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Internet Partitioning - Cogent vs Level 3?
slashmicah asks: "Internet partitioning and Tier 1 ISPs are something most people don't know much about (myself included). Today, however, some Slashdot readers might have run into some issues involving these two topics. Cogent Communications and Level 3, both Tier 1 ISPs, are apparently having some 'undisclosed' disagreements, causing an Internet partition by turning-off or deactivating their peering point. Cogent Co. has released a statement explaining their side of the problem, however they have no mention of when the problem will be fixed, or when they will sort it out. This partitioning is a problem because any [single-homed] computers that are connected through Cogent Co, can not connect to [single-homed] computers connected through Level 3. Having spent all day sorting out this problem, I ask Slashdot: Isn't there a better way that the issue of peering can be handled/regulated? If not, does the future hold a scenario in which the Internet is split into several separate networks, only to be connected at the whims of large corporations?"
For something as essential to the nation as internet service, maybe it's time to consider implementing regulations similar to what electric, water, gas, and telecommunication companies have.
If my grandma can't check her email for a day, I don't really care that much. If my doctor is consulting with a cardiac specialist over using VoIP (V being either voice or video) concerning an acute health problem then I have a much larger problem with outages. As long as we have important economic or healthcare services running over the internet--which is the foreseeable future--this sort of thing needs to either be avoided or have a pre-planned workaround.
I guess this explains some of the unresponsive hosts I came across today. And here I was thinking it must be Bob's Worm of the Week.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
If large companies connect to multiple Tier 1s, then they pretty much don't have to care; their customers can still reach them.
Personally, there are several sites I can't get to from home now. I didn't have any problem getting them from work (UT Austin). I have effectively zero power to rectify this. Annoying.
Now, if Cogent offered me some way to connect to them for an additional $5/mo... would I?
Think... if the government allowed an additional $5/mo. for each Tier 1 my ISP (Time Warner) is connected to... my cable modem bill would instantly double.
That's a scenario that bothers me more than the dissolution of the Net does. Flip side, the Internet would get a whole lot more redundant really quick...
Everyone knows what a success MAE-East, MAE-West and the rest of the public peering points have been. Let's build a few more of them! Or, even better, encourage the federal government to get involved. Perhaps spending some of the federal budget on this problem would be a good idea. I think I recall a peering point clause in the constitution somewhere.
In all seriousness, these private companies will work it out when they realize that their paying customers are pissed and leaving because they're no longer selling very complete connectivity. Just like in the past, it won't take long. If TV has taught me anything, these problems are usually wrapped up pretty nicely in about 28 minutes.
Reminds me on an incident that happened in Australia a couple of years back. Telstra and Optus were pretty much owned all the links outside of Australia, but Telstra lost their major one in a shipping incident. (Sharp anchors?) With nowhere for their data to go they rerouted everything through Optus to let them handle it.
Optus didn't appreciate that and promptly blocked all data between themselves and Telstra. Customers with Telstra were pretty much screwed because they couldn't contact anything and with their network going nuts even sites within Telstra sucked a lot. Still, for a couple of days there, it was two halves of an internet available in here. Was amusing to watch really.
When I asked for an explanation of this, it had to do with a corporate silent-treatment of sorts; because Paltel/Jawwal (the Palestinian telco) was suing Cellcom for licensing infringement and illegal operation, the Cellcom network decided to boycott the Palestinian phone carriers. This caused all sorts of problems for Palestinian society, and the effect was that everyone in Palestinian areas were ditching the local telco and getting Israeli Cellcom cell phones. Jawwal was facing dire times, after their offices were raided by Israeli military and tech imports were prevented because of blanket security concerns.
For folks on the ground, this was just one more manifestation of the intifada/occupation, even the corporations were going at it.
More background available here, here and here.
They're saying Cogent is intentionally not advertising routes to them via other providers, presumably because they're upset about not having a peering agreement in place. Anyone affected by this presumably needs to harass Cogent. I think you read that wrong, or maybe I am. What I'm seeing is We [L3] disconnected someone [Cogent]. Cogent, you might be a little pissed, and decide not to allow our traffic to go over your lines (go figure...). If a peer [Cogent, again] doesn't find another peer to route their traffic through, then their customers won't be able to access our network. If you're a customer of that peer [Hi, Cogent!] you're screwed, so hook up with us, or one of our partners. I'm reading it as L3 trying to dick Cogent around. Maybe that's just me. I don't care either way so far, haven't been denied access to anything yet. We should take this as a note that we should start the internet over, as a totally distributed network. Every country has a main link (of course, there are several of these for every decently sized country, or you'd kinda be defeating the distributed part...), and every state/province has their own peering to that link, and cities down from there etc. - all government owned, and agreed internationally (UN perhaps... tho they've been kinda missing with Bush in office...) that under no condition can they ever intentionally sever the link. I would even think that, government owned and funded, it would be almost a trifle for 10mbit internet connections to be had by all. Of course, the current providers would still be offering residential and business service, but the money would be going to the government, to help cover the costs of the network (along with federal subsidies), instead of Tier1 ISPs.