Cogent/Level3 depeering

16:21 <@theo> i like cogent's response, actually.
16:21 <@souterrain> theo: link?
16:22 <@theo> not a recent response.  just the original response:  one free 
              year of cogent transit for any single-homed level3 customer
16:22 <@theo> it is a substantial offer, it was made immediately, it addresses 
              the problem.
16:22 <@godsmoke> agreed
16:22 <@godsmoke> of course, cogent should have been more forthcoming about the 
                  issue
16:23 <@godsmoke> but, their solution worked -- and it wasn't needed (or hasn't 
                  been yet)
16:23 <@theo> people seem to take it for granted that it's fair for level3 to 
              use their immense size to get a more advantageous business 
              arrangement.
16:23 <@theo> that is capitalism at its worst
16:23 <@theo> it is like saying ``no matter what else you say about bill gates, 
              he's rich, so you, ... you know, you have to respect that about 
16:24 <@theo> and the dispute between cogent and level3 is an echo of the 
              larger interweb problem.
16:24 <@theo> level3 says cogent should pay because cogent has the web servers 
              and level3 has the verizon zombie leeches.
16:24 <@theo> so indirectly, we with our $600 internet bill are supposed to pay 
              most of the cost of delivering our packets to these $40 cable 
              modem/DSL users
16:25 <@theo> that is exactly the center of the interweb problem.  and it makes 
              the internet into a sucky television part 2 place.  and i don't 
              see any kind of essential fairness or merit in it.
16:26 <@theo> level3 fails to offer a description of how they think 
              settlement-free peering should work that sounds more convincingly 
              fair and good in the long term than cogent's.
              [for example, Level3 could say, ``if your overall
              traffic volume ratio is greater than n, at all the
              peering points, then you will have to start
              cold-potatoing all your outbound traffic.''  I'm not
              sure that's the best answer, but it's more convincing
              and reasonable than ``you have web servers, we have
              verizon DSL, so you pay.'']
16:26 <@theo> it makes American business ethic look very very bad.
16:27 <@theo> if i were on level3, i'd take the free year of cogent.  problem 
              solved.  then not renew my level3 contract.
16:28 <@theo> leave them all alone with all their verizon dsl zombies whining 
              that others should pay them for access to click-throughs or 
              whatever.
16:30 <@MICk> theo then you'd probably get fired.
16:30 <@theo> i hear AT&T is pretty good
              [meaning, the Cogent offer makes it easy to ditch L3 for
              some third ISP that can reach both L3 and Cogent, once
              your L3 contract expires.  When it's all over, which of
              the two bills is worth paying for partial access to the
              Internet?  Cogent's.]