There are Internet Service Providers and then, there are Internet Service Providers... It is like an onion, there are a few "backbones" (Cogent and Level3 are two) and there are some big players (AOL, Comcast, RoadRunner are some good examples) and then there are the local ISPs who buy a block of addresses from one of the backbones and carve out their own little fifedom in Cyberspace.
Among the top-level providers, there has always been an agreement to provide peering. If someone from my netblock wants to access a site in your netblock, we will both carry the traffic, even though it is between competitors and usually amounts to some serious bandwidth.
Well yesterday, Level3 threw a hissy-fit and severed peering with Cogent.
Here is Cogent's comment:
Level 3* has partitioned its part of the Internet from Cogent's part of the Internet by denying Level 3's customers access to Cogent's customers and denying Cogent's customers access to Level 3 customers. Level 3 terminated its peering with Cogent without cause (as permitted under its peering agreement with Cogent) even though both Cogent and Level 3 remained in full compliance with the previously existing interconnection agreement.
Many Level 3 customers can still exchange traffic with Cogent customers because the Level 3 customer is multi-homed, i.e. it also has a connection to Cogent or to one of the many other networks with which Cogent has a peering relationship. As described below Cogent is offering a solution to Level 3 customers that are not multi-homed.
Cogent will offer any Level 3 customer, who is single homed to the Level 3 network as of October 5, 2005, one year of full Internet transit free of charge at the same bandwidth currently being supplied by Level 3. Cogent will provide this connectivity in over 1,000 locations throughout North America and Europe.
Cogent is committed to an open Internet. The existing interconnection facilities between Level 3 and Cogent remain intact. Cogent hopes that Level 3 will reactivate these connections, restoring a full level of service to their customers.
There is also a short writeup at Hardware Geeks:
Network Divorce
Today in an ugly feud, level3 one of the largest Internet backbones cut off a direct peering connection with Cogent Communications another Internet backbone.
What does this mean for us the users of the internet? Well it just means that people on one network won�t be able to access websites on another network or will experience slower speeds when connecting to websites.
Already users on our forums have posted problems accessing certain websites. User Dark Vegata is unable to reach startdock.com.
Typically networks will connect to each other for free but sometimes a larger network will get Greedy and that is what appears to have happened here. Level3 says they are larger than Cogent and although what they are asking for has not yet been made public it is assumed they want money.
So how long will this dispute go on? Who knows it has come to my thing is bigger than your thing type of situation.
Hey Level3 -- had any cancellations recently? Why don't you fire the dim-bulb manager that thought of this piece of goose-shit, re-edit your routers to enable peering again and get on with life.
Frickin' Loooooosers...
