We entered into a contract with Cogent for service, and were assigned a
/22 for our use. This reassignment was listed in Cogent's rwhois server
(they don't SWIP). They also gave written permission to another transit
provider (Peer1) to accept our BGP announcements for the /22. We have
been announcing them to our Peer1 and over a dozen peers for a few months
now. After paying Cogent $11K, a billing dispute developed. On Friday
May 3 we terminated our service with Cogent, and on May 5 Cogent contacted
our main internet connection provder to stop routing these IPs. Cogent did
not contact us first. There is still an RADB entry for this block with
our AS21936 as the origin. Under pressure from Cogent Peer1 complied,
though I think I have them convinced that a few hours notice on a Sunday
evg is not a reasonable amount of time to renumber from a /22.
What is the generally accpted timeframe for renumbering? My reading of
ARIN policy would seem to imply at least 30 days.
Ralph Doncaster
principal, IStop.com
div. of Doncaster Consulting Inc.
What is the generally accpted timeframe for renumbering? My reading of
> ARIN policy would seem to imply at least 30 days.
I'm not sure it's fair to say that there's an "accepted timeframe" per
se... I've seen 30 days. I've more commonly seen 90 days. I've seen 18
months. I've also seen immediate, like happened to you, when the customer
stops paying and leaves on hostile terms. In short, you can't expect
anything from someone you're not willing to pay, and who has no future
prospect of doing business with you again. If you want a longer period to
renumber, pay them for it.
-Bill
Well how am I supposed to arrange a payment on a Sunday afternoon?
As well I'd say I've already paid them more than enough to use their IPs -
I never brought up a BGP session with them and never passed a single
packet to them. I'm surprised to hear that such extortion techniques are
considered acceptable.
-Ralph
Well how am I supposed to arrange a payment on a Sunday afternoon?
As well I'd say I've already paid them more than enough to use
their IPs - I never brought up a BGP session with them and never
passed a single packet to them. I'm surprised to hear that such
extortion techniques are considered acceptable.
somehow, i suspect that we're hearing only one side of a, quite
likely messy and unhappy, story. and i doubt it all happened on a
sunny sunday afternoon.
randy
> Well how am I supposed to arrange a payment on a Sunday afternoon?
>
> As well I'd say I've already paid them more than enough to use
> their IPs - I never brought up a BGP session with them and never
> passed a single packet to them. I'm surprised to hear that such
> extortion techniques are considered acceptable.
somehow, i suspect that we're hearing only one side of a, quite
likely messy and unhappy, story. and i doubt it all happened on a
sunny sunday afternoon.
That's why I can't believe Cogent actually did this. 14:46 eastern, May 2
my Cogent rep Scott Elrod emailed me indicating there would be no
resolution to the dispute, and to contact him should I wish to have Cogent
service in the future. Since then we received *NO* contact from
Cogent. I first heard that Cogent was expecting an immediate renumbering
from the /22 was when I got an email from Peer1 (as I was watching
Montreal beat Carolina).
-Ralph
I've read some of your other notes so I'm aware there may be extenuating
circumstances. That said, I want to mention normal policies as far as I
can see here....
If you have a /22 from a provider, then your right to use it generally
terminates with the end of the contract with that provider. If you knew
this relationship was going bad, the correct thing would have been to
renumber out of that space as soon as you "saw the writing on the wall" so
to speak and prepare for this event.
The bottom line is the space is theirs and they can do whatever they want
with it.
I know that if I terminate service to a customer (or the customer
disconnects with me), I expect an immediate return of the space. If they
want to keep it they need to keep service with me. Evidentally, there is
no current service arrangement between you and Cogent.
It sounds like you've got some stuff for the lawyers to fight about.
Most likely cogent has done what a lot of us on the list would expect to
be the right thing in relation to the space - immediately revoke use of
address space upon termination of service. About the only leg you might
have to stand on as far as this is concerned is the termination notice
term language in the contract you signed with them ... I.E. they may have
to give you 30 days notice of termination of service, or if you gave them
notice, they might have to provide service for the remainder of the notice
term. That said, I'd recommend you get runumbering as it will probably be
faster to renumber than to work something out with cogent as it sounds
like you aren't on the best of terms with them.
- Forrest W. Christian (forrestc@imach.com) AC7DE
> Well how am I supposed to arrange a payment on a Sunday afternoon?
>
> As well I'd say I've already paid them more than enough to use
> their IPs - I never brought up a BGP session with them and never
> passed a single packet to them. I'm surprised to hear that such
> extortion techniques are considered acceptable.
Read your contract with Cogent carefully. I know our contract states
that any IP addresses allocated must be returned at termination of
contract. As with all PA address space, I would suspect this is the norm.
Simon
> > Well how am I supposed to arrange a payment on a Sunday afternoon?
> >
> > As well I'd say I've already paid them more than enough to use
> > their IPs - I never brought up a BGP session with them and never
> > passed a single packet to them. I'm surprised to hear that such
> > extortion techniques are considered acceptable.
Read your contract with Cogent carefully. I know our contract states
that any IP addresses allocated must be returned at termination of
contract. As with all PA address space, I would suspect this is the norm.
Ours too but we'd still be reasonable, even with a company we had a major
dispute with (altho we might give them 1 month instead of 6 to return
them!).
I think they're on dangerous ground, whether or not their contract says
the IPs should be returned if they not only stop routing them but then
start contacting third parties that they have no relationship with and ask
them to stop routing them with the end result being that your business
cannot function then I'd say this looks more malicious than pure business
and I'd suggest to them a courtroom might view it that way too.
I dont like legal battles tho, so I'd probably contact them.. suggest they
are harming your business illegally and that a month or two is not
unreasonable to get alternative arrangements in place, dispute or not.
Steve
> What is the generally accpted timeframe for renumbering? My reading of
> ARIN policy would seem to imply at least 30 days.
[...]
The bottom line is the space is theirs and they can do whatever they want
with it.
Is that true? I thought the space belongs to ARIN, and they loan it to
certain parties. Those parties can use the IPs in accordance with ARIN
rules.
-Ralph
This whole thing sounds fishy. He never passed any traffic to cogent, but
he was using their IPs. Why wasn't he using Peer1's IPs? Cogent tried to
get them shut down on a sunday? Is there a serious BOFH in Cogent's
network monitoring group? I doubt the billing department would be open
sunday afternoon to order the disconnect, much less know to suggest
contacting Peer1 to ask them to stop routing the space. It sounds like
there's an awful lot missing from the story.
This is why using provider IP space sucks...but you have to plan
accordingly. If you're in dispute and plan to terminate service, start
renumbering. I've been there and done that. I've also been on the other
end and let a customer have several months to renumber, but that was a
special case and they left on relatively good terms. A customer who left
without paying their bill would likely not be treated so well.
Hello Ralph,
Is that true? I thought the space belongs to ARIN, and they loan it to
certain parties. Those parties can use the IPs in accordance with ARIN
rules.
The way you've written the above statements makes them true. However, such
a relationship does not extend to the issue you're dealing with. ARIN
cannot dictate the business practices of its constituents.
ARIN's policy on renumbering only relates to providers renumbering out of
their existing upstream blocks to obtain virgin blocks from ARIN. The
renumbering policies of ARIN are not applied, explicitly or implicitly, to
the provider's downstream assignment policies. [I guess they would be in
theory if you were seeking a larger assignment from your upstream and
wanted to renumber out of your existing assignment to obtain that
space...]
What others have told you here is correct: when you terminated your
contract with Cogent [any contract language nonwithstanding] you gave up
your "right" to use any portion of their address space.
As one person on here already pointed out, this is a good thing. Think
about it.
/david
Its interesting that such a vicious dispute has taken place. It has
been my experience with Cogent infact that when issues exist that they
are quite willing to at least listen and arrive at some reasonable
solution. I know when I have had issues all be it more technical than
billing they acted quite quickly and responsibly. My advise in dealing
with them as it would be in dealing with a nybody is be reasonable and
very calm. Most of the engineers and upper management have really good
heads on their shoulders and seem willing to work things out. That's
been my experienc anyway.
Scott
For all intense and purposes its up to the end user. In the case of an
isp getting space from Arin it is allocated to them which in their
terminology is different than assigned. Isps by having space allocated
can then assign or remove the assignment of space they hold pretty much
as they see fit as long as the meet the arin suggested minimums. My
experienc has been Arin is most concerned with proper use of space
fbefore allocating more space than how specific space is assigned and
de-assigned.
What others have told you here is correct: when you terminated your
contract with Cogent [any contract language nonwithstanding] you gave up
your "right" to use any portion of their address space.
As one person on here already pointed out, this is a good thing. Think
about it.
What it tells me is I should have wasted enough space to consume 8 /24s
long ago, so I could get a /20 directly from ARIN. I assign IPs to
customers very conservatively. Multiple DSL customers with static IPs are
put on a shared subnet instead of one subnet per customer. I easily could
have used 8 /24's a year ago and still conformed to ARIN rules. At the
time I was only using 3 /24's. We recently reached 8 /24s and applied to
ARIN a few weeks ago for a /20, but it sounds like the best thing to do is
to use IPs in the most inefficient way possible (while still conforming to
ARIN policy) in order to quickly qualify for PI space.
-Ralph
<rant>
I'm sorry, but ARIN's policy practically _encourages_ the "efficient
wasting" of space to qualify for PI space. This is one of the most
frustrating things to deal with. What's a startup ISP/MSP/ASP-type to do?
You want PI space for the benefit of your customers (for obvious reasons),
but ARIN requires that you start with an upstream's space. So you generate
B.S. justification for 8 /24s, slap a zillion IPs on some dumb 386
somewhere, then request PI space from ARIN. Then two years later your
upstream ISP realizes you don't need the space anymore, then MAYBE assigns
it elsewhere.
This just seems counter-productive to me. There really should be a vehicle
for these types of situations.
Grant
What it tells me is I should have wasted enough space to consume 8 /24s
long ago, so I could get a /20 directly from ARIN.
You are correct! Please drive through.
/david
Randy is right. We don't know both sides. That having been said...
Ralph Doncaster wrote:
What it tells me is I should have wasted enough space to consume 8 /24s
long ago, so I could get a /20 directly from ARIN.
Right. What ISPs need to realize is that whatever benefit that is gained from provider-based addressing can be negated by people not having faith that they can transition from one set of addresses to another. Being excessively strict benefits no one. And so each side needs to be reasonable. Otherwise we'll have end customers going to ARIN -- or EBay.
In other words, this might be another instance of a frog in the pot.
Eliot
Hmmm, maybe my experience with Arin is differnet but it wasn't all that
difficult for me. I received a /19 initial allocation and never had to
use upstream space at all!!! It took a little more paperwork and
perhaps my case was unique but it was quite painless.
Scott
As someone who used to run a registry, one of the most frustrating things to
deal with was watching ISPs pee in their own pool and then scream at the
registries 'cause the water was yellow.
Just how big should the DFZ be?
Given the Internet is not (yet, at least) a fascist state, the registries
rely on ISPs to be aware of the environment in which they are operating. As
it is unlikely any of the registries will be hiring independent auditing
firms to verify true utilization, there is need for a certain level of
trust. If an ISP is too small to justify the allocation of a /20, then they
should obtain address space from an upstream provider so that they do not
add yet another entry to the DFZ.
The term "tragedy" in "the tragedy of the commons" is not a mistake...
Rgds,
-drc
What are we trying to solve here? AFAIK, the policy exists because of the
supposed "shortage" of IP space.
Let's not regurgitate the "basement-multihomers" discussion.