Sprint Cuts Cogent Off the Internet 413
superbus1929 writes "I work as a security analyst at an internet security company. While troubleshooting an issue, we learned why our customer couldn't keep his site-to-site VPN going from any location that uses Sprint as its ISP: Sprint has decided not to route traffic to Cogent due to litigation. This has a chilling effect; already, this person I worked with cannot communicate between a few sites of his, and since Sprint is stopping the connections cold (my traceroutes showed as complete, and not as timing out), it means that there is no backup plan; anyone going to Cogent from a Sprint ISP is crap out of luck."
Affecting other ISPs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oh, good. (Score:4, Informative)
Besides, I'm trying it right now and can't get to cogentco.com (though I can do just fine on my home broadband connection).
Re:So what is Sprint providing its customers? (Score:5, Informative)
Those machines are not on the internet, they connect to the internet.
Probably(hopefully) a troll, but I'll bite.
There is no "internet". There is only progressively smaller networks. The ISPs all own their own networks, they communicate with one another via an IBX, or a "meet-me-room". Your company's LAN is a network just like theirs, only smaller (well...depending on what company you work for..some can get to the size of a small ISP). The fact that you don't have an agreement with your ISP to route their traffic to your machines does not mean that they are not part of "the internet".
Think about it like this:
There is an office building, each floor is a separate company. Each company runs their own network. After a while, a couple of the companies decide that they should share information with one another, so they do. They connect their networks to one another and start routing between them. Things are good. Now a few more companies jump on board, before you know it, 40 out of the 50 networks in the building are all talking to one another. THAT is the internet.
Re:Neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
Net neutrality can't force tier1/2 network carriers to peer.
Cogent depeering (Score:5, Informative)
Why does this story sound familiar...right, because I've heard it twice before. In 2003 it was AOL who cut them off [isp-planet.com], then in 2005 Level 3 [tmcnet.com] did the same thing.
While it seems Sprint is to blame here, when I see Cogent on the bad end of this so many times I can't help but wonder how many of these problems are brought on by their own management. It's not too often you get to see a pair of N/A results on the health report [internetpulse.net], but as you can read that's exactly what happened in 2005 as well.
Re:Ow My Foot (Score:3, Informative)
No, the question is, is our children learning? Your sentence makes no sense to people who know what "begs the question" means. You seem to think it means "raises the question", but it doesn't. Begging the question is making a circular statement to support an argument. The statement relies upon itself as proof. For example, the statement "Global warming is terrible because it's really bad" is begging the question.
http://begthequestion.info/ [begthequestion.info]
Re:Asshats (Score:5, Informative)
A table is worth a thousand pictures... (Score:5, Informative)
Cogent is the one behind the story in link (Score:5, Informative)
What generally happens is that these tier 1 ISPs start off with equal amount of traffic that is being routed on behalf of the other ISP so they're both giving each other equal value. But that balance shifts over the years and you might have one ISP giving back 1/8th of what they're taking but the larger ISP is afraid of bad PR if they sever the connection. What might be needed is some sort of arbitrator who will look in to the facts without blaming one side or the other and just examine the facts and issue a recommendation. During that period of arbitration, the peering should continue so that customers aren't affected. If one ISP is found to be unworthy of a settlement peering arrangement because they're not holding up their end of the bargain, then they should be ordered to pay. If they refuse to pay, they deserve the blame for not paying for their Internet backbone.
Plenty of ISPs pay for their peering arrangements if they're not able to build some backbones of equal value. There's no reason some ISPs should get a settlement free peering if they're not willing to upgrade the Internet's backbone infrastructure.
Re:Something is Fishy Here (Score:1, Informative)
Uh, it has happened. It is news. Reporting it isn't a conspiracy. http://internetpulse.net/ [internetpulse.net] is displaying the connection between the two as being broken
Re:Ah... that explains it (Score:2, Informative)
That is a login page, you means to use this links:
http://internetpulse.net/
NANOG Discussion (Score:5, Informative)
More discussion on NANOG Mailing List
10/30/08 Sprint / Cogent
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/threads.html [merit.edu]
Tip: The probability of finding more accurate info on NANOG than here seems to be higher.
Re:Ah... that explains it (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, right, sorry about that. Put "public" in for both the username and password.
Re:Headline is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
AOL repeered with Cogent something like a year ago. They were the last holdout and once that happened, Cogent was no longer paying anyone for transit and were therefore a full tier-1. Regardless of their peering status, they own and operate the second largest capacity network in the world. Traceroutes over the last couple of years would seem to indicate that they are servicing a fairly large number of eyeball networks in Europe these days as well as content networks all over the world. They are now sitting at the grownup's table and are no longer just a "discount" provider.
Re:This is not new (Score:4, Informative)
When my local phone company was having a labour dispute, they blocked the union website.
That is true, but leaves out some rather important details -- like the fact that the blocked website contained photos, addresses, and phone numbers of company managers and of workers who decided to cross the picket lines, and encouraged harassment of said individuals; and that threats of violence had been made against those managers and workers.
I'm not saying that Telus was right in blocking the website, but this wasn't merely a labour dispute.
Re:Neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
Not when Sprint is actively blackholing and pretending that the data went through, as they are now.
Re:Neutrality (Score:5, Informative)
Cogent does not buy transit [0] , they've become Tier 1, my guess is Sprint isn't happy with how much traffic is flowing over some connections and wants money (think: paid peering).
[0] http://www.renesys.com/blog/2008/06/cogent-becomes-transitfree.shtml [renesys.com]
Re:Oh, good. (Score:5, Informative)
Don't be so quick to blame Sprint, especially since that's a Cogent PR release. They (Cogent) had fights with Level3 and AOL as well that had the same result: Customers of Sprint/Level3/AOL were cut off from Cogent.
Re:Asshats (Score:3, Informative)
Re:note to self (Score:5, Informative)
What happens when Cogent gets bored with Sprint and gets bitchy with your new choice? This is not the first time Cogent has been in the same situation. Level3, TeliaSonera, and AOL come to mind. I wouldn't be so quick to blame Sprint based on a one-sided Cogent press release.
Re:This is not new (Score:2, Informative)
online traiding... (Score:2, Informative)
The worse part was trying to explain to a laymen what exactly was happening. Now we have a backup feed with a company using Level3 as well as our main feed on Cogent. Hard lesson learned I suppose.
Re:note to self (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cogent not all good (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So what is Sprint providing its customers? (Score:5, Informative)
SLA's typically cover "best effort" internet.
Yeah, stuff will go down and goobers will run into telephone poles and backhoes, oh the backhoes!
But, cutting off a huge network because your lawyer wanted to go on vacation when THE SHIT WOULD WORK HAD YOU NOT DELIBERATELY TURNED IT OFF.
That ain't "best effort", that's "dick move".
As such, it's breach of contract with every single one of their customers at once. It would be in their rights to all simply stop paying the bill, I wonder how long their cashflow would last? More than likely the VP or board or whatever would pull their head out of their asses and realize the back room IT guy that will likely hear about this has a big voice in the tech stuff companies buy... and they would fix it.
This appears to have been expected (Score:1, Informative)
According to this thread:
webhosting talk [webhostingtalk.com]
They were expecting peering issues to come up with cogent.
Re:NANOG Discussion (Score:2, Informative)
If NANOG List on Merit cannot handle it... that would be a serious problem.
I don't quite think you understand what NANOG is or what Merit is.
Re:NANOG Discussion (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunately, that "probability" hasn't panned out...
Allow me to summarize the relevant threads on NANOG:
-Verizon de-peered Cogent
--Yup, sure did
--Same in Europe
--Pings fail
--Why?
---Because Cogent is inexpensive
---They're a feuding.
--They shouldn't do that
THE END
Peering disputes (Score:1, Informative)
Generally happen because of one of three things:
1. One side isn't living up to their end of the peering contract. Things like maintaining inbound/outbound ratio values, or minimum amounts of traffic.
2. One side (or both) don't want to pay for the upgrades necessary to keep the connection from being saturated. This is kind of related to the first one, since its usually spelled out in the contract who pays for what upgrades in what sites.
3. One side thinks they can get money out of the other. Peering is an expense (both capex and opex). If you can cause enough pain in the other party that they either start buying paid peering or a transit circuit, you've just changed an expense to income. This usually backfires, since the enmity caused by depeering means that the "victim" is more likely to buy targetted transit from a third party than to pay the dick that tried to squeeze them.
I'm betting its one of the first two. Call me an optimist.
Cogent is at fault (Score:4, Informative)
As always. They let so much garbage go through their network and don't maintain the throughput arrangements with other peers, which is why Telia kicked them off around a year ago.
I get calls each month from Cogent reps trying to offer me $6/meg uplinks. Of course they can provide bargain basement pricing when they basically steal bandwidth from their peers. Good for Sprint.
Bad excuse, Cogent could just buy transit (Score:2, Informative)
That Sprint is doing something stupid might be so, but I don't think we have the whole picture.
Cogent customers are being fed the excuse that "it's sprint's fault". That's bull, if they really wanted to help the customers and honor their side of the deal (towards their customers) they could buy transit through someone else to talk to Sprint. Sprint isn't blocking Cogent IPs, it's only dropped peering with them.
Cogent is not a real tier I (Score:1, Informative)
They have been depeered many times before.
The bottom line is that they do not have enough unique routes to be a real tier I and therefore can not maintain a free-peer traffic balance
Re:Oh, good. (Score:4, Informative)
Why would you boycott sprint over this? Cause "they" blocked access to cogent customers? I remember level 3 blocking access to Cogent not too long ago, and several others in the past. I'm thinking that the company that keeps playing the victim is the one that needs to be taught a lesson..
Cogent Disregards Agreement with Sprint (Score:5, Informative)
Re:note to self (Score:3, Informative)
This one just came across on NANOG: Wrestling With the Zombie: Sprint Depeers Cogent, Internet Partitioned [renesys.com]