All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Cogent starts de-peering with NTT due to lack of 'Asia connectivity'
A co-worker noticed this today:
It would appear that AS174 (Cogent) and AS2914 (NTT) have depeered in Europe. Causing a decent latency spike between single homed customers on both sides in Europe.
Also was given this from a Cogent customer who emailed Cogent about issues with NTT:
Over the past few years, Cogent has been trying to work with NTT Global on ensuring sufficient connectivity in each global region the networks operate per normal peering practices. Our efforts have included establishing connectivity with NTT Global in Europe and North America without requiring that NTT Global establish connectivity in Asia. Typically, we would expect companies that peer do so on a worldwide basis and not regionally. Despite Cogent’s repeated requests, NTT Global has consistently refused to establish connectivity in Asia, taking advantage of Cogent’s good faith efforts while also ensuring sub-standard service to both companies customers. No amount of good will and good faith augments on Cogent’s part has brought NTT Global any closer to the negotiating table for a resolution of the lack of connectivity in Asia. This one-sided situation has become untenable and as a result, Cogent has elected to start the process of disconnecting from NTT Global’s AS 2914. We discussed this with NTT Global in advance, and NTT Global simply indicated that they would not alter their position and were ready for the connectivity changes. We are attempting to effect the disconnection process in phases to allow for any necessary connectivity and traffic adjustments by NTT Global.
This does not bode well for single homed Cogent or NTT providers here.
Comments
Cogent has constantly been in peering disputes with other carriers for decades.
I have a feeling there's more to this story that Cogent isn't revealing.
So could this event lead to acceleration in some locations?
Ping times have decreased by 30% for my current location across several providers. (60+ to 40+ ms)
Does this have anything to do with it? Or is it something else?
The opposite actually in some cases.
For multihomed providers, your transit will just find the next best route.
For single homed providers, I'm already seeing some weirdness.
Cogent is shutting down peering sessions slowly. First to go was Europe. So now any single homed Cogent customers trying to reach NTT will have to trombone traffic through the US to get back to the same point.
At some point it'll go dark and possibly affect some ISPs connectivity.
Taking an MTR from C1V in Italy to an endpoint I know in Tokyo that uses NTT / KDDI now is KDDI only. It now goes East.
Italy -> US via LAX -> Tokyo, adding to the latency. Pomezia, Italy to Tokyo is now 270ms via Cogent (and KDDI on the other end)
Cogent is the worst. Its the cheapest for a reason. I get constant packetloss from Cogent. Avoid providers that primarily use Cogent.
does that mean any traffic between NTT and cogent from now on has to pass through 3rd provider ?
and wouldnt that add more load and congestion on those intermediate providers ? (cogent and NTT are not small)
where ? and is HE any better ?
I agree, I have a certain provider that uses Cogent as their upstream and has a shitty peering to asia, high latency and super lossy. Although since I am only hosting a website, using CDNs like cloudflare will mitigate this poor peering issue.
Yup. It's already affecting single homed setups like the one above that is now taking 413ms due to hot-potato with packets. Cogent and NTT don't want to peer in Europe (or UK) any longer, so Cogent passes it from London -> JFK, where the are still peering.
Once Cogent pulls US peering from NTT, that connectivity is gone unless there's another provider in the mix.
Yup. It seems Cogent's mad NTT doesn't want to give them more Asia peering, so they are tearing down Europe (and eventually all) peering.
Another ISP will have to be in the mix on either side, or connectivity will just stop one day.
Less power to the tier 1. Excellent. Once routing re-balances it will be better in the long run. This is how BGP was intended in the first place, surviving nuclear bullshit and everything.
why would anyone use Cogent as a Primary Uplink for any service unless they really dont care for there customers
Makes a bit of sense that NTT doesn't want Cogent coming into their Asian market and dropping prices using their peering.
It should be interesting to see what happens in the long run. Cogent is known for having beef with other providers.
https://kiwifarms.st/threads/total-retard-war-pushing-back-against-cogent.179146/
Market issues or are they afraid from a cut of their sea lines?
Yes, just like Cogent and HE.
Cogent and HE peer over v4 directly. Cogent and HE cannot reach each other at all over v6, there is no middle provider.
Are any other Tier 1 networks completely unreachable to and from Cogent?
Google use to be on that list. But idk if you would consider them a Tier1
If Google was ever unreachable to/from Cogent how would anyone be able to use Cogent of that entailed no access to Google?
I stand corrected.
I thought Cogent and HE usually had Tata, or another network that started with T, but has been renamed in the past 6 months between them.. Drawing a blank on what it is/was though..
But yes, IPv6 for sure..
Cobent moment.
Telia?
Yes. That's it.
AS1299 is always between my Cogent and HE traffic IPv4 traffic.
Cogent's LG to HE's router, in the same city, always goes through 1299, in the few cities I tested.
Telia, 1299 dba Arelion (this week)
Yes, that is it.. They are between HE and Cogent IPv4 no matter how I test it..
Cogent has a long past of not getting along with providers.
Goes back to the days of Comcast making them pay up because Netflix used Cogent for transit and just poured traffic one way towards Comcast.
Eventually after a lot of crap, Netflix Open Connect became a thing, so ISPs could keep a stash of Netflix content local with OCAs, and eventually they allowed peering.
Looks like NTT knows they have a strong foothold in Asia and doesn't want to allow Cogent to expand or peer there. So to retaliate, Cogent is killing peering in Europe and eventually the USA. Right now you can see 150ms -> 450ms, if there's single-homed NTT to Cogent or vice-versa, soon it will just cease to work.
With Cogent and both stubborn, you'll likely see the same for NTT <-> Cogent.
Some ISP that peers or has transit with Cogent that NTT leverages to get around their retaliation.
At the same time, NTT brought this on themselves. If they want to be the big Asian carrier and not allow anyone else in, they better start investing in Europe ASAP. I've seen some screwed routes today, and a lot of it is traffic that used to route through Europe over Cogent to save latency. Now it's going the opposite way, with added 150-250ms.
The difference is that Asian traffic costs more money. Peering in Asia is inherently different from peering in Europe in terms of how much it costs the carrier with more presence in the region.
I'd argue that NTT has a better reason to not peer with Cogent then the reverse, and it probably affects Cogent's reputation more (although I don't think they really care) since NTT isn't exactly a common transit provider in Europe.
Seeing routes where both single-homed users are affected. Who's paying more though for bandwidth?
NTT is going to hear the pain from customers, where Cogent customers... well peering disputes are par for the course now.
I'd say this hurts NTT's reputation more than Cogent's. Hopefully NTT gets some transit from someone who purchases bulk Cogent, so it doesn't affect their network. Sort of like 1299 / Arelion in between everything HE <-> Cogent in some locations. Right now it's pretty bleak.
Who does this move by Cogent hurt more? NTT or Cogent?
Cogent, since more people are singlehomed cogent.