Cogent vs Telia peering dispute

Due to a peering slugfest between Cogent Communications and TeliaSonera, TeliaSonera customers have been cut off from Cogent's network since March 14th. The Stardock network (which includes ICO servers) is under Cogent, so multiplayer Sins has been impossible for these past two weeks for TeliaSonera customers (proxy servers are too slow and unreliable.) Of course, this also affects all other Stardock games and applications.

TeliaSonera is one of the largest networks in Europe; this peering dispute literally affects millions of people. Both sides of the dispute claim that the other side is at fault, but currently it appears that Cogent is the one that "flipped the switch" to partition the Internet.

Disrupting Internet traffic for millions of people as a negotiating tactic is something that probably shouldn't be rewarded. Could Ironclad / Stardock please indicate their displeasure to Cogent for cutting off their access to millions of current and potential customers? If you haven't already done so, of course.

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Wow. That's a pretty bad thing for them to do

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

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Stardock please indicate their displeasure to Cogent for cutting off their access to millions of current and potential customers?

Done. Feel free to complain to TS as well (sounds like you're one of their customers?). We'll try and get an official response on the matter that we can repost.

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Yep, I'm a customer of TS, and complaints have been voiced by me and others. The issue has even made national news here in Finland and other Nordic countries.

Statements by Cogent CEO Dave Schaffer cite a breach of contract by TeliaSonera. TS allegedly failed to provide adequate connectivity points for the exchange of information between the two companies’ customers, resulting in slow connections and delays to Cogent's European customers. This is allegedly because TS didn't like Cogent's aggressive pricing spreading to European markets.

TS responded to this by rejecting the breach of contract claim and by claiming, in turn, that Cogent has failed to satisfy "certain contractual requirements." Cogent responded to this stalemate by cutting off all connectivity between the two carriers (even via 3rd-party networks), rather than "provide a degraded internet experience" to its customers.

I think it's safe to assume that neither company is without fault, but Cogent is the one that pulled the plug and hopes that this partitioning of the internet harms TS more than them.

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