ISP Dispute Causing Connectivity Issues for Customers

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A peering dispute between Telia and Cogent is causing routing and connectivity problems for many internet users. Cogent shut down their connections to Telia over what they described as a 'contract dispute' over the size and location of their peering points. Telia attempted to route around the problem, but Cogent blocked that, too. This has caused a lot of trouble for sites which are not multi-homed. Groklaw, for example, is on a Cogent network (MCNC.demarc.cogentco.com), so any Europeans connecting via Telia can't get through."

Comments

This doesn't seem too crazy to me...

[morbiuswilters]

The Internet is built on cooperation. If two companies can't agree on how they will connect, then it seems they have that right. Just like their customers have the right to move to a different provider. Personally, if I was seriously affected by this I would never do business with either of the involved parties again. Hopefully people will leave and that will push them to negotiate, but I don't think they should be forced to work together if they don't want to.

Internet is vital now...

[JustinOpinion]

There was a time when the Internet was more like a novelty or hobby project. Those of us using it were on the fringe, and nothing that we did on the 'net was vital.

That is no longer the case. The Internet has grown to become a vital infrastructure. Just about every business relies on the Internet to get their work done. It is an indispensable tool for students and academics. It has risen nearly to the status of roads or electrical power in terms of being depended upon by billions of people.

What's my point? My point is that with respect to most utilities (roads, water, electricity, phone) we wouldn't tolerate much interruption in service... and we certainly wouldn't accept companies squabbling as a decent excuse for degrading the infrastructure. Can you imagine driving to work one day and finding roads blocked because of a contract dispute?

I'm not sure what the answer is. Turning the Internet into a government utility has its own problems. Similarly, laws which require certain norms for the utility may be over-reaching or impotent. But, ultimately, we need to push for this critical infrastructure to no longer be treated as a best-effort hobby/entertainment service. We need companies (and possibly legislators?) to acknowledge that the Internet is critical, and that this means that uptime/bandwidth/QoS must be maintained at a high-level.

Re:Internet is vital now...

[mi]

Can you imagine driving to work one day and finding roads blocked because of a contract dispute?

Why, yes I can — the government-owned New York subway was gripped by just such a problem recently (in 2005). Millions of people were affected — getting to work was a nightmare...

In more Socialist countries (such as France) subway and other vital infrastructure is routinely shut down due to strikes (which are contract disputes between workers and employer). I was actually hit by such a strike myself — on that one week I was in Paris — and had to walk through the streets smelling of rotting garbage, because garbage collectors were on strike too — no kidding...

If people don't want to do their job for some reason, there is no way to force them. It was already illegal for New York transit to strike, but they did it anyway. For another example, when the policemen feel, they aren't treated nicely, they strike too. Although it is illegal for them to strike (obviously), you can not stop them from calling in sick (the special term is "Blue Flu"). For yet another example, flight controllers can't strike either, yet they had to make Reagan famous by striking — and disabling an even more important part of the country's (world's!) infrastructure...

These things will happen...

Re:How much for only half an Internet?

[fm6]

Stupidity like this will cause both companies problems with their customers in court and in the marketplace. I don't think a few disgruntled Swedish users are going to have much of a legal or economic impact on Cogent. Telia certainly will suffer, but they're not the ones that pulled the plug. According to Cogent, this is all Telia's fault for not being a good peering partner. But there really ought to be a better way to settle this than disrupting Internet access for millions of people.

What really has me concerned is that Cogent is choosing to punish Telia beyond simply shutting down the peering points. They've blocked all traffic that originates from Telia's network even if it comes through a third network. Doesn't that violate their peering agreements with the third networks? And isn't it dangerously like censorship? Perhaps someone should ask the FCC.

Also affects WoW players...

[WinterSilence]

Also no one playing World of Warcraft using Cogent as ISP can connect to any WoW servers, since Blizzard use Telia's backbone...
This is listed in-game in WoW currently at the login screen.

Also affects email traffic in the US & Europe

[vinsci]

Since Cogent actively drops any traffic that's been even just in transit anywhere on the pretty big TeliaSonera International Carrier network (it's a tier 1 net that covers all of the US and Europe), your email messages will just be held at some random backup email server for a couple of days until you'll get a return notice saying your message hasn't been delivered yet. If you're lucky that is.

For any important/urgent emails, you now need to make a follow-up phone call, just to see if the message was delivered. (Yes, you could request a receipt when the message is opened, but it's optional for the receiver to send the receipt and many don't).

I hope that ibiblio & the internet archive (archive.org) are moved away from their current hosting on Cogent's network, urgently.

Great timing to send urgent business email, normally delivered within seconds, only to find out that it has never been received. I do wonder if this active sabotage of 3rd party Internet traffic might be class-actionable. Of course e-mail is just a tiny part of the overall losses that 3rd parties suffer from this.

The need for BAPPs (Big-Ass Peering Pipes)

[1sockchuck]

According to Wired, Cogent felt Telia didn't provide "fat enough pipes." The capacity of peering connections is becoming a point of tension in a growing number of peering relationships. Video traffic is driving strong demand for 10 gigabit Ethernet connections for peering, but some major ISPs are apparently reluctant to upgrade, asserting that the financial benefits of big-pipe peering don't offset the short-term expense of network upgrades needed to support 10gigE. The economics of peering is a tricky business sometimes, and video traffic is complicating the equation.