IPv6 internet broken, cogent/telia/hurricane not peering

Mon Oct 12 21:13:54 UTC 2009

On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Randy Epstein <repstein at chello.at> wrote:

> No need for me to repeat what Mike has posted.  I agree 100% with him on
> all
> fronts.  Mike and his team have gone out of their way to promote and
> support
> IPv6 from the very beginning and I think everyone knows this.  In the past,
> I had some differences with Mike over legacy policies that Hurricane
> adopted
> initially, but after spending time with him and explaining those issues, he
> did everything in his power to correct them.  I'd even say he went above
> and
> beyond everyone's expectations.
>
> I hope this issue gets resolved quickly.  I've seen first hand the
> political
> issues in v4 and I really hope we don't have a repeat of this in v6.  There
> are a handful of providers that have turned to a restrictive IPv6 policy
> (or
> "must be existing peer in v4 to peer in v6 with us") and I find it
> outrageous at this point in time.
>
> Cogent, get with the program.
>

*shrug*  If Cogent wants to isolate itself from the rest of the Internet,
it's kinda their problem, right?  I mean, it's their network, if they don't
want to play with the rest of us, they don't have to.  They just won't
have much to offer their customers if they decide not to play along.

There's no mandate about universal connectivity; when you buy service
from a provider, you select which provider to buy from based on the
breadth and scope of services you desire.  There may be a huge
customer base for Cogent that fears the rest of the IPv6 Internet,
and doesn't want to connect to it.  If there's enough of a revenue
stream from them to keep Cogent afloat, more power to them, I
applaud them for discovering an alternative business model.

I, for one, don't particularly believe in the utility of such a service,
and wouldn't pay for it, but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot
of frightened, paranoid people who really do want to play in a
sheltered walled garden, kept apart from everyone else--and if
Cogent can make a business out of servicing them, more power
to them.  I just wouldn't put my salary on the line banking on that
business model panning out.*

> Regards,
>
> Randy
>

Matt

*note, however, that I also opted to stay in college in 1991, rather than
join Cisco because I felt they did not have a workable business model;
in 1995, I rejected Mosaic Communications, because the idea of trying
to compete with a freely downloadable browser seemed like business
suicide; and I rejected Google's offer letter in early 2000, because it
was clear that trying to compete with altavista by trying to support a
company off revenues from search advertising was completely ludicrous.
Given that track record, some may take my scathing indictment of
Cogent's walled garden approach to IPv6 as a clear indicator of future
earnings potential.  :/