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The Other Side of the Sprint Vs. Cogent Depeering
Swoolley writes "A month back this community discussed the Sprint vs. Cogent depeering. Now a story I wrote for Forbes.com tells the inside story of the fight, based on the lawsuits the two companies filed against each other in Virginia state court. For once, thanks to those suits, the public gets to see the details of a confidential peering agreement between two of the Internet's largest autonomous systems, as well as the circumstances leading up to the depeering. (Which company is in the right? Read the facts and decide for yourself.) While some people have argued that the depeering is reason for more government regulation, the Forbes story makes the case that details of the recent Cogent vs. Sprint fight argue for exactly the opposite: keeping the Internet backbones free of government meddling."
These kinds of agreements should be set by law because they serve the public and the parties depend on public servitude. Real value is provided by interconnects and divided networks are worthless. The story presented by Forbes is one of Sprint screwing up and customers being damaged in what should have been a no brainer deal. Sprint lost more than it could have gained but we can't rely on corporate greed to protect the public interest in the future. Sooner or later, it might be in a large company's best interest to bully smaller companies and the public will lose again.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Uh, no. Sprint is 100% in the wrong here, and the inevitable settlement with Cogent will confirm that.
Sprint made a contract with Cogent saying that they would peer with them after a trial period if the traffic was equal. It was. Sprint does not deny that.
Essentially, the agreement was beneficial to them both. Sprint was able to get faster connections to Cogent customers, and Cogent customers got faster connections to Sprint.
Sprint decided they wanted more money, though, and decided to change the deal from "equal traffic" to "equal traffic over a certain level". They stand to gain a whopping 0.004% of their current income by going after Cogent. They've already lost far more than that on customer ill-will by cutting off Cogent. It should give you how stupid a move this was for Sprint.
Sprint is, as always, the villain here.
Wow, you're so smart. Let's just appoint you chairman of the Federal Reserve since you're obviously an economic genius...
Companies making these deals don't own the land the lines run through and are obligated to be good stewards of it. This is the basis for telco regulation, to define what a good steward is. Cutting off large chunks of the internet is harmful to the public and should be avoided with reasonable regulations. Companies that violate those regulations can and should be replaced by the public with another that will maintain infrastructure better.