My provider doesn't peer with Sprint, and never did, yet somehow I can still reach Sprint customers. A traceroute shows XO Communications providing the transit. It's like a series of tubes! So why can't Cogent just get some other transit to Sprint while it re-negotiates its peering relationship? Because Cogent is bollocks, isn't it? Sprint should have told Cogent to shove off and go buy some transit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYd-1rpWhw8

You might think that large ISPs like Sprint would be run by more or less responsible people.

I mean we are talking about peering. Peering doesn't actually cost anything, they just agree that they will exchange packets at POPs they are both present. Sprint doesn't save any money by doing that. In fact it will probably cost them money when their customers leave. I wonder when lawsuits against Sprint will come in. Actively disconnecting connections because of such childish issues is definitely not "best effort".

Well, the AC comment might be one sided but so is yours. It seems you overlook how "teh Intartubes" actually work; Sprint is not "blocking" any Cogent prefixes. Cogent is a Tier 1 and so doesn't want to use transit providers. You can call that arrogant or not, but that's probably a part of their business model. Without a direct connection from Cogent to Sprint, the Sprint networks will never learn of Cogents existence, since Cogent doesn't want to pay any other providers for transporting traffic destined for them. (Which is what "transit" is.)

And according to Sprint, they actually did give prior notice to Cogent.

I can't say who's the bigger idiot, but I'm glad I'm not a customer of any of them. :-)

OK, so being a true Tier-1 and having 100% of traffic based on private peering is a good thing, but not having any kind of backup transit (big pipes, no commit on bandwidth) so at least you can get a full routing table from someone else in an emergency seems very short sighted. Unless they don't want their customers to communicate with the other parties network for the purposes of commercial gain, which seems a bit like holding your customers to ransom to me..

Sometimes it does make sense to buy transit from a Tier-2 provider, so long as they have built a sensible network.

if someone gets to a peering point, you are supposed to peer with them.

otherwis you should nor be allowed to call it Internet.

Ditto bandwidth caps and false advertising.

paris is not my peering partner, but she thinks im cute.