Cogent/Level 3 depeering

Fri Oct 7 14:13:03 UTC 2005

On Fri, Oct 07, 2005 at 03:17:53AM -0400, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 10:54:37PM -0700, JC Dill wrote:
> > AFAICT there's only one reason to break off peering, and it's to force 
> > Cogent to pay (anyone) to transit the data.  Why does L3 care if Cogent 
> > sends the data for free via peering, or pays someone ELSE to transit the 
> > data?
> 
> First off, why do you assume that peering is a right to which people are 
> entitled? 

I didn't read that... I think the point is more "why not," not 
"Level3 is evil."

> The bottom line is that we have no idea what was really going on, but 
> there are loads of reasons why (3) would want to depeer Cogent that don't 
> have anything to do with forcing them to pay for transit. I don't think 
> anyone who depeers another network actually expects to see a dime in 
> transit business from the depeered network any time in the immediate 
> future anyways.

There is the issue of precedent, which neither network wants to set.
If you cave on a game of chicken, others will follow suit, like a bad
mass adoption of norton's art of peering.  What caused the initial
chess move, as you say, is hard to fathom, until we hear a statement
on it from Level3.

> not, it is no different here than it is there. Cogent routinely turns away 
> smaller peers for peering and suggests that they buy transit instead, are 
> you going to accuse them of anti-competetive practices next?

I'm not sure the analogy applies here, given the size of Cogent.

> Hopefully, sanity. Whether you believe it or not, the Internet *IS* best 
> effort. If you don't like it, or you aren't happy with it, buy from 
> someone else who makes a better effort. Speaking of slippery slopes, how 
> would you like to not be able to block traffic to your network from people 
> you consider to be spam sites, because you are harming global reachability 
> and potentially trying to force those sites out of business? Same 
> argument, different benefit for you.

Unfortunately, Richard, you are using logic.  What happens when depeering
hits the public press is that the federal government starts watching it
again.  We've seen this over and over, and unfortunately with govt. churn,
the same questions and hearings transpire.  While I agree with the best
effort statement, historically the govt./doj has started to get involved
when mass standoffs occur like this one.

-- 
Jay Adelson