therefore, why would anyone buy service from a Tier 1 network except for other network operators? This doesn't match with the reality that providers who are Tier 1 seem to get some very big companies as customers. Why would they do that if Tier 1 networks offer a substandard service? Is this a scandal in the making? --Michael Dillon
Le 08-07-28 à 18:27, Jon Lewis a écrit :
Bit bucket path.
Evidently.
As I said, this is surprising behaviour, but not simple de-peering. And I'm
Why is it surprising? Sounds more like a repeat performance to me.
Back when Level3 depeered Cogent, it was said that Cogent was already buying transit from Verio to reach at least some networks they weren't peering with. After the depeering, why didn't Cogent get to Level3 (and vice versa) via Verio?
Surprising because, Cogent (or Telia, but from what you say here, looks like Cogent), presumably put themselves in a breach of contract position with their (end-user or stub AS) customers who one would imagine have bought "Internet service" from them. Given that they have some reasonably big/important customers it is surprising that they would take that risk, and even more surprising that it didn't bite them too hard. By maybe I am just easily surprised.
Tier 1 has enough peering relationships with enough other Tier 1 networks that they can always buy temporary transit privileges over an existing link.
Tier 1 means you don't buy transit, no?
Maybe a slightly revised definition of Tier 1 is in order -- a provider that doesn't buy transit and doesn't sell to end-users or stub systems. Doing either of these things would degrade them in the nomenclature by 0.5. Doing both of these things makes a Tier 2 provider which had better have transit from more than one upstream. This way innocents don't suffer the collateral damage from games of chicken among the titans (unless they were silly enough to get their only Internet connection from a Tier 1.5 provider). Oh well. Cheers, -w
On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, William Waites wrote:
Surprising because, Cogent (or Telia, but from what you say here, looks like Cogent), presumably put themselves in a breach of contract position with their (end-user or stub AS) customers who one would imagine have bought "Internet service" from them. Given that they have some reasonably big/important customers it is surprising that they would take that risk, and even more surprising that it didn't bite them too hard. By maybe I am just easily surprised.
But, AFAICT, Cogent has done this before and even combined it with the publicity stunt of offering free peering to any single-homed Level3 customer for a year.
Tier 1 means you don't buy transit, no?
Maybe a slightly revised definition of Tier 1 is in order -- a provider that doesn't buy transit and doesn't sell to end-users or stub systems.
I don't know that you'll find a Tier 1 that doesn't sell to end-user networks. It's kind of what they do. Once you start buying transit, all the bigger networks probably figure they can get you to "pay us too." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Lewis | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net | _________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________
Jon Lewis wrote:
On Mon, 28 Jul 2008, William Waites wrote:
Tier 1 has enough peering relationships with enough other Tier 1 networks that they can always buy temporary transit privileges over an existing link.
Every peering agreement I've seen has language to the effect that an entity can't both be a transit customer and a peer. Even if allowed, the temporary transit privileges would need to be provisioned and turned up which isn't going to happen instantaneously.
Tier 1 means you don't buy transit, no?
"We are a Tier 1 provider" tends to mean "I am a salesperson". -- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/03/you_cant_get_there_from_here_1.shtml http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/03/he_said_she_said_cogent_vs_tel.shtml http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/03/telia_and_cogent_kiss_and_make_1.shtml On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 11:24 AM, William Waites <ww@styx.org> wrote:
Le 08-07-28 à 17:12, nancyp@yorku.ca a écrit :
----Example: A York University professor was sitting at his desk at work
in March 2008 trying to reach an internet website located somewhere in Europe. [...] York's bandwidth supplier is Cogent which had severed a peering relationship with a bandwidth provider in Europe called Telia [...] which was the bandwidth network provider for the website that the Professor was trying to reach. [...] Cogent did not proactively inform the University of the issue and the loss of connectivity. Unreachability due to arbitrariness in network peering is unacceptable.
There must be more to this story. If Cogent de-peered from Telia the traffic would normally just have taken another path. Either there was a configuration error of some sort or else some sort of proactive black-holing on one side or the other. As the latter would be surprising and very heavy handed, I would tend to suspect the former.
Peering relationships are made and severed all the time with no particular ill-effects, unless you can point to examples of outright malice (i.e. of the black-holing kind) I don't think there is much basis for any public policy decisions in this example.
Unreachability due to configuation error is of course relatively common; perhaps I am wrong, but I don't think the CRTC would really have much to say about that.
Cheers, -w
On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 11:12 AM, <nancyp@yorku.ca> wrote:
----Recommendation: Bandwidth purchase agreements (Service Level Agreements) that specify bandwidth, uptime and cost actually define connectivity thus they should contain a list of peers or network interconnections that will be maintained for the length of the agreement. Prepared by Nancy Paterson, York University July 23, 2008 nancyp@yorku.ca
How many buyers out there have SLAs which cover inter-provider/domain connectivity? How many sellers are willing to guarantee this level of connectivity to their customers with a SLA? How many peering contracts are worth the paper they're printed on, and have teeth when subjected to attorney review, and none of the usual 30-90 day unilateral severability nonsense? Therein lies your problem. Drive Slow, Paul Wall
participants (9)
-
Christian Koch -
Jay Hennigan -
Jon Lewis -
michael.dillon＠bt.com -
nancyp＠yorku.ca -
Patrick W. Gilmore -
Paul Wall -
Randy Epstein -
William Waites