Peering Dispute With AOL Slows Cogent Customer Access
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45819-2002Dec27.html
'Peering' Dispute With AOL Slows Cogent Customer Access
By Yuki Noguchi
The Internet started to slow on Prince George's County's school computers
Dec. 16, just as the schools anticipated record Internet usage for their
150,000 students and administrators doing last-minute work before the
holidays.
The reason? A critical pathway shut down between one of its providers,
Georgetown-based Cogent Communications Group Inc., and America Online Inc.'s
network because of a business dispute between those companies.
Half of the school system's computers, operating on Cogent's network, took
seven times longer to call up content sent through AOL such as AOL Time
Warner Inc.'s CNN' Web site, compared with those that were connected through
Verizon Communications Inc.'s network, according a manager in the school
system's information-technology department.
Cogent, a three-year-old firm that sells a single product -- high-speed
Internet access -- to customers like Prince George's County schools, George
Washington University and about 6,000 other customers, lost the fiber-optic
cable connection it had with AOL earlier this month, after the business
relationship between those two companies soured. The dispute between AOL and
Cogent sheds light on an essential, but little-known, system called
"peering" that helps the Internet to run efficiently.
The Internet, as the name suggests but users often forget, is a system of
interconnecting networks. Data pass between users by moving from one
telecommunications network to another until they reach their destination.
To speed that process, telecommunications providers such as WorldCom Inc.,
AT&T Corp., Microsoft Corp. and AOL decided to "peer," or connect, their
respective networks using the network equivalent of a freeway -- a
fiber-optic channel that eases the flow of data between them. Such
arrangements are as crucial to the Internet as the Beltway is to
Washington's motor vehicle traffic, because those routes represent the
fastest way for data to get from one place to another. Without peering, an
AOL user sitting at his desk might wait much longer to download a popular
Microsoft Web site, for example, because the data he requested must find a
way to him over narrower and less convenient routes, resulting in delays.
Typically, among companies that peer with one another, the arrangement is
mutually beneficial, and therefore the large players do not charge each
other for peering.
For AOL, peering is beneficial because its 35 million users request Web
sites outside its network all the time, said Nicholas Graham, a spokesman
for AOL. However, each time that happens, a large file comes into the AOL
network. As a general rule, AOL does not want to carry more than twice the
traffic back to its users as it sends to other users outside its network, he
said.
"Seeking balance in a peering relationship is a measure of equitable value,"
Graham said. "Any measure outside of our criteria, as far as traffic ratio
goes, adds cost to the network and does not benefit us or our members."
AOL carries roughly as much traffic from Microsoft, Sprint Corp., Cable &
Wireless PLC as each of those companies does from AOL, so it doesn't assess
a charge. But when peer companies carry more than two times the data, AOL
charges a fee, he said.
Cogent was delivering three times the data onto AOL's network it was
carrying back to its customers when AOL shut off its peering connection.
AOL's move was sudden and "unilateral," said David Schaeffer, Cogent's chief
executive. Cogent depends on its peering agreements with various other firms
to provide high-speed service to its customers.
"The quality of our service depends on two things: the quality of our
network and the quality of our agreements," Schaeffer said. Cogent is trying
to fix the problem by upgrading its connection to AOL through an alternate
route using Level 3 Communications Inc.
Cogent, which has been buying the assets of other distressed
telecommunications firms, including those of Internet service pioneer PSINet
Inc., inherited a peering arrangement of more than six months with AOL
through its acquisitions, Schaeffer said. Two weeks ago was the first time
AOL said it wanted $75,000 a month for the exchange of traffic that
previously had been free, he said.
"I think this is part of a bigger strategy, because they're in financial
trouble and they're trying to make more revenue. AOL is taking their market
position to hurt people," he said. Cogent received 300 complaints from its
customers, some of whom are dropping Cogent service. In response to those
complaints, Cogent sent users a letter blaming the slowdown in service on
AOL and directing further complaints to it.
AOL officials said Cogent is providing customers with a false description of
the reasons behind the dispute. A spokesman for AOL said it is sending
Cogent a "cease and desist" letter, warning it to stop making statements
that have no basis in fact.
Cogent never directly established a peering arrangement with AOL, according
to Graham. The connection cut off on Dec. 16 had only been a trial, and
Cogent twice failed to meet the traffic-ratio criteria -- in other words,
AOL was having to carry far more traffic back to its customers than it was
delivering to Cogent's network, Graham said. When Cogent declined to
negotiate a fee-based arrangement, AOL flipped the switch, he said.
"This is not an arbitrary position on AOL's behalf," Graham said. "Three
months ago, Cogent approached us and wanted to establish a direct peering
relationship, and we conducted a series of peering trials. They failed to
meet our standards and criteria for a direct peering relationship. We
conducted a second trial to see if we could work with them to modify a
couple of things.
"During the second trial, they failed again. The connections were turned off
even after we upgraded their connections to see if a free exchange of
traffic was feasible," said Graham.
"They claim they met our traffic requirements. That is not true. They were
nowhere near our standards. We wanted to continue dialogue with them and
work this out in a cooperative, positive way. They declined our offer to do
so."
The fee-for-peering dispute strikes some industry-watchers as odd.
Gordon Smith is vice president of marketing at Speedera Networks Inc., a
Santa Clara, Calif.-based firm that uses many networks, including Cogent's,
to deliver Internet content to its users. "Charging a fee would certainly
drive up the cost of the industry as a whole. That's not a trend we
welcome," Smith said.
Meanwhile, schools around Washington connected through Cogent's network are
hope for a swift solution.
"If it's not fixed by January, it will have a dramatic impact" on campus
communications, said a manager in George Washington University's information
technology department. It could cause a serious slowdown for the
university's system, which sends or transmits 6.5 million e-mail messages a
month for more than 12,000 students and administrators, he said.
"By sheer luck of the draw, it happened when three-quarters of the students
were gone for the holidays," he said. "But if this goes on, we'd have to
change providers."
Staff writer David A. Vise contributed to this report.
--
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