The IPv6 Travesty that is Cogent's refusal to peer Hurricane Electric - and how to solve it

Thu Jan 21 18:07:37 UTC 2016

Hi everyone,

I know the long and storied history of Cogent and HE failing to peer for IPv6 and failing to provide (from either side) for IPv6 transit between their two networks has been mentioned and covered on this list before, but I am rather surprised it has not garnered much attention.

Until recently, that is.  I notice an increasing number of people tweeting at both HE and Cogent about the problem.

From HE’s public statements on the matter, it’s pretty clear that they would gladly peer with Cogent for IPv6 but that Cogent declines to do this.  I simply cannot understand Cogent’s logic on this.  Cogent is the one loosing out here, to my way of thinking.  They have far less IPv6 coverage than HE.

I myself, on behalf of my employers, am a direct customer of IP transit services from both Cogent and HE.

I don’t know about others similarly positioned, but my Cogent rep tries to call me at least twice a month.  I’m going to start taking (more of) his calls and letting him know his account with us is in jeopardy come renewal time if Cogent can’t get a full IPv6 route table to happen.

Today, with Cogent & HE as peers, I am world reachable via IPv6.  If either peer went down however, part of the internet couldn’t reach me via IPv6 because either HE wouldn’t have a route or Cogent wouldn’t have a route.  That’s ridiculous.

Since Cogent is clearly the bad actor here (the burden being Cogent's to prove otherwise because HE is publicly on record as saying that they’d love to peer with Cogent), I’m giving serious consideration to dropping Cogent come renewal time and utilizing NTT or Zayo instead.

While that would not immediately solve the problem that if the NTT or Zayo link went down, single-homed Cogent customers would loose access to me via IPv6, I’m actually ok with that.  It at least lets ensures that when there is a problem, the problem affects only single-home Cogent clients.  Thus, the problem is borne exclusively by the people who pay the bad actor who is causing this problem.  That tends to get uncomfortable for the payee (i.e. Cogent).

I intend to email my Cogent sales guy regarding this matter and make this a sticking point in every phone conversation I have with him.  I call on others similarly situated to consider whether you may like to follow suit in this approach.  I’ve come to believe that it’s best for my interests and I also believe that it’s best for the internet community at large, as ubiquitous worldwide routing of IPv6 becomes more essential with each passing day.

In closing, I further add that it’s a mystery to me why Cogent wouldn’t desire an IPv6 peering with HE.  Let’s face it, if any of us had to choose a single-home IPv6 internet experience, between HE or Cogent, we’d all choose HE.  If those were the two options, HE is the “real” IPv6 internet and Cogent is a tiny sliver of the IPv6 internet.  I have actually wondered if HE is holding IPv6 peering with Cogent hostage, contingent on peering all protocols (IPv4 and IPv6) with Cogent.  There, I could see why Cogent might hesitate.  To my knowledge, however, this is not the case and I have heard no public accusation that HE is imposing such a constraint.  I would love to hear anyone from HE tell as much of the story as they are able.

PS - As an aside, has anyone noticed HE’s been growing their network by leaps and bounds this past year?  Direct peerings with AT&T and CenturyLink, more domestic US and Canadian POPs, and I believe the number of pathways across the North American continent has been improved substantially, too.

Thanks,

Matt Hardeman
IPiFony Systems, Inc.
AS6082