cogent+ Level(3) are ok now

Sat Oct 29 04:56:45 UTC 2005

On 10/28/05 5:45 PM, "JC Dill" <lists05 at equinephotoart.com> wrote:

> 
> Christopher Woodfield wrote:
>> 
>> "...the companies have agreed to the settlement-free exchange of
>> traffic subject to specific payments if certain obligations are not  met."
>> 
>> So it does look like Cogent bent somwhat...I'm guessing they agreed  to
>> pay some sort of "traffic imbalance fee"?
> 
> There are other possibilities.
> 
> Maybe they agreed to pay a transit fee should they fail to carry the L3
> user's requested traffic as far as possible before handing it off (cold
> potato routing) and hand it off at the earliest possibility (hot potato
> routing) leaving L3 to backhaul it across the L3 network to the user who
> requested the data.

I doubt it. Cold potato is normally the first thing Cogent offers in a
situation like this. I'm guessing this went something beyond that. Cogent
would have offered cold potato well before the original depeering.

I have no specific information, but I'm guessing there is a per-mbps charge
that kicks in at certain ratio levels. Or, there may be a flat "port charge"
per month under certain conditions - Sprint did this many years ago.

> 
> Etc.
> 
> jc
> 

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out Level(3)'s goal in all this. A bit
of incremental revenue? For all of this trouble? I could understand feeling
that Cogent's ratios are a violation of their peering requirements and
depeering them on principle, but if that's the case, why back down for a
little cash? 

Of course, various external pressures may have been brought to bear on
Level(3). Customers, regulators, press, creditors, etc.

- Dan