TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Dispute Leads to Internet Woes for Thousands of Users

Re: Dispute Leads to Internet Woes for Thousands of Users

Henry Cabot Henhouse III (sooper_chicken@hotmail.com)
Mon, 10 Oct 2005 16:17:21 -0700

I'll bet a lot of traffic coming from Cogentco is spam and porn ... a large
percentage of traceroutes to .cn hosts where spam originates traces back to
the Cogentco network. Cogentco also sells to companies that resell to
pornographers.

I ran across a spammer on IRC hawking kiddie porn using a redirect. Traced
it to hostf*ck.com, which is off a provider off Cogentco.

Do you think anyone at Cogentco cares? Nope. As long as the customer pays
the bill, Cogentco doesn't care what kind of filth they deal with.

Cogentco is worse than just a haven for spammers ... they're a haven
for smut merchants.

Andy Sullivan <reuters@telecom-digest.org> wrote in message
news:telecom24.459.4@telecom-digest.org:

> By Andy Sullivan

> Thousands of Internet users struggled to send e-mail and keep their
> Web sites running on Thursday after a dispute between two service
> providers left large portions of the Internet unable to talk to each
> other.

> Computer technicians scrambled to shore up their networks after Level
> 3 Communications Inc. refused to accept traffic from rival Cogent
> Communications Group Inc., rendering large portions of the Internet
> unreachable by others.

> "We weren't able to get to our e-mail systems, we weren't able to get
> to our externally hosted chat systems," said Bob Serr, chief
> technology officer at Chicago instant-messaging provider Parlano
> Inc. "Some customers say they've had trouble getting to our Web site."

> The rift meant that thousands of customers -- including individuals
> who use Time Warner Inc.'s Road Runner cable-modem service -- were not
> able to view Web sites and send e-mail to servers located on the other
> company's network, violating the Internet's premise as a universal,
> borderless network of computers.

> The dispute affects roughly 15 percent to 17 percent of the Internet,
> Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer said.

> "The usability and value people get out of the Internet is highly
> dependent on its ability to be ubiquitous and affordable, and I think
> what Level 3 is attempting to do is undermine both of those core
> principles," he said in an interview.

> TOO MUCH COGENT TRAFFIC

> Like other large, wholesale Internet service providers, Cogent and
> Level 3 handed off traffic from one network to each other free of
> charge, until Level 3 said that it was handling too much Cogent
> traffic.

> "We felt that there was an imbalance and we were disadvantaged in that
> relationship and we were ending up with what amounts to free capacity,"
> Level 3 spokeswoman Jennifer Daumler said.

> Cogent's Schaeffer said Level 3 was simply trying to get Cogent to
> raise its prices, which at $10 per megabit are far below the market
> average of $60 or so per megabit.

> Larger customers of each company have been little affected by the
> dispute because they usually sign agreements with several different
> wholesale providers.

> But customers who rely entirely on either provider for their Internet
> connections would not be able to reach any Web sites or servers on the
> others' network, those involved in the dispute said.

> That would include law firms, community colleges and companies like
> Parlano, which face lost business and angry customers from the outage.

> "It's kind of a game of chicken to see who's going to blink first, and
> to see whose customer base wants connectivity to the other customers'
> more," said Alan Mauldin, an analyst at TeleGeography Research in
> Washington.

> Parlano's Serr said he would stick with Cogent as his provider for the
> time being because he saw Level 3's move as "strong-arm tactics."

> Road Runner said its customers have not been able to visit Web sites
> and send e-mail to Cogent customers.

> "We are working to find alternate pathways so our customers can be
> connected with these Web sites as soon as possible," Road Runner said
> in a statement.

> Representatives for America Online Inc., EarthLink Inc. and Microsoft
> Corp.'s MSN service said their customers have not been affected by the
> dispute.

> Cogent ran into a similar dispute with America Online several years
> ago but it was resolved amicably, AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said.

> Cogent said it was offering Level 3 customers affected by the dispute
> a year of free service if they wished to switch providers. Level 3
> said it was working with its customers to ensure they could reach the
> entire Internet.

> "Level 3 is working with their customers and Cogent needs to work with
> its customers," Level 3's Daumler said. "If Cogent wants to make its
> customers happy they've got to figure out a way to get that
> connectivity to the Internet."

> Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited.

> NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
> daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
> http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
> articles daily.

Post Followup Article Use your browser's quoting feature to quote article into reply
Go to Next message: Linc Madison: "Re: Life Beyond Earth"
Go to Previous message: Gordon Burditt: "Re: United States Says No! Internet is Ours!"
May be in reply to: Andy Sullivan: "Dispute Leads to Internet Woes for Thousands of Users"
TELECOM Digest: Home Page