The most interesting part of the press release to me is:
In the over 1300 on-net locations worldwide where Cogent provides service,
Cogent is offering every Sprint-Nextel wireline customer that is unable to
connect to Cogent's customers a free 100 megabit per second connection to
the Internet for as long as Sprint continues to keep this partitioning of
the Internet in place. Unfortunately, there is no way that Cogent can do
the same for the wireless customers of Sprint-Nextel.
This wasn't the first time Cogent offered something similar. They did the
same thing when Level3 depeered them.
And they'll do it to others in future peering spats. It's just a bullying tactic - entertaining if you're on the sideline; irritating if you're Sprint.
Cogent reminds me of Ethan Coen's poem, which starts:
The loudest has the final say,
The wanton win, the rash hold sway,
The realist's rules of order say
The drunken driver has the right of way.
And they'll do it to others in future peering spats. It's just a bullying tactic - entertaining if you're on the sideline; irritating if you're Sprint.
Cogent reminds me of Ethan Coen's poem, which starts:
The loudest has the final say,
The wanton win, the rash hold sway,
The realist's rules of order say
The drunken driver has the right of way.
So why do SPs keep depeering Cogent? Serious question, why? I'm not aware of any Intercage-like issues with them. I've actually considered them as a potential upstream when we expand into a market they serve.
Best guess would be traffic ratio related - that always seems to be related to de-peering. One side doesn't like the amount of traffic coming in versus going out etc...
So why do SPs keep depeering Cogent? Serious question, why? I'm not
aware of any Intercage-like issues with them. I've actually considered
them as a potential upstream when we expand into a market they serve.
Because some SP's still have a sour taste in their mouth about what Cogent did to the marketplace when they started. If you recall, they were the most disturbing force in the transit wars (not to be confused with the cola or fast-food wars), when they came out with $3,000 fast-Ethernets, and everyone else was enjoying $100+/meg. In my opinion, this was the free market at work, and look -- the market as continued to thrive with plenty of competition.
Not being a customer of either of these guys, I could care less about this. While Sprint most certainly has their reasons, I think generally speaking people care less about this sort of thing these days. 1239 is certainly not the force that they used to be, and they should realize it and stop being stupid.
Why do I say stupid?
Because, if companies like Sprint continue to do things like what Sprint is doing, this will certainly lead to being noticed by legislators, and the next thing we know we will have federally regulated peering or backbone network operating. I can see it now, the Bureau of Peering will be part of the Federal Networking Committee.
Does anyone want that? I certainly don't. Again, not because it would overly affect me, it's just more regulation which we don't need.
The most interesting part of the press release to me is:
In the over 1300 on-net locations worldwide where Cogent provides service,
Cogent is offering every Sprint-Nextel wireline customer that is unable to
connect to Cogent's customers a free 100 megabit per second connection to
the Internet for as long as Sprint continues to keep this partitioning of
the Internet in place. Unfortunately, there is no way that Cogent can do
the same for the wireless customers of Sprint-Nextel.
This wasn't the first time Cogent offered something similar. They did the
same thing when Level3 depeered them.
And they'll do it to others in future peering spats. It's just a bullying tactic - entertaining if you're on the sideline; irritating if you're Sprint.
I would regard this as a good sales tactic. I don't see bullying.
Because, if companies like Sprint continue to do things like what
Sprint is doing, this will certainly lead to being noticed by
legislators, and the next thing we know we will have federally
regulated peering or backbone network operating. I can see it now,
the Bureau of Peering will be part of the Federal Networking
Committee.
I think you are wrong to the extent that BOP will be under the Department Of Fairness.
It seems to me, it's a rather empty offer though. How many Sprint customers affected by the Sprint/Cogent depeering are actually in facilities where they can get that free Cogent connection without paying for expensive backhaul to reach Cogent and already have an ASN, BGP capable router(s), and globally routable CIDRS so they can access both the Sprint and Cogent views of the internet?
Does anyone know how many Level3 customers Cogent actually hooked up when Level3 and Cogent stopped peering?
It seems to me, it's a rather empty offer though. How many Sprint
customers affected by the Sprint/Cogent depeering are actually in
facilities where they can get that free Cogent connection without paying
for expensive backhaul to reach Cogent and already have an ASN, BGP
capable router(s), and globally routable CIDRS so they can access both the
Sprint and Cogent views of the internet?
the two likely entities in the United States would be either the FCC or DHS.
(DHS you say?) The NCS lives under DHS. I wonder if sprint reported the "outage" to the FCC yet, or what answer you would get from calling the NCS or NCC watch.
Why do I say stupid?
Because, if companies like Sprint continue to do things like what
Sprint is doing, this will certainly lead to being noticed by
legislators, and the next thing we know we will have federally
regulated peering or backbone network operating. I can see it now,
the Bureau of Peering will be part of the Federal Networking
Committee.
I think you are wrong to the extent that BOP will be under the Department Of Fairness.
the two likely entities in the United States would be either the FCC or DHS.
(DHS you say?) The NCS lives under DHS. I wonder if sprint reported the "outage" to the FCC yet, or what answer you would get from calling the NCS or NCC watch.
Maybe they can bring it up at the November 4th FCC open meeting :
A Memorandum Opinion and Order addressing the applications filed by Sprint Nextel and
Clearwire for approval of the transfer ofcontrol of licenses, authorizations and leasing
arrangements held by Sprint Nextel and its subsidiaries to New Clearwire.
I would have to agree with Alex that if behavior like this doesn't stop that
the Fed would get involved(regardless of which party is in office). Is this
type of behavior called 'peer pressure', maybe there are care groups to help
these victims. Overall... it is one thing if Sprint and Cogent get into a
shouting match, it would be a whole other ballpark if say AT&T, Qwest,
Verizon or Time Warner de-peered.
This is different than the 3yr hold on peering changes imposed on
UUNET/MCI when they merged with Verizon (were borged by verizon) or
the same hold imposed on ATT when the SBC/ATT merger went down?
While I agree regulation is a possible outcome, I am always amazed at the US gov't self-delusion that they can somehow regulate something like the Internet.
End of day, regulation will just make things more difficult, it will not actually change the way networks make decisions.
Maybe they can bring it up at the November 4th FCC open meeting :
[snip]
While I agree regulation is a possible outcome, I am always amazed at the US gov't self-delusion that they can somehow regulate something like the Internet.
End of day, regulation will just make things more difficult, it will not actually change the way networks make decisions.
But we all knew that.
If the eu attempt at regulating last mile copper acces prices is to serve as example I doubt regulation of interconnects will be for the better...