North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Cogent/Level 3 depeering

  • From: Patrick W. Gilmore
  • Date: Wed Oct 05 18:30:51 2005 
On Oct 5, 2005, at 5:01 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:


On Wed, Oct 05, 2005 at 03:51:34PM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
I think you and I have a different definition of "deny" and "decision".

Cogent was connected to L3. Level 3 TOOK ACTIVE STEPS to sever that
relationship. Cogent, this moment, has their routers, ports, and
configurations ready, willing, and able to accept and send packets to
and from L3.

Please explain to me why you think Cogent is the bad actor here?
At this moment I stand ready willing and able to accept free
interconnection from L3. If I then ask my transit providers to
intentionally block announcement of L3 routes so that they are
unreachable, is it L3's fault that they don't give me free peering?
There is a difference between not doing something and doing something. L3 does not currently peer with you. Not peering with you tomorrow does not take action on their part. Shutting down links does.

Does this make L3 bad? Of course not. But neither does it make Cogent bad. (Which you know since you read my whole post, right?) However, it does make L3 the instigator of the disconnectivity.


It takes two to tango, and what we have here is two participants who are
both very willing to make certain the other side in unreachable while
pointing fingers at the other party for their half of the mess. A more
honest position would be to man up and say "yes we broke half of the
connectivity, they broke the other half, and we're going to stay like this
until someone gives". But then again when has honesty ever been a part of
marketing?
Honestly, RAS, you are spouting more marketing than I am.

L3 BROKE THE CONNECTIVITY. Not half of it, all of it. Cogent may or may not have done things which precipitated this action. But L3 took the steps. If you want to stay away from marketing, don't muddy the waters with things like "we broke half".


As an L3 customer, I am upset that I cannot reach Cogent. As a Cogent customer I am upset I cannot reach L3. But that's not "blame" in the peering sense, that's just me upset over paying money for services not rendered.

As an "objective NANOG poster", I do not know who is at fault. Not even sure I care. If there even is one. Am I "at fault" for not wanting to talk to you? Aren't I allowed to decide to whom I speak and whom I avoid?


On balance, this is bad for the Internet. No matter who is at fault, the Internet is less useful than it was. Even if Cogent buys transit to get to L3, it will still be less useful than it was. Connectivity will be less robust, which hurts all of us.

Sad day for the Internet. But we'll get over it.

--
TTFN,
patrick