(no subject)

[mangosteen]

Harpers:
Number of people who commented on my previous posting: 1
Number of people who asked me in person "what the hell was that all about?": 9

Update (3 Jan 2003): That actual details of what that was all about have been added in a comment.

Comments

[akawil]

So, what the hell was that all about?

[gingicat]

Haven't had much chance to see you in person to ask.

What it was all about.

[mangosteen]

Caveat: Gross oversimplification of the issues follows below. If you want the whole story, I suggest the archives of the NANOG mailing list.

First off, it has nothing to do with me directly, as will be obvious below.

• Cogent (an ISP) bought PSInet and Netrail (two other ISPs).
  
• PSInet and Netrail both had agreements in place with AOL to exchange Internet traffic directly with AOL, with no actual money changing hands. This is known as "settlement-free peering", or often just "peering".
  
• The peering agreements expired, and AOL opened negotiations with Cogent to set up another agreement.
  
• AOL stated "as long as traffic flows in no worse than a 2:1 ratio between us and you, we'll keep things in place. Otherwise, you'll have to pay."
  
• Cogent and AOL tested this out for a week, and (apparently, 'cos no one is actually releasing hard data) Cogent couldn't meet that requirement, and it was more like 3:1 (ie. Cogent was sending three times as much traffic to AOL as AOL was sending to Cogent).
  
• AOL said "you'll have to pay us $75,000/month in settlement fees to keep this link up, or we'll cut it off."
  
• Cogent (evidently) said "We're not going to pay you. Go ahead." This should have been AOL's first clue that something was up.
  

....and so the pissing contest begins.

• Cogent's deal is that they provide large amounts of bandwidth for really cheap by having a one-size-fits-all service, among other things. Most entities who have a link to Cogent, also have a secondary link to a "full-fare" ISP. Cogent was depending on this.
  
• AOL has several Time-Warner properties "behind" them, including cnn.com.
  
• For people who didn't have a secondary link that they could direct traffic out, getting to cnn.com &c. got very slow.
  
• Why, you ask? Because Cogent was sending all the AOL-destined traffic through Level3 (another ISP)
  
• Here's the kicker.... Cogent has settlement-free peering with Level3. AOL buys bandwidth from Level3. What this means is that Cogent is now making AOL pay someone else for the privilege of handling AOL-bound traffic from Cogent.
  

In the dialect of my native land, this works out to "Fuck me? No! FUCK YOU!".

In this particular pissing contest, AOL is beginning to look a bit... limp.
Wait for it though, because this is the part where Cogent pulls out the Five Foot Stunt Phallus.

• We still have the problem that traffic from Cogent to AOL properties is moving very slowly. Cogent's answer to this is to bring up more free bandwidth with Level3, thus making AOL pay even more.
  

Game, Set, Match.

Now, AOL is paying for this traffic where they expected they'd get someone to pay them for it, they have no bargaining chips, even if they do want to re-establish peering with Cogent, and all told, AOL got the icky end of the stick.

And that is what that was all about.

Re: What it was all about.

[fieldsnyc.livejournal.com]

Nice.