Sprint v. Cogent, some clarity & facts

Tomas L. Byrnes tomb at byrneit.net
Tue Nov 4 16:51:19 UTC 2008


The concept of "Transit Free" is a political failure, not a technical
one.

The protocols are designed, and the original concept behind the Internet
is, to propagate all reachability via all paths. IE to use Transit if
peering fails.

Not doing so is a policy decision that breaks the redundancy in the
original design.


>-----Original Message-----
>From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patrick at ianai.net]
>Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 8:10 AM
>To: NANOG list
>Subject: Re: Sprint v. Cogent, some clarity & facts
>
>On Nov 4, 2008, at 11:02 AM, David Schwartz wrote:
>> Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
>>> On Nov 4, 2008, at 9:49 AM, David Freedman wrote:
>>
>>>>> 2. The Internet cannot "route around" de-peering
>>>>> I know everyone believes "the Internet routes around failures".
>>>>> While
>>>>> occasionally true, it does not hold in this case.  To "route
>>>>> around" the
>>>>> "failure" would require transit.  See item #1.
>>>>
>>>> The internet "routes around" technical failures, not political
ones.
>>
>>> If two transit free networks have a technical failure which disables
>>> all peering between them, the Internet cannot route around it.
>>
>> Sure it can. The traffic just flows through any of the providers
>> that still
>> have reliable high-bandwidth connectivity to both of those providers.
>>
>> Unless, of course, a pre-existing political failure prohibits this
>> traffic.
>> The Internet can't route around that political failure.
>
>Perhaps you missed the "transit free" part.
>
>If Sprint & UUNET have a technical failure causing all peering to go
>down, Level 3 will not magically transport packets between the two,
>despite the fact L3 has "reliable high-bandwidth connectivity to both
>of those providers".  How would you propose L3 bill UU & Sprint for
>it?  On second thought, don't answer that, I don't think it would be a
>useful discussion.
>
>Or are you claiming the fact every network does not give every other
>network transit a "political failure".  If you are, we should agree to
>disagree and move on.
>
>
>> From a technical standpoint, the Internet is always suffering from
>> multiple
>> political failures. This leaves it vulnerable to small technical
>> failures it
>> could otherwise route around.
>
>See above.  I do not think it is a "political failure" that I do not
>give you free transit.
>
>--
>TTFN,
>patrick
>





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