Sprint / Cogent dispute over?

James Hess mysidia at gmail.com
Mon Nov 3 05:10:45 UTC 2008


On Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 8:29 PM, Martin Hannigan <hannigan at 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




More information about the NANOG mailing list