ISP spat blacks out Net connections

IDG News Service - A financial dispute between two major Internet backbones has led to dropped traffic between their networks in a high-stakes game of chicken that's angering customers affected by the network disruptions.
Early yesterday, Level 3 Communications Inc. terminated its "peering" agreement with Cogent Communications Inc. Level 3 said it decided to take that step after months of fruitless negotiations. In a peering agreement, which is a common type of service agreement among ISPs, the companies directly connect their networks and exchange traffic at no charge. In the chart of traffic speeds between Tier One backbones found in Internet traffic monitor Keynote Systems Inc.'s "Internet Health Report," the link between Level 3 and Cogent has been colored bright red for the past day, showing no packets exchanged between the two ISPs.
Peering is mutually advantageous when both partners exchange similar traffic volumes, but Broomfield, Colo.-based Level 3 said it was carrying the bulk of the traffic in its deal with Washington-based Cogent. "The larger company ends up disadvantaged because it ends up providing essentially free capacity," said Level 3 spokeswoman Jennifer Daumler. "In Cogent's case, we determined that the arrangement was not reasonable or commercially viable."
Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer disputed Level 3's characterization and said the dropped peering arrangement is really Level 3's attempt at playing hardball with a rival that has been undercutting it on pricing. "The root cause of this is Level 3's strong desire to pressure Cogent into raising our prices," Schaeffer said. "They have been very vocal and very upset at our gain in market share and our pricing policy."
Large businesses and those for which network connectivity is critical generally have redundant agreements with multiple ISPs. For them, the dispute between Cogent and Level 3 is an annoyance but not a major problem; they can rely on their other vendors to route traffic across Cogent's and Level 3's networks. However, for customers who are "single homed," meaning they rely solely on the network of either Cogent or Level 3, the dropped connection can leave some Web sites unreachable.
"None of our users in the field who dial up can get their e-mail," said Steve Bernard, IT support technician at Creative Marketing Associates, a marketing services company in Shelby Township, Mich. His company uses a Cogent T1 connection, but its SBC Communications Inc. dial-up access for mobile users runs through Level 3 servers. Just last week, Creative Marketing Associates had DSL installed as protection against an outage on its Cogent T1 line. The company's IT staff is