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

Thu Jan 28 01:36:13 UTC 2016

> On Jan 27, 2016, at 14:43 , Måns Nilsson <mansaxel at besserwisser.org> wrote:
> 
> Subject: Re: The IPv6 Travesty that is Cogent's refusal to peer Hurricane Electric - and how to solve it Date: Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 12:28:01PM +0000 Quoting Brandon Butterworth (brandon at rd.bbc.co.uk):
> 
>> tier 1 seems consistent with Cogents refusal.
> 
> one does not become a tier 1 by refusing to peer. an actual tier 1 will
> of course most of the time refuse  settlement-free interconnection with
> smaller actors to protect their revenue stream, but the traffic volumes
> and short settlement-free paths to large parts of the Internet are what
> make them a tier-1.

I disagree with this last part.

I realize that the common wisdom among execs at so-called tier-1 providers
is that refusing SFI protects their revenue stream, but I believe it’s not
true.

In fact, I think that a willingness to peer with your customers and anyone
else on the internet wherever you can do so for very little cost (for example,
where it’s just one more peering session at an IXP, no additional port cost,
circuit, XC, etc.) settlement free can only increase your business.

IMHO, a truly good tier-1 will charge for transit, set their metrics and
prefs such that their paid ports are preferred over their non-revenue
ports, and provides peer routes only on the SFIs.

This turns out to be mostly a win-win situation for everyone, including the
tier-1 in the long run.

OTOH, look what happened to SPRINT when they went on their depeering binge.
They went from the cat-bird seat of being the top Tier-1 provider on the
planet to the modern day status of “also ran”.

I suspect the only reason Cogent isn’t losing ground as fast as SPRINT
did has to do with two things:

1.	They aren’t turning off existing peers as aggressively as
	SPRINT did.

2.	They have the cheapest transit prices of just about anyone
	except possibly HE (why they are in a race to the bottom with).

However, even at their current rate, this will likely catch up with them
sooner or later and cause them some discomfort.

YMMV.

Owen