The severing of peering connections between Cogent and Sprint the other day sent shock waves throughout the sector even as everyone tried to figure out just what had happened and what the extent of the damage was. There wasn’t ever much hope that this would be a short interruption, and in fact everyone seems to be settling in for a long one. The disagreement between the two, at least in public, seems to be rather basic.
According to a PC Magazine article, Cogent says that Sprint is violating a contract, and Sprint says there isn’t even a contract. It all seems to stem from a 2006 trial arrangement between the two networks, which somehow kept going on for two years. Sprint says Cogent failed to meet the criteria to pass the trial and thus the whole idea was tossed out. Cogent refused to disconnect so Sprint did it for them. We will probably never really know the details because the agreement is not public, but it is odd that Cogent would think the courts would *force* a peering arrangement, these agreements usually have all sorts of outs for both sides. Most likely they don’t actually expect to make that work, they just want to put enough pressure on to establish private peering on better terms than Sprint is currently offering.
But what do TelecomRamblings readers think? Who ought to win this fight?
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Categories: Internet Backbones · Internet Traffic · Old · Polls
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Peering works due to the equitable exchange of traffic. When one peer is out of balance the cost burden shifts to the side that has to carry more traffic further. Often we hear that if the peering comes back up then the side that pulled the plug must have ‘lost’. In reality there can a settlement that meets the objectives of both sides.