A financial dispute between two major Internet Service Providers affected thousands of Internet users, as they were unable to view websites or send e-mails.
It all started on Wednesday morning, when Level 3 Communications severed its network from Cogent Communications. The absence of this direct link affected both the network’s users. So users of one network could not access the servers, web sites, and email addresses located on the other network. Also affected were the users of Road Runner and Time Warner.
The dispute is regarding peering agreements, wherein two networks exchange a direct connection and assure access for each other’s users to access content on the other network. The ‘tier 1’ ISPs such as Sprint, Level 3, AT &T and UUNet have connections to all the other large networks through peering agreements. They needn’t pay transit fees to any of them.
Level 3 has one of the largest Internet backbones in the world, while Cogent is the largest Ethernet services provider in the United States. Cogent, on one hand, feels that it also being a big ISP should be given peering arrangement with Level 3. Level 3 argues that Cogent transfers more traffic from itself to Level 3 while receiving lesser traffic from Cogent. Cogent’s chief executive David Schaeffer however begs to differ about the traffic exchange being unbalanced. "If Cogent wants to make its customers happy, they've got to figure out a way to get that connectivity to the Internet." Says Daumler of Level 3.
It is said that as Cogent sells cheap bandwidth, it has been able to lure a large number websites with lot of traffic. Though Level 3 might not want to peer with Cogent, many of its customers need content that is available on Cogent.
Most of the customers who depend only on one provider are the ones who are losing out because of this dispute. They include, among others, colleges, other institutions, law firms etc.
However, AOL, MSN and EarthLink have stated that their customers have not been affected by the dispute.
Posted
on : Sat, 08 Oct 2005 00:35 GMT | Business News
By : Mark Richardson
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