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Tsume
join:2004-02-23
Johnson City, TN
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| reply to fiqqq
Re: hmmm
Who was that... Level 3 and cogent or something? Screwed over lots of RR and other ISP customers. Level 3 made it so lots of websites were inaccessible from those ISPs with certain peering agreements.
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"True warriors do not follow paths, they make them. It is not just their desire, it is their nature." (Battletech) | |
Zeb
Premium
join:2000-07-10
Lewisville, TX | If we are talking about the same thing.. it's because these ISPs didn't pay their Level3 bills. | |
owenhome
keeper of the magic blue smoke
Premium
join:2002-07-13
Bentonville, AR
| reply to Tsume
Level 3 Communications, Inc.
The poster child of centralized-decentralization. With one stroke, one company affected thousands of other companies and individuals, exactly what the web was supposed to prevent in the first place.
We were not prepared for that, just as we are not prepared for any major outage.
Any major disruption of a handful of companies could bring this country to a grinding halt and us to our knees. That, in and of itself, is a major, MAJOR problem. You can well bet that any info-terrorist, or hostile foreign power would have L3, MCI, Sprint, AT&T, etc. in their sites and any major disruption to the web could be brought on just by crippling a few such companies. Such companies are extremely important to our well-being in many, many ways. Finance, big-business, small-business, even our utilities such as water, gas, and power depend on them.
We don't like to think so, but we built this system, a system which our country and the entire world depends on incessantly. And because this system depends on a handful of companies driven by the almighty dollar, by its very nature, it is doomed to disruption, corruption, monopolization, and ultimately, failure.
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Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference. | |
owenhome
keeper of the magic blue smoke
Premium
join:2002-07-13
Bentonville, AR
| reply to Zeb
There was no bill. It was a peering agreement. The ISP's and L3 agreed to carry traffic for each other, for free. Kind of a "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" sort of thing.
L3 carried more traffic for the ISP's than the ISP's for L3. L3 decided this arrangement was no longer fair and wanted financial compensation. Unfortunately, there was a contract binding them to the free arrangement.
L3 wanted money, but the ISP's cited the contract and L3's free obligation causing a stalemate. That's were it started.
L3 said "Give me money!"
The ISP's said "Um, no, the contract says you will provide this service at no charge because we carry your traffic too!"
L3 said "Fine, I will just unplug you, contract or no contract, and you won't get plugged back in until you come up with some cash!"
And that's that. Finally, L3 agreed to resume peering services with the ISP's until an agreement for compensation could be reached.
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Never argue with a fool, people might not know the difference. | |
Tsume
join:2004-02-23
Johnson City, TN
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| reply to Zeb
I think you misunderstand, it was a dispute between Level 3 and the other backbone provider (I'll call them cogent because I am not sure if that's their name.)
RR and other ISPs had peering agreements with Level 3 I believe.
Cogent had a peering agreement with Level 3.
Traffic was disproportional, Level 3 demanded cogent to pay.
Cogent kind-of ignored that...
Level 3 in turn told their routers to tell ISP's customers that there were no routes to cogent's customers (instead of the correct route which would be to specify an alternate route to the cogent customers).
RR and other ISP's customers could not access anything on the cogent backbone because Level 3 blocked them. This blocked many many legit websites, and was no fault of said websites webmasters nor the ISPs.
If any of this is wrong feel free to correct me, that's just what I understand of the issue.
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"True warriors do not follow paths, they make them. It is not just their desire, it is their nature." (Battletech) | |
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