Its not your imagination; The Internet IS broken

Yes it would. I wonder if we could Google it?! (I'm half kidding of course!)

this is pretty interesting
internet_architecture

If anyone is inclined to be reading a bunch Internet Society

Thank you, Timberlanko!
Thank you, Timberlanko, for posting a link to this thread over on Tomkitten's thread about his printer problem!

This is ncredible! First I had heard about the subject. Guess that's why we're here on A2K: to learn. What's the answer? Hand delivery? I use the internet email for communications with "bosses and fellow workers." Are there any "secure networks" (systems)? For a fee? What to do? What to do!

Charli
sorry to say but secure is an illusion

bm

Thanks for the tip, JP!!

Anymore news on the net wars? I'm really worried about my mail.

Thanks

Things for the moment are pretty much back to normal; L3 has repeered Cogent temporarily, announcing the accommodation will be in place until November 9th.

What the flap amounts to is that L3, much larger than Cogent, determined that Cogent essentially was getting a "Free Ride" over L3's network, passing far more traffic to L3 than L3 passed to Cogent. Back in August, L3 advised Cogent that situation would be addressed, one way or the other; "Pay us, or find another way to route your traffic", more or less. Cogent apparently figured L3 was bluffing, and bluffed back; "Oh yeah - whatchya gonna do - shut us off?" L3 responded "Yup, you got it. Deal with this" and depeered Cogent.

Dueling press releases:

Cogent: "Turn us back on and we'll negotiate"

L3: "Fine - You've got 30 days to see it our way"


The injured parties here really are the internet users. The spat between these 2 backbone firms need not have gone to the extreme it did; a couple of alternate scenarios could have played out. For instance, Cogent could have agreed to balance their L3 usage via financial arrangement, or Cogent could have set about structuring alternate routing to prevent negative impact resulting from L3's threatened depeering. Had either of these options been exercised, there would have been no outage. Both options would have affected Cogent's profitability negatively, at least near-term. Neither option was effected, and the internet user took it in the shorts. The ball is in Cogent's court, and with L3's announcement that they would provide a year's free service to any Cogent customer choosing to switch, Cogent hasn't much of a negotiating position.

It should be noted not all internet users were impacted, as many ISPs utilize multiple backbone providers, considering the redundancy a protection against problems experienced by any one provider taking down the multiply-connected ISP's customer network. The outage occurred (and was spotty) because not all ISPs are multiply connected, and with L3's depeering of Cogent, ISPs without alternates, relying exclusively on either L3 or Cogent, found themselves cut off from access to networks solely dependent upon the other's network.

bm

It's not your imagination
So far, Comcast hasn't been affected, but when I read about this feud in the paper I got shivers up my backbone, to think that we are all held hostage to the petty competition of two groups. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any counteraction which helpless users can take.

I hope timberlandko is right, and that things have been resolved between the two parties, but blackmail never finally settle anything, and blackmail is what it was, to my mind.

sort of a must read link

The UN wants the US to give the Internet governance to the ITU. The US
response: "over my dead body" (or words to that effect)....

Right on, husker!

Well this is one way to get me away from the computer.

This sucks. I noticed it too and was wondering wtf.

And 10 minute waits just to submiot an f...ing post

you typed that... yesterday didnt you??

this post of mine i typed on monday at 6pm...

Prepping For Internet Outages

Level3-Cogent fiasco sounds alarm

By Dan Neel Courtesy of CRN
In the wake of the Level 3-Cogent fiasco, VARs are making preparations for the next time an Internet provider pulls the plug on Web traffic, which experts say is not an if, but a when.
Earlier this month, partners scrambled to customers' aid after Level 3 Communications disconnected Cogent Communications as an Internet peer. The reason, according to Level 3: Cogent's excessive traffic volume. Free peering is a common practice among Internet backbone companies as a way to simplify customer access across the Internet. By disconnecting Cogent, Level 3 cut off access to millions of IP addresses.

"We learned about it from a sudden burst of sporadic customer calls," said Tim Bradley, senior vice president of VoIP at New Global Telecom, a Level 3 master agent in Golden, Colo. "We were given no warning."

From now on, Bradley will advise customers to have a second Internet provider to act as a failover.

One of Cogent's largest customers, an online gaming company that survives off the Web, saw Internet traffic plummet 25 percent when Level 3 pulled the plug, said Quy "Q" Nguyen, founder and CEO of Allyance Communications Networks, Irvine, Calif. Nguyen said the experience shows agents and VARs the importance of choosing the right Internet provider partner.

"We are at a turning point," said Daniel Berninger, senior analyst at Tier 1 Research, who said he expects to see more Internet bullies taking weaker peers' lunch money by forcing them to pay transit fees. "The incentive for the big player to cut off the medium-size payers is pretty high," he said.

VARs whose customers who can't afford a backup Internet provider should become familiar with failover Internet features now appearing in firewall products from vendors such as SonicWall and Cisco, said Tom Snyder, COO of Xantrion, a consultant and MSP in Oakland, Calif.

Level 3 plans to cut off Cogent again on Nov. 9 if the two don't reach a settlement.

WOW, after reading this I decided to check if my internet works, but then I realized that I'm online, so it works!
Can't imagine what will I do without Internet

Unless your ISP is wholly dependent on Cogent, you should be fine even if no settlement is reached and Cogent gets depeered again. Most ISPs and major hosts are multiply connected, and many which were not prior to this flap are now. This sorta thing will happen again from time to time, and involve different players - its inevitable.