Sprint / Cogent dispute over?

Mon Nov 3 15:11:03 UTC 2008

On Nov 3, 2008, at 10:01 AM, Daniel Senie wrote:
> At 06:54 PM 11/2/2008, Daniel Roesen wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 02, 2008 at 04:40:20PM -0500, Randy Epstein wrote:
>> > Problem resolved?
>>
>> https://www.sprint.net/cogent.php
>
> Reading this accounting of Sprint's side of the story reveals  
> something that's not too surprising about Sprint. They've got  
> serious accounting problems.
>
> The trial of peering they talk about was for three months in 2007,  
> ending in September 2007. They claim to have billed Cogent at the  
> end of it, though knowing Sprint's billing (having had them fail to  
> send me bills, then hit me with late fees) they probably can't prove  
> that. But this is a YEAR later.
>
> They let an account linger for a year without collecting or  
> terminating the services provided. That's their own damned fault.  
> This indicates poor management of Accounts Receivable. That's your  
> problem, Sprint, deal with it.
>
> Also in this document is a complaint that Cogent failed to  
> disconnect. Excuse me? This was a trial PEERING agreement. That  
> implies one or a series of point-to-point connections. That implies  
> EITHER party can disconnect the circuits (in reality, the physical  
> circuit doesn't even matter, just shut down the BGP session(s)).
>
> So Sprint failed to manage Accounts Receivable and left this  
> "temporary" circuit in place too long. Some bean counter noticed  
> this a year later. Way to go Sprint.
>
> As I've noted previously, Sprint hurt its own customers by the  
> action taken. It's my guess they restored the circuit to avoid  
> further damage to themselves that resulted from their actions.

You have an interesting set of assumptions.  Is there any reason you  
did not give Sprint the benefit of the doubt?  For instance, is it not  
possible that Sprint knew this and was trying "for a year" to fix the  
problem without taking such drastic steps?  Because they did not want  
to hurt their own customers?

> It's interesting to see a biased, "blame Cogent first" mentality in  
> so many postings on NANOG. Maybe they deserve it, maybe not. But  
> after reading the traffic here, after living through the  
> consequences of the Cogent/L3 depeering, and after reading what  
> Sprint said on their page, my read on this is that Sprint's  
> accounting department might need some house cleaning.

And I thought just the opposite.

Having a clear contract with clear terms, giving Cogent plenty of  
notice, taking the links down slowly over time to ensure Cogent knew  
what was happening, etc., etc.  That was very up-front, above-board,  
and more than polite on Sprint's part, IMHO.

Compare Sprint's actions & attitude to Cogent's sub-12-hour notice  
when they de-peered Telia.

Yeah, Cogent is definitely the more professional company....

-- 
TTFN,
patrick