Backbone-News » Cogent

Connectivity between Sprint-Nextel and Cogent restored

admin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:21:52 +0000

Sprint-Nextel announced on Sunday that “they initiated a temporary reconnection to the Cogent network while longer term alternate and permanent access options are explored.”

The detailed statement from Sprint provides the long awaited point of view from their side of things. The facts (as seen by Sprint) include a one to one comparison of the statements made by Cogent and how Sprint sees things:

- On october 30th, they indeed disconnected the final two interconnects, but this was only the last step of disconnecting all of the originally existing 10 interconnects. The started the process of disconnecting those 10 circuits on October 7th, so it was hardly a surprise for Cogent.

- Sprint confirms yet again that both parties entered a trial peering agreement in September 2006, which ended in September 2007.

- Sprint filed a lawsuit on September 2nd against Cogent for breach of contract due to Cogent refusal to pay Sprint for the ongoing connection to the Sprint network. Sprint also provided Cogent with a 30 days advance notice of the disconnection.

It will be interesting to see what the final outcome of this will be, since as mentioned above, the reconnection is only temporary.

Sprint-Nextel: The reason for the de-peering

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 21:52:01 +0000

As we wrote earlier, Cogent and Sprint-Nextel are in the midst of a peering dispute. Slowly more details are appearing which gives us a better view on what happened and ended in the disconnection. Both companies entered a peering agreement in November 2006. According to the information posted by The Register, Sprint confirms that this was purely a trial agreement, and Cogent does actually not fulfill all of the requirements defined in that agreement, in particular in regards of traffic levels exchanged between the two networks.
Matthew Sullivan (Sprint) told The Register: “Cogent failed to satisfy the peering criteria that was laid out in the agreement and refused to pay Sprint to stay connected to our network”. Cogent does not agree to the financial compensations defined in the agreement, and as a consequence, after a long period of discussions and giving Cogent advance notice of the plan, Sprint-Nextel deactivated the connections and end the agreement.

The view from Cogent is rather different. Dave Schaeffer (CEO, Cogent) is quoted at The Register: “We were notified by Sprint that they wished to change the method of measuring utilization” and “We protested and explained that this was in violation of the agreement.”

Both companies are currently at curt over this issue, which will certainly not help in a fast resolution of the issue.

Update: Om Malik (GigaOM) has also picked the story up in a blog post and provides some further information.

Sprint-Nextel depeers Cogent (updated)

admin — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 14:24:12 +0000

What started as with a few messages on several ISP focused mailing-lists has been confirmed by Cogent in a press release today: Sprint-Nextel and Cogent have interrupted their peering connections, and as such customers from both networks can no longer reach the other network.

As a lot of you know, this is not the first time Cogent has been in the middle of a peering dispute, and so far, with no information from Sprint-Nextel on the matter, it is unclear what the reason behind the issue is, and who actually started the trouble.

Update: Head over to the Renesys blog to get Todd Underwoods detailed analysis of the situation. As always, worth reading. Their data gives details about the number of networks which are affected by this dispute:
- 289 autonomous systems are single homed behind Cogent
- 214 autonomous systems are single homed behind Sprint
All of these networks are currently not able to reach each other!

Randy Epstein (President, WV Fiber) informed the readers of the NANOG mailing list that the WV Fiber network (AS19151) is currently also affected by this since they only contract with Sprint for Transit, and is settlement free with the rest of its peers, which doesn’t include Cogent anymore since late last year when Cogent depeered AS19151 for unknown reason.

Update 2: Further information can be found in an article at the Arbor Networks blog, giving also an idea of the amount of traffic exchanged between AS174 and AS1239. But still, no information has surfaced so far about the actual cause of the de-peering.

Cogent/Telia: Connectivity restored

admin — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:30:40 +0000

Exactly 14 days after the “dispute” between Cogent and Telia started, it seems that both parties have finally reached an agreement.

Since 17:53 UTC today, there is again direct connectivity between both networks, and as a consequence customers on both networks can reach each others again.

Below is the view of the connectivity of one of the Cogent prefixes (38.0.0.0/8) as it was seen again today. (Click on the image for a larger version)

We did some test using the Cogent Looking Glass, and we can see that connectivity between both networks has been restored at multiple locations in the US and Europe.

Traceroute from Washington towards www.teliasonera.se:

 1 fa0-8.na01.b005944-0.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.250.56.189) 4 msec 4 msec 0 msec
  2 gi3-9.3507.core01.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.28.67.225) 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec
  3 te3-1.ccr02.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.3.158) 4 msec 4 msec 0 msec
  4 vl3493.mpd01.dca02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.7.230) 4 msec
    te4-1.mpd01.dca02.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.182) 0 msec 0 msec
  5 vl3494.mpd01.iad01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.42) 0 msec
    vl3497.mpd01.iad01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.5.66) 0 msec 4 msec
  6 ash-bb1-geth7-3-3-0.telia.net (213.248.88.41) 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec
  7 nyk-bb2-link.telia.net (80.91.250.18) 8 msec
    nyk-bb2-pos0-3-0.telia.net (213.248.80.137) 12 msec
    nyk-bb1-link.telia.net (213.248.83.21) 8 msec

Hop 6 is the first hop on the TeliaSonera network and the hostanme identifies this as Ashburn/US.

Traceroute from Los Angeles:

  1 gi10-0.224.core01.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (66.250.4.5) 0 msec 4 msec 4 msec
  2 te3-1.mpd01.lax01.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.2.102) 0 msec 0 msec 4 msec
  3 vl3492.mpd01.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.3.10) 0 msec
    vl3493.mpd01.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.230) 0 msec 0 msec
  4 gi0-0-0.core01.lax05.atlas.cogentco.com (154.54.6.185) 4 msec 4 msec 0 msec
  5 las-bb1-link.telia.net (213.248.72.177) 4 msec 4 msec 4 msec
  6 nyk-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.254.18) 76 msec 72 msec 72 msec
  7 kbn-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.249.25) 168 msec 172 msec 168 msec
  8 s-bb1-link.telia.net (213.248.65.141) 172 msec 176 msec 176 msec
  9 s-b4-link.telia.net (80.91.251.21) 176 msec 176 msec 176 msec

Hop 5 shows us the second interconnect in the US, located in LA.

Traceroute from Amsterdam:

 1 vl3.mpd01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.16.125) 0 msec 0 msec 4 msec
  2 gi2-0-0.core01.ams03.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.0.33) 0 msec 0 msec 4 msec
  3 po1-0.core01.lon01.atlas.cogentco.com (130.117.1.225) 68 msec 220 msec 228 msec
  4 ldn-b4-link.telia.net (213.248.70.237) 8 msec 8 msec 12 msec
  5 ldn-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.251.18) 8 msec
    ldn-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.250.234) 8 msec 24 msec
  6 hbg-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.250.220) 24 msec
    hbg-bb2-link.telia.net (80.91.254.218) 24 msec 24 msec

Hop 4 is the first router on the TeliaSonera network. This time located in London/UK.

Traceroute tests from the other Cogent routers in Europe all go through London, even from Stockholm, indicating that we London is the only interconnect between the two networks in Europe.

Cogent vs Telia – still no end in sight

admin — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:39:14 +0000

Over a week has now past since the disconnection between the Cogent and Telia networks happened. It is unprecedented that such a dispute goes on for such a long period, but interestingly enough, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of outcry happening.

Why is that? Are there really only very few networks out there who buy solely from one of the two and as such have alternate path to the affected networks?

Earl Zmijewski from Renesys posted an update on the Renesys Blog where he analyses further the situation. Interesting read.

Cogent/Telia peering dispute – Routeviews

admin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:22:38 +0000

The following animation shows you the actual routing changes as seen by BGPlay (Routeviews.org).

Click on the image to view the animation in a new window.

You can also download the PowerPoint presentation here.

Cogent/Telia peering dispute – Who is the bad guy?

admin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:08:12 +0000

As reported earlier, at the end of last week Cogent and Telia got disconnected from each other. The peering relationship between both networks has been terminated, and the fact that both Cogent and Telia customers can no longer reach each others shows that at least one of the two parties is preventing the normal flow of traffic through alternative paths (i.e. their upstream connections). Neither Cogent, nor Telia is a so-called Tier1 provider, and each one of them is buying Transit from at least one other network. As mentionned on the Renesys blog, this was actually the case during the first 12 hours after the peering connections got disconnected. During that period of time, traffic rerouted Verizon.

There is still no official comment from either side regarding this topic. Whenever Cogent had been de-peered in the past (Level3, OpenTransit,etc…) it didn’t take Cogent very long to release information blaming the other party. Well that isn’t the case this time.

Interestingly enough, the overall opinion out there seems to be that Cogent is the bad guy this time. This is mainly based upon the original post on Gigaom.

I was never really convinced that this is the case, since it doesn’t really make any sense for Cogent to de-peer Telia. If they would, it would clearly indicate a rather radical change of direction in Cogent’s peering policy, which was rather open over the past years (at least compared to other networks of the same size).

It is very interesting to see that Cogent only very recently extended their network footprint into the Nordics (Finland, Sweden, Norway), and as such straight into the heart of Telia-land! Until then, Cogent wasn’t a major competitor for Telia in these countries.

Now, we obviously don’t have any facts here, but it very suspicious that this peering dispute happens shortly after Cogent enters Telias home-market!

UPDATE: Gigaom has published further information, and although the source isn’t given, the article provides comments from Dave Schaeffer (Founder and CEO of Cogent):

Quote: Getting specific about Telia, Schaffer says that the Nordic carrier is in breach of a contract with his company. The bone of contention is quite arcane. Cogent says that Telia was obligated to install certain peer connections with Cogent at specific locations, but hasn’t done so because it wants to degrade the experience for Cogent customers.

Cogent says that Telia was obligated to install certain peer connections with Cogent at specific locations, but hasn’t done so because it wants to degrade the experience for Cogent customers.

“They are resentful of our expansion in these markets,” he says. Schaffer also says his company remains “willing and anxious for settlement-free peering” and that “Telia needs to meet their contractual obligations.”

Cogent/TeliaSonera peering “issues”

admin — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 10:20:13 +0000

Until last Friday, Cogent and TeliaSonera were in a bilateral peering relationship, meaning they exchanged traffic between their networks for free.

By what is known at the moment, it looks like Cogent is at the origin of the problem. They have decided to end the peering agreement no longer exchange traffic with TeliaSonera. The consequence is that people with Cogent only connectivity are no longer able to connect to sites on teh telia network, and vice-versa.

There is no official word yet from Cogent, but Telia has informed their customers and blames Cogent. Funny enough they basically recommend to their Transit customers to buy additional Upstream from a second ISP to get around the issue. Interesting approach.

It isn’t the first time that Cogent finds itself in a peering fight. In 2005 Level3 de-peered Cogent, the same year OpenTransit de-peered Cogent and I could continue to go on.

It shows unfortunately yet again one thing: Don’t rely on a single provider if you want reliable connectivity! get multihomed to at least to different Transit providers!

We will provide you with more updates on the current situation as soon as further details appear.

Further coverage:
GigaOm
Nanog

Cogent extends network in Europe

admin — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 22:58:41 +0000

Cogent Communications reported on their blog that they are continuing to grow their network coverage in Europe. New countries added to their network footprint include:

Ireland: Dublin

Italy: Arezzo, Bologna, Florence, Rome, and Venice/Padua

Finland: Helsinki
Norway: Oslo
Sweden: Malmo

Czech Republic: Prague
Hungary: Budapest
Romania: Bucharest
Slovakia: Bratislava

Especially the cities in Eastern Europe show the recent trend of most of the major international Service Providers moving further into the eastern European countries, which have become a popular outsourcing region for many multinational corporations and which see a massive growth over the last years.

Click here to see their updated network map.