Internet is free, but, before to be free, the internet is a busness, and nobody have control of all the think... US control the ISP's, But places like China control their Tranet, and How it comunicate with the Internet... I live in Brazil (sorry by my poor english), and here, our ISP's are at most national (or from international consortiuns), and they are regulated by the Brazilian laws... if Brazil want to close the internet access to other country, they can do it, but, with some configurations, the access is restabilished... Is only a question of think... US control the Nodes, but if US Falls, Brazil and Europe still having internet access between they... The net in Internationalized, only the major companies can shutdown it at all... But, show me a Provider, or a group of providers, tha have interest in shutdown the Internet... If, and only IF, a socialist new world come back from death, and take over the world, the net will be governed by the countrys, other way else, the internet will still be governed by the money mans...

These companies had all better be careful. If the fear of a less functional internet scares the public and the media enough, the government may choose to take all of the backbone provider's internet assets and run them itself, in the name of national security.

I can't believe Level3 gave them 30 days. They were under no contractual obligation to route Cogent's traffic.

I'd have figured they'd have had a plan for an extended disconnect should Cogent remain un-cooperative.

*sigh* Cogent is trying to throw it's weight around, and now Level3 seems to be allowing it. Why? Level3 could have Cogent by the balls if it wanted to....

Few months ago, I made use of proxies to contact seti@home servers. The reason? Connections from Wanadoo (my ISP) were rejected by the backbone used by seti@home which is ... Cogent.
Too few people were concerned and nobody care about that.

Must be a bunch of 10 year old running these companies to resort to DNS attacks to be noticed.

of course it's controlled by commercial entities - the 'net ain't free, folks. even the fed govt (who had private industry build the first internet) uses different IP backbones now for secure traffic etc.

for those who concentrated on lib arts in school :-) here's a specific explanation of the business concept. Level 3 invested in their IP network, and attracted a lot of customers who had end users (like you and me), plus a good amount of web site destinations (content like Yahoo or CNN). they probably started out buying a lot of connections to other big IP networks, because they couldn't make the case for peering since they didn't have enough balanced traffic. as they grew, Level 3 asked the other big IP network owners to peer with them, because they had achieved a good volume of both end users and content on their network.

now sometimes these other companies have to do this in good faith, because the new guy (in this case Level 3) was still building its customer base and the resulting traffic volumes. eventually Level 3 got big enough to merit the peering connections, and of course now it's one of the highest-traffic IP networks on the planet.

this is likely what happened with Cogent. Cogent comes to Level 3 with a solid network plan, history of traffic, sales forecasts, etc., and asks for a peering connection vs buying a 'port' (regular customer connection) into Level 3's network. it's essentially cheaper, but the real benefit is better performance between the networks and the clout that peering with Tier 1 providers brings. it's a self-fulfilling prophecy - you peer with enough Tier 1s, and you become a Tier 1.

so, maybe Level 3 did this awhile back with Cogent, and began watching the traffic flow. after a period of time, apparently they decided that Cogent in fact was not growing their traffic as forecasted. so, they finally asked Cogent to go back to 'customer' status (by buying connectivity to Level 3) since the traffic pattern didn't merit a peering relationship. Cogent plays hardball, thinking they will give Level 3 a dose of bad PR for not playing nice with the Internet, and Level 3 will blink.

but they didn't.

so Cogent of course hollers, to everyone who will listen, that Level 3 is desparate, they are controlling the internet, blah blah blah. even some supposed industry analysts jump on the bandwagon. regular media types smell a good story and (once again) spin this as a big company throwing its weight around and harming our precious internet. like it's an entitlement - puhleeze.

Cogent even offers free service to Level 3 customers for switching. amusing, since Level 3 probably owns 15x more internet routes and 100x more end customers than does Cogent.

so Level 3 is now giving Cogent an additional 30 days to make up its mind (on top of the 2-3 months they already had).

free advice to Cogent: buy the doggone port, but word the contract to convert it to peering based on hitting traffic milestones. also make it NDA so Level 3 can't say what connection you ended up with, to preserve a shred of your dignity. and your pricing strategy - most rational consumers eventually figure out that super-cheap means inferior quality, whether it's clothes from Old Navy or 'net connections.

free advice to Level 3: be proactive with your own customers when these situations occur with your fellow network owners. there's a fair amount of rumbling out there about end customers who bought business voip service from your service provider customers and pipe from Cogent whose phone service went dark yesterday. with your stock price stuck at 2 bucks until you prove you won the voip game, this doesn't help the whole 'crossing the chasm' thing.

free advice for those concerned about the fragility of 'your' internet: it ain't yours, you're just buying access to someone's network. it is NOT an entitlement. until you need it for cardiopulmonary function, consider it a fee-for-use, commercial good, and plan your life accordingly. if your livelihood depends on your 'net connection, maybe you should invest in a diverse backup connection?? and if you REALLY want it fubar'd, go ahead and get the UN involved in running/monitoring it. :-)

peace be with you all.

The UN shall never control internet anything. Bad things.

urk....private backbone controlling the internet ? at the first sign of a possible dispute they just shut of innocent and paying customers ? I guess acting as mature and very well educated grownups, there must have been a more humane like solution !! I thought I was living in a third world country !! or maybe this was a well orchestrated move to fuel up the us/un squirmish about controlling the internet...as it goes its a clear sign of what is yet to come when just a few decide for a lot without as much as a seconds hesistation...( Digital terrorists of another kind )..phewwwww....scary...this.....

These private backbones control the Internet! Anyone care to dispute that? Cmon please, I welcome anyone who does just don't expect an argument in return. Thanks Jeff
Silent but Deadly

blah blah, they own the lines, they have the right to refuse...

if Cogent was sending it too much traffic, technically using it's bandwidth limit, same as a web host, it cut off service...

hopefully they can come up with a deal, however instead of Cogent offering free service to those who switch from L3, just friggin pay L3 for the increase in network traffic they were sending their lines. (would probably be a cheaper solution)

oh well, this is what happens, only thing that this really affects is those customers with Cogent pipes that try to access servers hosted on L3 servers...

>> if Cogent was sending it too much traffic, technically using it's bandwidth limit, same as a web host, it cut off service...

No that is not true, any professional webhost would not do this; they would just bill the customer for that bandwidth at a higher rate.

Especially in the case of backbone providers, its just absurd to cut a backbone off from another backbone.

The issue here was that Cogent wasn't paying anything. They were warned repeatedly as well.

Something has gone very wrong. Was not the original purpose and structure of the net to survive just such a scenario?

On the other hand, maybe it was all a terrorist action. It seems the net is more vulnerable than NYC's subway system!

Indeed, therein may lie the solution: Charge either or both parties, and parties to any future such squabbles, with domestic terrorism.

Well, technically the structure of the internet did work. Packets that would normally route through this had to find a new way. It was packets whose final destination was in this mess that got screwed.

Um there is no "internet" entity. The internet has become a household word, and everyone thinks its 1 network. ITs not. If I build a LAN at my house, and my neighbor wants to "see" my stuff, I allow him on my network. That's an inTRAnet. Now if we do this and invite universities, other business, and neighborhoods from around the world, and its public available, now it becomes an inTERnet.

The apparent "vulernability" only comes into play when EVERY provider uses the SAME ISP. So yes your argument is true, ONLY if comcast, time warner, cox, et. al, used Level 3 for ALL their communications. If there was ever a good time for diversity, this is it. Companies should be spreading the wealth so to speak to other ISP backbone providers, and not teaming up with the same ones, because we WILL be vulnerable.

But we are not vulnerable to attack, since there are hundreds of ISPs out there, you just don't hear about them as much, and they aren't as big. This affect a few roadrunner customers, but I never had any problem. Even Blizzard (an online gaming company) uses Level 3 and they were not affected by other gamers inability to connect, so I would have to speculate this only affected people near the routers owned by Cogent, that were specifically being blocked.

It was a good ole' pissing contest. Ok, so Cogent owed Level 3 some money. If every time a company cut another company off when they didn't pay their bill, even for a few months, half of this country would be at a stand still. A lot of companies, and its astounding how many, do NOT pay their bills on time.

Only if you call and b**** and complain and demand do you get the bill paid... Level 3 got Cogents attention, I bet they won't let that deadline slip this time because they know LEVEL 3 is serious.

Cogent I think did take advantage of the situation by making Level 3 the bad guy, and when their millions of customers complained, it garnered national attention, and they were allowed a grace period (again).

Had this been simply 1 company not paying their bill to a phone company, the phone company would have cut them off, no questions asked. You don't pay your bills you get cut off, its that simple.

But when it affects millions of people, they are very loud and on behalf of those loud citizens, Cogent is back in business. Level 3 should have just sued like everyone else.

Cutting them off was rather harsh, considering it wasn't detrimental to them to leave Cogent running..

As the other user put it, Level 3 is 15x as big as Cogent, it was foolhardy to believe they could play hardball and win this way.

If a hospital (And this has happened before) does not pay their electric bill, would you turn them off? Think about ER and life support people..

I realize internet is not life or death, but its along the same lines, you are affecting many people..

Cogent definately used leverage against Level 3. They need to pay up.

Starting to look more like things to come, especially when talking about who will control the Internet? US want exclusive control while the rest wants UN to control the Internet.

The UN controlling the internet would not have prevented this in any way at all. These are private backbone carriers, there is absolutely nothing preventing them from disconnecting another backbone except for a contract.

UN controlling the internet would be like domains and ip assigments, and some routing control; not much more.

Um, the US STARTED the internet, we should be in control. The UN can't control their own bowel movements, and you expect me to believe they can take control of the internet...

I am going to make a prediction.. This is will *NEVER* happen. The US government will not relinquish control of ANY communications, Period.

What might happen is other countries may develop their own internet, then we will see a lot of private networks and you will start paying a premium to access sites.. I hope it doesn't happen myself, but we don't need those damn foreigners.

the US has the games, the electronics (other than Sony), and the technology. How often to you rely on information, technology, or communication from outside the US? The US is the cornerstone that enables other countries to function.

Putting the control of the internet in the hands of a neutral isn't a good idea. Someone with a vested interested needs to retain control. I don't think the US is doing a bad job personally.

The rest are just jealous.. They want to come here (US), live here, work here... The US makes headlines 365 around the world. People are tired of the US having all the answers, and they refuse to believe the US will do a good job.

Lets remember where most of the world ideas come from. The US has good people that come here from elsewhere, because the culture and politics every where else is pretty bad. The UN isn't going to be able to wrest control of the internet from US hands.

the fight between the 2 ISP's sounds like 2 10 year olds telling their friends not to play with the other. Funny if it wasn't so detrimental to the common good of all of us.

And as for the happily naive ones out there who think that UN control over the Internet would have prevented this, here's some other things that the UN's involvement prevented:

Bosnia
Rwanda
Gulf War 1
Greece vs Turkey over control of Cyprus

I'd go on but you see my point.

Anyways, if anyone is truly STUPID enough to think that handing control of the Internet to the likes of Kofe Annen, and the band of wannabee global tyrants that is currently in charge of the UN will improve anything, then just pucker up and kiss your free access to information goodbye.

Leave it alone, it works.

Or does a functional Internet scare you?