Why do some companies get depeered and some don't?
Why do some companies like Cogent get depeered relatively often and companies like Teleglobe don't even get talked about and operate in silence free from depeering? -- Hyundai to launch the i20 in India. Catch the exclusive preview on ZigWheels.com http://www.zigwheels.com/b2cam/newsDetails.action?name=Emb11_20080731&path=/INDT/News/Emb11_20080731&page=1&pagecount=2&utm_source=indmail&utm_medium=footer&utm_content=tracking&utm_campaign=Nletter_07oct2008_ZW
On Oct 31, 2008, at 1:32 AM, Nelson Lai wrote:
Why do some companies like Cogent get depeered relatively often and companies like Teleglobe don't even get talked about and operate in silence free from depeering?
That's funny. One of the first networks to de-peer Cogent was Teleglobe. They re-peered after a bit. The next obvious question is: When Sprint, Telia & L3 de-peering Cogent, it causes a lot of news in the press & noise on NANOG, so why didn't you know Teleglobe depeered Cogent? Is this because Teleglobe runs a better network than Sprint? Well, that's hard to say, but please note that when Teleglobe depeered Cogent, they were disconnected just as Sprint & Cogent are disconnected now. Doesn't matter how 'good' a network you run, if packets won't go there, you can't get there. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out the rest. -- TTFN, patrick
Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
On Oct 31, 2008, at 1:32 AM, Nelson Lai wrote:
Why do some companies like Cogent get depeered relatively often and companies like Teleglobe don't even get talked about and operate in silence free from depeering?
That's funny. One of the first networks to de-peer Cogent was Teleglobe. They re-peered after a bit.
The next obvious question is: When Sprint, Telia & L3 de-peering Cogent, it causes a lot of news in the press & noise on NANOG, so why didn't you know Teleglobe depeered Cogent?
Imagine the news had they all depeered cogent at the same time.
On 11/2/08, Joe Maimon <jmaimon@ttec.com> wrote:
Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
On Oct 31, 2008, at 1:32 AM, Nelson Lai wrote:
Why do some companies like Cogent get depeered relatively often and
companies like Teleglobe don't even get talked about and operate in silence free from depeering?
That's funny. One of the first networks to de-peer Cogent was Teleglobe. They re-peered after a bit.
The next obvious question is: When Sprint, Telia & L3 de-peering Cogent, it causes a lot of news in the press & noise on NANOG, so why didn't you know Teleglobe depeered Cogent?
Imagine the news had they all depeered cogent at the same time.
Imagine the lawsuits and government regulation had that occurred. -- Brandon Galbraith Voice: 630.400.6992 Email: brandon.galbraith@gmail.com
Real time look at the situation: *>i4.23.112.0/24 66.216.0.20 0 100 0 1239 174 21889 i * i 66.216.0.1 0 100 0 1239 174 21889 i * i 66.186.193.16 0 100 0 1239 174 21889 i * i 66.186.193.17 0 100 0 1239 174 21889 i *>i4.23.113.0/24 66.216.0.20 0 100 0 1239 174 21889 i * i 66.216.0.1 0 100 0 1239 174 21889 i * i 66.186.193.16 0 100 0 1239 174 21889 i * i 66.186.193.17 0 100 0 1239 174 21889 i Etc. Problem resolved? Randy
Randy Epstein wrote: <snip>
Problem resolved?
From a single-homed Cogent site, I can get to sprint.net and fcc.gov, both of which were unavailable after the de-peering.
Joe Johnson Senior Systems Engineer InnerWorkings, Inc. Managed Print & Promotional Solutions 600 West Chicago Avenue, Suite 850 Chicago, IL 60654 Phone: 312.676.6873 Fax: 312.604.5487 joe.johnson@inwk.com www.inwk.com NASDAQ: INWK
On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 04:40:20PM -0500, Randy Epstein wrote:
Problem resolved?
https://www.sprint.net/cogent.php Best regards, Daniel -- CLUE-RIPE -- Jabber: dr@cluenet.de -- dr@IRCnet -- PGP: 0xA85C8AA0
On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 04:40:20PM -0500, Randy Epstein wrote:
Problem resolved?
Check out the <TITLE> of the document. Me thinks it was a rush job to post up the page and a bit of cut/paste was done. ;) Tuc
On 11/2/08, Daniel Roesen <dr@cluenet.de> wrote:
On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 04:40:20PM -0500, Randy Epstein wrote:
Problem resolved?
https://www.sprint.net/cogent.php
Best regards, Daniel
Seeing as Cogent is going to try tooth and nail to keep their new found Tier 1 status (and not pay anyone for transit), I would think this would bode worse for Sprint, since most of their transit customers could migrate to Cogent (saving $$$ and not having to face future depeerings). Just my $0.02. -brandon -- Brandon Galbraith Voice: 630.400.6992 Email: brandon.galbraith@gmail.com
On Sun Nov 02, 2008 at 06:05:52PM -0600, Brandon Galbraith wrote:
Seeing as Cogent is going to try tooth and nail to keep their new found Tier 1 status (and not pay anyone for transit), I would think this would bode worse for Sprint, since most of their transit customers could migrate to Cogent (saving $$$ and not having to face future depeerings). Just my $0.02.
Unless they need to reach other networks single homed from Sprint... Simon -- Simon Lockhart | * Sun Server Colocation * ADSL * Domain Registration * Director | * Domain & Web Hosting * Internet Consultancy * Bogons Ltd | * http://www.bogons.net/ * Email: info@bogons.net *
On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 6:05 PM, Brandon Galbraith <brandon.galbraith@gmail.com> wrote:
Seeing as Cogent is going to try tooth and nail to keep their new found Tier 1 status (and not pay anyone for transit), I would think this would bode worse for Sprint, since most of their transit customers could migrate to Cogent (saving $$$ and not having to face future depeerings). Just my $0.02.
Cogent has never been a Tier 1, they have only been "transit free". Being transit free is not a difficult accomplishment, it just means that you don't announce or receive routes via a relationship which is intended to be heard by the entire Internet. You could easily go out and buy transit from each of the existing transit free networks, tag your routes with communities to only announce to customers, and become a "transit free" network with global reachability overnight. Of course, this carries with it the risk of breaking global Internet connectivity in the event of a depeering. It is well known that Cogent pays for out-of-ratio traffic with Level3 and Telia, and clearly Sprint says that they have no actual peering agreement. This doesn't have the making of a real tier 1 network. As far as fighting "tooth and nail", that much seems abundantly clear considering that they are actually stealing service from Sprint (and have been for over a year) in order to maintain their status. They used a "trial" peering session to weasel their way into a direct connection with Sprint, and once they got it they intentionally changed their announcements so that if Sprint disconnected them it would cause unreachability. It seems abundantly clear that this situation was created entirely by Cogent, and that they are intentionally harming their customers and the customers of Sprint in an effort to extort a settlement free relationship. This is despicable behavior, if not outright criminal activity considering the theft of service they are committing, and it is amazing that Sprint cared enough about Internet connectivity to allow it to continue for so long, and to restore connectivity temporarily. If any of us stopped paying for our Internet service, and set up routing so that as soon as our provider turned us off we would be reachable to them and their customers complained, then demanded that they give us free service in order to restore connectivity, we would be laughed at. That is what Cogent has done here, and just because they've done it on a large scale doesn't make it right. This specific issue will be solved in a real court and not the court of public opinion, but we should all do our parts to recognize the blatant lies Cogent has told, and to make it clear that we will not accept that kind of behavior. The last thing the Internet needs is more misguided regulation because someone actually believed Cogent's lies.
Brandon Galbraith wrote:
On 11/2/08, Daniel Roesen <dr@cluenet.de> wrote:
On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 04:40:20PM -0500, Randy Epstein wrote:
Problem resolved? https://www.sprint.net/cogent.php
Best regards, Daniel
Seeing as Cogent is going to try tooth and nail to keep their new found Tier 1 status (and not pay anyone for transit), I would think this would bode worse for Sprint, since most of their transit customers could migrate to Cogent (saving $$$ and not having to face future depeerings). Just my $0.02.
I guess, if you like being affected by Cogent's peering spats on a recurring basis. Are you forgetting this is not the first time? ~Seth
On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 9:10 PM, Seth Mattinen <sethm@rollernet.us> wrote:
Brandon Galbraith wrote:
[ snip ]
I guess, if you like being affected by Cogent's peering spats on a recurring basis. Are you forgetting this is not the first time?
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<
Martin Hannigan wrote:
On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 9:10 PM, Seth Mattinen <sethm@rollernet.us> wrote:
Brandon Galbraith wrote:
[ snip ]
I guess, if you like being affected by Cogent's peering spats on a recurring basis. Are you forgetting this is not the first time?
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.
Yeah, I know, but it was a trial arrangement which it turns out Cogent didn't meet requirements for, then didn't want to pony up the cash and pretended it was still settlement free peering. And I am inclined to believe Sprint's side of the story because Cogent likes to do this every so often. It just amazes me how some people seem to think this is the first time Cogent has done this. It's like they want the horrid operational impact it will have, cry that big bad provider X disconnected them, and people will come to their defense. ~Seth
It just amazes me how some people seem to think this is the first time Cogent has done this. It's like they want the horrid operational impact it will have, cry that big bad provider X disconnected them, and people will come to their defense.
Everyone loves an underdog story. -Justin
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
note that i have friends at both sprint and cogent and i'm not taking sides. "James Hess" <mysidia@gmail.com> writes:
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.
if cogent signed a trial peering contract which required payment if sprint determined after three months that cogent did not qualify, then the court's open questions are was the contract valid (and thus, does cogent owe sprint money) and why isn't there some kind of common carriage law for IP like in dialtone to protect the end users from these types of partition events? i guess we'll all see and discuss the filings here. perhaps cogent countersued on some grounds having to do with the interconnect itself, but with wvfiber standing ready to act as a friend of the court, that's a dangerous game.
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.
by that reasoning shouldn't sprint have also had such a contingency plan?
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.
this is similar to the logic PSI gave me when i was at MFN. of course, both companies later went through bankruptcy (but only one came out again). but i remember getting PSI's demand for payment for peering, looking at network maps, saying "but, my network is BIGGER than yours, more routers, more/fatter pipes, more peering edges, more traffic" and asking "why would i pay you?" but according to PSI they had more eyeballs and i had a ratio problem. note that MFN *did* make arrangements for our customers to reach and be reached by PSI's customers before the date PSI told us they were shutting down peering. (and, the fact that PSI was behind on their their payments to MFN for dark fiber IRU's helped my case considerably.) i re-raise this story not because i'm still pissed off about it, but because peering spats *always* involve assertions of unfairness from both sides. it's just business, and it's all part of the game. ultimately somebody will blink.
...
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.
...
the very fact that folks speak about tiers here may be a red flag to regulators. forgetting the "t" word for the moment, peering is a business decision involving both tactical cost:benefit and strategic cost:benefit, and ultimately we can expect cogent and sprint to work it out on that basis, not on the "t" word basis. -- Paul Vixie
* Paul Vixie:
if cogent signed a trial peering contract which required payment if sprint determined after three months that cogent did not qualify, then the court's open questions are was the contract valid (and thus, does cogent owe sprint money) and why isn't there some kind of common carriage law for IP like in dialtone to protect the end users from these types of partition events?
Even for the phone network, I don't think you've got full isolation of end users from partition. For instance, beyond geographical area codes, full connectivity is not guaranteed (and not given) on the German PSTN. Is this different in the U.S.? Can you really call all phone sex numbers from all residential lines (content filters notwithstanding)?
Yes, I've read it. They need to fix their <TITLE>. So while Cogent was depeered by Sprint, we contacted the CEO of Cogent on Friday to try and arrange at least a temporary peering arrangement so that bits flowed between our networks while they battled this situation out with Sprint. Cogent's response? Buy transit from them. I presume one of Sprint's dissatisfactions during the trial with Cogent were ratios. My network happens to have a very high ratio of eyeballs (inbound traffic) vs outbound traffic. One would believe that Cogent would like to offload their outbound traffic to networks other than their Tier-1 peers, to at least give them an upper hand when negotiating peering arrangements with these networks. It's funny how Cogent depeers networks whenever they want, but the second another network depeers them, they cry foul. Randy
On Nov 2, 2008, at 7:06 PM, Randy Epstein wrote:
Yes, I've read it. They need to fix their <TITLE>.
So while Cogent was depeered by Sprint, we contacted the CEO of Cogent on Friday to try and arrange at least a temporary peering arrangement so that bits flowed between our networks while they battled this situation out with Sprint. Cogent's response? Buy transit from them.
I presume one of Sprint's dissatisfactions during the trial with Cogent were ratios. My network happens to have a very high ratio of eyeballs (inbound traffic) vs outbound traffic. One would believe that Cogent would like to offload their outbound traffic to networks other than their Tier-1 peers, to at least give them an upper hand when negotiating peering arrangements with these networks.
It's funny how Cogent depeers networks whenever they want, but the second another network depeers them, they cry foul.
Aren't you in one of the "1300 on-net locations" with Cogent? Doesn't that give you a free FE? :-) -- TTFN, patrick
At 06:54 PM 11/2/2008, Daniel Roesen wrote:
On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 04:40:20PM -0500, Randy Epstein wrote:
Problem resolved?
Reading this accounting of Sprint's side of the story reveals something that's not too surprising about Sprint. They've got serious accounting problems. The trial of peering they talk about was for three months in 2007, ending in September 2007. They claim to have billed Cogent at the end of it, though knowing Sprint's billing (having had them fail to send me bills, then hit me with late fees) they probably can't prove that. But this is a YEAR later. They let an account linger for a year without collecting or terminating the services provided. That's their own damned fault. This indicates poor management of Accounts Receivable. That's your problem, Sprint, deal with it. Also in this document is a complaint that Cogent failed to disconnect. Excuse me? This was a trial PEERING agreement. That implies one or a series of point-to-point connections. That implies EITHER party can disconnect the circuits (in reality, the physical circuit doesn't even matter, just shut down the BGP session(s)). So Sprint failed to manage Accounts Receivable and left this "temporary" circuit in place too long. Some bean counter noticed this a year later. Way to go Sprint. As I've noted previously, Sprint hurt its own customers by the action taken. It's my guess they restored the circuit to avoid further damage to themselves that resulted from their actions. It's interesting to see a biased, "blame Cogent first" mentality in so many postings on NANOG. Maybe they deserve it, maybe not. But after reading the traffic here, after living through the consequences of the Cogent/L3 depeering, and after reading what Sprint said on their page, my read on this is that Sprint's accounting department might need some house cleaning.
On Nov 3, 2008, at 10:01 AM, Daniel Senie wrote:
At 06:54 PM 11/2/2008, Daniel Roesen wrote:
On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 04:40:20PM -0500, Randy Epstein wrote:
Problem resolved?
Reading this accounting of Sprint's side of the story reveals something that's not too surprising about Sprint. They've got serious accounting problems.
The trial of peering they talk about was for three months in 2007, ending in September 2007. They claim to have billed Cogent at the end of it, though knowing Sprint's billing (having had them fail to send me bills, then hit me with late fees) they probably can't prove that. But this is a YEAR later.
They let an account linger for a year without collecting or terminating the services provided. That's their own damned fault. This indicates poor management of Accounts Receivable. That's your problem, Sprint, deal with it.
Also in this document is a complaint that Cogent failed to disconnect. Excuse me? This was a trial PEERING agreement. That implies one or a series of point-to-point connections. That implies EITHER party can disconnect the circuits (in reality, the physical circuit doesn't even matter, just shut down the BGP session(s)).
So Sprint failed to manage Accounts Receivable and left this "temporary" circuit in place too long. Some bean counter noticed this a year later. Way to go Sprint.
As I've noted previously, Sprint hurt its own customers by the action taken. It's my guess they restored the circuit to avoid further damage to themselves that resulted from their actions.
You have an interesting set of assumptions. Is there any reason you did not give Sprint the benefit of the doubt? For instance, is it not possible that Sprint knew this and was trying "for a year" to fix the problem without taking such drastic steps? Because they did not want to hurt their own customers?
It's interesting to see a biased, "blame Cogent first" mentality in so many postings on NANOG. Maybe they deserve it, maybe not. But after reading the traffic here, after living through the consequences of the Cogent/L3 depeering, and after reading what Sprint said on their page, my read on this is that Sprint's accounting department might need some house cleaning.
And I thought just the opposite. Having a clear contract with clear terms, giving Cogent plenty of notice, taking the links down slowly over time to ensure Cogent knew what was happening, etc., etc. That was very up-front, above-board, and more than polite on Sprint's part, IMHO. Compare Sprint's actions & attitude to Cogent's sub-12-hour notice when they de-peered Telia. Yeah, Cogent is definitely the more professional company.... -- TTFN, patrick
Daniel Senie <dts@senie.com> writes:
At 06:54 PM 11/2/2008, Daniel Roesen wrote:
...
Also in this document is a complaint that Cogent failed to disconnect. Excuse me? This was a trial PEERING agreement. That implies one or a series of point-to-point connections. That implies EITHER party can disconnect the circuits (in reality, the physical circuit doesn't even matter, just shut down the BGP session(s)).
...
Not having read the contract in question, my assumption when I read Sprint's account of their depeering of Cogent was that the trial peering contract says "Sprint will notify Cogent of its qualification status after 90 days; if in Sprint's estimation Cogent does not qualify, and Sprint notifies Cogent of that fact, then Cogent will either disconnect or start paying." Sprint's document's wording is careful even if their <TITLE> is not. If they are involved in litigation with Cogent then actual lawyers would have seen that text (if not necessarily the <TITLE>) before it went out. The heart of the lawsuit might be whether Cogent did or didn't implicitly agree to pay, as signalled by their lack of disconnection after their 90 day notice. None of us who aren't parties to the dispute can do other than wonder, ponder, guess. -- Paul Vixie
-----Original Message----- From: Paul Vixie [mailto:vixie@isc.org] Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 11:49 AM To: Daniel Senie Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Sprint / Cogent dispute over?
Sprint's document's wording is careful even if their <TITLE> is not.
FWIW, that's the <TITLE> on every page on the website. Best, -M< -- Martin Hannigan http://www.verneglobal.com/ Senior Director e: hannigan@verneglobal.com Verne Global Datacenters c: +16178216079 Keflavik, Iceland f: +16172347098
At 06:54 PM 11/2/2008, Daniel Roesen wrote:
On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 04:40:20PM -0500, Randy Epstein wrote:
Problem resolved?
Since there is active litigation going on over this, it's also possible an attorney said, "hmmm... maybe you should wait until the judge has rendered an opinion -- and they got to their temporary re-establishment." I haven't looked, and don't know if I have access, to the court's motions/filings on this matter. Deepak
On Nov 2, 2008, at 4:33 PM, Brandon Galbraith wrote:
On 11/2/08, Joe Maimon <jmaimon@ttec.com> wrote:
Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
On Oct 31, 2008, at 1:32 AM, Nelson Lai wrote:
Why do some companies like Cogent get depeered relatively often and companies like Teleglobe don't even get talked about and operate in silence free from depeering?
That's funny. One of the first networks to de-peer Cogent was Teleglobe. They re-peered after a bit.
The next obvious question is: When Sprint, Telia & L3 de-peering Cogent, it causes a lot of news in the press & noise on NANOG, so why didn't you know Teleglobe depeered Cogent?
Imagine the news had they all depeered cogent at the same time.
Imagine the lawsuits and government regulation had that occurred.
That would be none. -- TTFN, patrick
participants (20)
-
Brandon Galbraith -
Daniel Roesen -
Daniel Senie -
Deepak Jain -
Florian Weimer -
James Hess -
Joe Maimon -
Johnson, Joe -
Justin Ream -
Martin Hannigan -
Martin Hannigan -
Nelson Lai -
Patrick W. Gilmore -
Paul Vixie -
Paul Wall -
Randy Bush -
Randy Epstein -
Seth Mattinen -
Simon Lockhart -
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