Has been going on for a long while now. HE even made a cake for Cogent (IIRC), to no avail.
But, this is not surprising. A lot of public/major peering issues with v4 over the past few years has been cogent vs. someone else.
Brielle
You get what you pay for with Cogent.... YMMV
Has been going on for a long while now. HE even made a cake for Cogent
(IIRC), to no avail.
When two networks are not able to reach each other like this, it usually
requires the active willing participation of both parties to allow the
situation to continue. In this case, HE is doing *PRECISELY* the same
thing that Cogent is doing. They're refusing to purchase transit, and
making the decision to intentionally not carry a full table or have
global reachability, in the hopes that it will strengthen their
strategic position for peering in the long term (i.e. they both want to
be an "IPv6 Tier 1").
I'm not making a judgement call about the rightness or wrongness of the
strategy (and after all, it clearly hasn't been THAT big of an issue
considering that it has been this way for MANY months), but to attempt
to "blame" one party for this issue is the height of absurdity. PR
stunts and cake baking not withstanding, they're both equally complicit.
ObMeme[tm]: cake was a lie?
/kc
So we have to buy from BOTH HE and Cogent?! Sounds like market fixing to me! 
Guess if we do we can advertise that on our webpage... "now with BOTH halves
of the ipv6 internets!"
/kc
+1
Also looks like Level3 still hasn't peered with HE, though they have fixed their peering to google at least.
Jack
Agree 100% - to make it simple and they can both achieve this "IPv6 Tier1
Status" why don't they just peer and then it's win/win. I know I'm
oversimplifying it but nobody is winning in my opinion today. The "peeing
contest" could probably be settled in a short period of time and move on.
My two cents worth...
-p
Or neither. There are other networks that carry a full IPv6 table. If you are behind 174 or 6939 for IPv6 and have other transits, make sure you can use those ports as well for your IPv6 activities, even if you're just doing an internal trial.
- Jared
Or peer with HE and buy transit from Cogent (or someone on Cogent's friendly
list) - this is where I think their strategy is going to go after a while
with a lot of folks (if they have the option - that's the key). HE will
peer with anyone I believe - Cogent has much more stringent "tier1" rules on
peering.
-p
No, you buy from the provider who doesn't get in disputes and peers with both of them. 
Jack
How divided is the table? I see about 98 routes transiting Cogent ASN
via a HE connection. Customer has only has HE as v6 upstream. An
previous post listed about a 1300 prefix difference. That's pretty
significant unless it's due to aggregation or something. I'd also be
interested to see the size of the other major carriers v6 tables so I
can patch a whole until the other upstream is ready.
Jay
For what it's worth, we have a number of IPv6 peers in place plus IPv6
transit from Level(3), HE, and TiNet.
For downstream customers, we are currently exporting them 6250 prefixes on
IPv6.
From TiNet we are getting 6168 prefixes
From Level(3) we are getting 4933 prefixes
From HE we are getting 5990 prefixes
Hope this helps a bit 
-p
You are incorrect.
Yes, both refuse to buy transit, yes. But HE is able, willing, and even begging to peer; Cogent is not. These are not "the same thing".
Also, Cogent does not peer with Google either last time I checked. There may be others for all I know. (I don't buy transit from Cogent.)
These are not the only two networks on the v6 Internet who are bifurcated. There are some in Europe I know of (e.g. Telecom Italia refuses to buy v6 transit and refuses to peer with some networks), and probably others. The v6 'Net is _not_ ready for prime time, and won't be until there is a financial incentive to stop the stupidity & ego stroking.
The Internet is a business. Vote with your wallet. I prefer to buy from people who do things that are in MY best interest. Giving money to Cogent will not put pressure on them peer with HE & Google & everyone else - just the opposite.
On the flip side, HE is an open peer, even to their own customers, and _gives away_ free v6 transit. Taking their free transit & complaining that they do not buy capacity to Cogent seems more than silly. Plus, they are doing that I think is in my best interest as a customer - open peering. Trying to make them the bad guy here seems counter intuitive.
Yes, both refuse to buy transit, yes. But HE is able, willing, and
even begging to peer; Cogent is not. These are not "the same thing".
I'm ready, willing, and lets say for the purposes of this discussion
begging to peer with every Tier 1, but some of them aren't willing to
peer with me. Does that mean I should stop buying transit and blame them
for my resulting lack of global reachability? If I could convince my
customers to accept that line of bullshit it would certainly reduce my
transit costs, but I have a sneaking suspicion they wouldn't. 
Ultimately it is the responsibility of everyone who connects to the
Internet to make sure they are, you know, actually connected to the
Internet. Choosing not to do so and then throwing up your hands and
saying "oh I can't help it, they won't peer with me" is not a valid
excuse, at least not in my book or the book of anyone who pays me money
to deliver their packets. And this isn't even a case of not being ABLE
to buy sufficient capacity via a transit path (ala Comcast), this is
just two networks who have mutually decided two remain partitioned from
each other in the pursuit of long term strategic advantage. Ultimately
both parties share responsibility for this issue, and you can't escape
that just because you have a tube of icing and some spare time.
These are not the only two networks on the v6 Internet who are
bifurcated. There are some in Europe I know of (e.g. Telecom Italia
refuses to buy v6 transit and refuses to peer with some networks), and
probably others. The v6 'Net is _not_ ready for prime time, and won't
be until there is a financial incentive to stop the stupidity & ego
stroking.The Internet is a business. Vote with your wallet. I prefer to buy
from people who do things that are in MY best interest. Giving money
to Cogent will not put pressure on them peer with HE & Google &
everyone else - just the opposite.
Absolutely. This is just like any other IPv4 peering dispute, the only
difference is IPv6 is so unimportant in the grand scheme of the Internet
that there hasn't been enough external pressure from customers on either
side to force a settlement. Shockingly, HE manages to buy plenty of IPv4
transit to reach Cogent and many other networks, no doubt because they
wouldn't have any (paying) customers if they didn't.
On the flip side, HE is an open peer, even to their own customers, and
_gives away_ free v6 transit. Taking their free transit & complaining
that they do not buy capacity to Cogent seems more than silly. Plus,
they are doing that I think is in my best interest as a customer -
open peering. Trying to make them the bad guy here seems counter
intuitive.
I know you're not naive enough to think that HE is giving away free IPv6
transit purely out of the kindness of their heart. They're doing it to
bulk up their IPv6 customer base, so they can compete with larger
networks like Cogent, and make a play for Tier 1-dom in exactly the same
way that Cogent has done with IPv4. And more power to them for it, it
may well be a smart long term strategic move on their part, but with
every wannabe Tier 1 network comes partitioning and peering disputes, as
they try to trade short term customer pain for long term advantages.
Sorry to all the HE guys, but trying to simultaniously complain about
your treatment at the hands of other networks and their peering disputes
while emulating their actions is bullshit and you know it.
Yes, both refuse to buy transit, yes. But HE is able, willing, and
even begging to peer; Cogent is not. These are not "the same thing".I'm ready, willing, and lets say for the purposes of this discussion
begging to peer with every Tier 1, but some of them aren't willing to
peer with me. Does that mean I should stop buying transit and blame them
for my resulting lack of global reachability? If I could convince my
customers to accept that line of bullshit it would certainly reduce my
transit costs, but I have a sneaking suspicion they wouldn't.
Your statement and mine are not in contradiction. I did not say anywhere that HE was perfect, only that they are not the same thing. I stand by what I said. You care to argue the point?
Also, HE is _giving away_ v6 transit. You don't like it, stop paying your bill.
Put another way, you don't like how both are acting, then don't buy from either. Why not just peer with both. Oh, wait, that's right, you can't peer with Cogent, but HE is happy to bring up sessions for the cost of a single e-mail, and dump (their version of) full v6 routes to you.
Yeah, Richard, totally the same thing....
Ultimately it is the responsibility of everyone who connects to the
Internet to make sure they are, you know, actually connected to the
Internet. Choosing not to do so and then throwing up your hands and
saying "oh I can't help it, they won't peer with me" is not a valid
excuse, at least not in my book or the book of anyone who pays me money
to deliver their packets. And this isn't even a case of not being ABLE
to buy sufficient capacity via a transit path (ala Comcast), this is
just two networks who have mutually decided two remain partitioned from
each other in the pursuit of long term strategic advantage. Ultimately
both parties share responsibility for this issue, and you can't escape
that just because you have a tube of icing and some spare time.
Things are a bit more complex than that.
You can't simply say "if someone won't peer with you, you must buy transit". Otherwise, Cogent would be the only tier one left, since they care about their customers less than anyone else. This is not good for me or the Internet, and I refuse to support it.
On the flip side, HE is an open peer, even to their own customers, and
_gives away_ free v6 transit. Taking their free transit & complaining
that they do not buy capacity to Cogent seems more than silly. Plus,
they are doing that I think is in my best interest as a customer -
open peering. Trying to make them the bad guy here seems counter
intuitive.I know you're not naive enough to think that HE is giving away free IPv6
transit purely out of the kindness of their heart. They're doing it to
bulk up their IPv6 customer base, so they can compete with larger
networks like Cogent, and make a play for Tier 1-dom in exactly the same
way that Cogent has done with IPv4. And more power to them for it, it
may well be a smart long term strategic move on their part, but with
every wannabe Tier 1 network comes partitioning and peering disputes, as
they try to trade short term customer pain for long term advantages.
Of course. The question is not: "Is $COMPANY acting in $COMPANY's best interest?" The answer to that is: Duh.
The question is: "Which $COMPANY's best interests more closely align with mine?" If you have the slightest doubt here, you are highly confused.
Sorry to all the HE guys, but trying to simultaniously complain about
your treatment at the hands of other networks and their peering disputes
while emulating their actions is bullshit and you know it.
We disagree. See the first paragraph in this post, HE is not emulating Cogent, Telecom Italia, etc.
You are bitching about both HE & Cogent. If I were paying either for v6 transit, I would bitch too. But I am not paying HE - no one is! - and they _are_ doing things differently than Cogent. So why not support the one whose long term interests both best fit mine and the Internet's? (Plus, to be honest, I have a lot more faith in Mike & Martin to continue doing what's best for me & the Internet than Dave. And by "a lot more", I mean something on the order of "more than 50%" vs. "less than 0.01%".)
Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
No one does, most especially neither 174 nor 6369. (Although GBL3 will be able to make a good stab at it if they don't shed too many customers post-integration.)
Has been going on for a long while now. HE even made a cake for
Cogent (IIRC), to no avail.But, this is not surprising. A lot of public/major peering issues
with v4 over the past few years has been cogent vs. someone else.When two networks are not able to reach each other like this, it usually
requires the active willing participation of both parties to allow the
situation to continue. In this case, HE is doing *PRECISELY* the same
thing that Cogent is doing. They're refusing to purchase transit, and
making the decision to intentionally not carry a full table or have
global reachability, in the hopes that it will strengthen their
strategic position for peering in the long term (i.e. they both want to
be an "IPv6 Tier 1").
Not exactly.
We are perfectly willing to peer with Cogent. They are not only refusing
to purchase transit, they are refusing to peer. To me, that's a pretty big
difference.
To be an IPv6 TIer 1, one has to peer with other IPv6 Tier 1s. HE has
aggressively tried to improve the situation through promiscuous peering
in every way possible. If you are interested in peering with HE and
you have a presence at any of the exchange points we are at, send
an email to peering at HE.NET and we will peer.
I'd say that's pretty different from what Cogent is doing.
I'm not making a judgement call about the rightness or wrongness of the
strategy (and after all, it clearly hasn't been THAT big of an issue
considering that it has been this way for MANY months), but to attempt
to "blame" one party for this issue is the height of absurdity. PR
stunts and cake baking not withstanding, they're both equally complicit.
Respectfully, RAS, I disagree. I think there's a big difference between
being utterly unwilling to resolve the situation by peering and merely
refusing to purchase transit to a network that appears to offer little or
no value to the purchaser or their customers.
Owen
Not at all... You can peer with HE.
Try that with Cogent and then tell me it's the same.
Owen