[85187] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Cogent/Level 3 depeering
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alex Rubenstein)
Wed Oct 5 19:38:38 2005
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 19:38:10 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)
From: Alex Rubenstein <alex@nac.net>
To: Jeff Shultz <jeffshultz@wvi.com>
Cc: Simon Lockhart <simon@slimey.org>, NANOG list <nanog@nanog.org>
In-Reply-To: <43442AF6.4060108@wvi.com>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
> 1. Level 3 is probably annoyed at Cogent for doing the extremely low cost
> transit thing, thus putting price pressures on other providers - including
> them. So they declared war.
Is this wrong? Two sides: a) cogent is directly responsible for the
accelerated pace of transit pricing errosion, by almost an order of
magnitude when they started. b) perhaps someone else would have done it?
> 2. Level 3's assault method is to drop peering with Cogent, in hopes this
> will force Cogent to purchase transit to them in some fashion (does Level 3
> have an inflated idea of their own worth?), also forcing them to raise prices
> and hopefully (for Level 3) returning some stability to the market.
I think I'd bet that if L3 depeered Cogent, the last place cogent would go
to buy transit to L3 would be L3.
> 3. Cogent's counter-attack is to instead offer free transit to all single
> homed Level 3 customers instead, effectively stealing them (and their
> revenue) from Level 3... and lowering the value of Level 3 service some
> amount as well.
This is a free enterprise machine we live in. I laud Cogent for this
action. It shows chutzpah (see: cajones).
> 4. Next move, if they choose to make one, is Level 3's.
I agree with the Honorable Mr. Steenbergen. I will be watching
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=LVLT
> Fun. I think I'll stay in the trenches.
It will be fun, until the point at which this happens, and the depeered
sues the depeeree. It will then become further fun when a unwise,
uneducated judge in a court of equity will enter a status-quo injunction,
forcing the two parties to peer.
Tis what we need: court enforced peering.
I can't imagine how this could happen, however.
(please be sure you detected the sarcasm in the last statement).
--
Alex Rubenstein, AR97, K2AHR, alex@nac.net, latency, Al Reuben
Net Access Corporation, 800-NET-ME-36, http://www.nac.net
