Details Revealed Behind Cogent/Sprint Fight

from the breaking-the-internet dept

Back in October, we heard about yet another peering dispute concerning internet backbone connections, reminding us that these sorts of battles seem to happen like clockwork reminding everyone that the internet is basically held together with handshake agreements.

The details on the Cogent/Sprint fight quickly became muddy, as both sides spun great stories for the media, each blaming each other. Sprint claimed that it wasn't actually a peering dispute at all, as Cogent wasn't a "peer" since it had agreed to pay a fee to connect (typical peering arrangements involve no payments -- just two networks agreeing to connect). Cogent claimed that Sprint was going against an agreement, and the whole thing blew up in the media. Cogent played the media card first, blaming Sprint, and it worked: Sprint came out looking like the bad guy, and quickly reconnected the network.

Now, Forbes has put together a great detailed look at what actually happened. Apparently, Cogent had asked Sprint for a peering agreement many years ago, but Sprint refused -- fearing that Cogent would send a lot more traffic than Sprint, making it an unfair deal. After back and forth haggling, the two companies agreed to a trial, where Cogent would pay Sprint nearly half a million dollars to test out a connection. If Cogent did not send significantly more traffic, then the two would establish a peering relationship. And, Cogent claims, it lived up to its end of the bargain. The amount of traffic was about equal. Sprint, however, claimed that Cogent still didn't meet the terms of the agreement, but for a totally different reason: complaining that Cogent didn't send enough traffic. This seems pretty questionable, as the supposed fear was that Cogent would send too much. That's why Cogent claims Sprint never intended to set up a real peering arrangement in the first place.

The end result was a standoff, where Sprint just started billing Cogent, as per the terms of the contract if the test period was a failure. Cogent then ignored the bills, pointing out that the test wasn't a failure, and by the terms of the contract, the two had a peering arrangement where it owed no money. After arguing about it in court, Sprint went a step further and disconnected the links, which ended up backfiring. The whole thing is not yet resolved, but apparently the two sides are talking, and say they're intent on working out a reasonable deal. No matter what, as Forbes notes, it's an interesting look into the behind-the-scenes agreements that keep the internet running.

Filed Under: dispute, peering
Companies: cogent, sprint

Sprint And Cogent Remind Us That The Internet Is Held Together With Handshakes And Duct Tape

from the peer-this dept

It seems that every few years we have some sort of story of a major internet provider cutting off another major internet provider over a disagreement concerning peering arrangements. More often than not, one of the companies involved in such disputes is Cogent, who seems to get on a lot of other firms nerves by (they claim) using more than their fair share. It's happening again, as Sprint has cut off Cogent, meaning that plenty of broadband users are having trouble reaching certain websites.

Every time this happens, it reminds us all how fragile the internet is, not because of any bandwidth crunch, but because the overall network really only works thanks to the fact that all of the big internet providers agree to share traffic across their networks through "peering" arrangements, some of which are more informal than others. The problem is that these peering arrangements are supposed to be just that: about "peers" agreeing to share traffic for the betterment of everyone. But, when you have a company like Cogent, who focuses on being just a dumb pipe that sells as much bandwidth as possible at very low levels, then the other peers start to feel that it's unfair. Cogent ends up dumping a lot more traffic on them than they do on Cogent. In this case, Sprint is claiming that Cogent failed to meet the terms of a signed agreement for peering, and has since refused to pay to keep connecting to its network, hence the shut off. Cogent, for its part, is using this mess as something of a PR opportunity, offering free internet connections to Sprint customers during this Sprint outage and saying that all other major carriers have full connectivity to Cogent.

In the end, like all of the other disputes, this one will get worked out and the internet will continue to function -- but it still is worrisome that much of the internet really is reliant on these companies agreeing to continue to play nice with each other.

Filed Under: infrastructure, internet, peering
Companies: cogent, sprint