Re: carrier comparison

[Vlade Ristevski]

I got the RFO today and what happened was:

" The Cogent NOC investigated and found that one of our customers 
connected through a Verizon aggregated circuit to the router was being 
DDOS attacked. This type of attack can send excessive traffic to a 
customer’s interface either deliberately or accidentally, causing a 
spike in the router’s CPU usage. The Cogent NOC shut down the attacked 
customer’s connection to the network restoring normal router operations 
and our Customer Service Group worked with the customer to resolve the 
DDOS issue."



On 2/7/2014 4:42 PM, Faisal Imtiaz wrote:

This is exactly what I thought had happenedThe outage that affected you was 
one our two routers up-stream from your connection to that provider.

I am not trying to defend any Carrier, but there is no 'routing protocol' what 
will react to this kind of an issue.

Regards.

Faisal Imtiaz
Snappy Internet & Telecom
7266 SW 48 Street
Miami, FL 33155
Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232

Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: supp...@snappytelecom.net

- Original Message -

From: "Vlade Ristevski" 
Cc: "nanog list" 
Sent: Friday, February 7, 2014 3:57:00 PM
Subject: Re: carrier comparison

We don't get a default route from them. At the time of the outage my bgp
session was up and I had a full routing table from them.  I didn't have
much time to troubleshoot it in that state since we were down so I had
to disable the session ASAP. Once the RFO comes in, I'll be asking a lot
more questions about it. My only experience with BGP is as a customer so
I'm not too familiar with the intricacies on the provider side. We had
an outage in the AM the same day and we failed over just fine. I'm very
curious why the same didn't happen in the evening.



On 2/7/2014 3:03 PM, Bryan Socha wrote:

Did you verify your problem was announcements on the other side of the
outage?   This sounds to me like you are using a bgp announced default
route from cogent which is always sent.I think the problem was you
were sending traffic out a path that was broken.   Since you mentioned
your outbound balancing this would explain some packet loss and not
100% loss.


Bryan Socha
Network Engineer
DigitalOcean

--
Vlade Ristevski
Network Manager
IT Services
Ramapo College
(201)-684-6854





--
Vlad

RE: carrier comparison

[Adam Greene]

Hi all,

Just wanted to say thanks to all who replied on and off list to my original 
inquiry. 

I'd sum up feedback as follows:
-   Although Cogent has been surprisingly good for some, in general almost 
everyone agreed that it should never be relied upon as your main Internet 
provider. As a secondary link, they are a good value.
-   People had generally good feedback about Level3
-   Having one carrier provide service over another carrier’s fiber is 
generally not a problem. Sometimes it adds complication when things go wrong 
(and a couple people had some pretty extreme cases to share), but in general 
most people did not recommend shying away from this kind of relationship. 
-   Time Warner also received positive reviews in general as a carrier

I was also surprised how many small ISPs like us are on the NANOG list. I kinda 
assumed most of you were big operators that dwarf us. It's great to have 
received perspectives from both large and small operators.  

Thanks again, everyone. 

Adam

-Original Message-
From: Faisal Imtiaz [mailto:fai...@snappytelecom.net] 
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2014 4:43 PM
To: Vlade Ristevski
Cc: nanog list
Subject: Re: carrier comparison

This is exactly what I thought had happenedThe outage that affected you was 
one our two routers up-stream from your connection to that provider.

I am not trying to defend any Carrier, but there is no 'routing protocol' what 
will react to this kind of an issue.

Regards.

Faisal Imtiaz
Snappy Internet & Telecom
7266 SW 48 Street
Miami, FL 33155
Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232

Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: supp...@snappytelecom.net 

- Original Message -
> From: "Vlade Ristevski" 
> Cc: "nanog list" 
> Sent: Friday, February 7, 2014 3:57:00 PM
> Subject: Re: carrier comparison
> 
> We don't get a default route from them. At the time of the outage my 
> bgp session was up and I had a full routing table from them.  I didn't 
> have much time to troubleshoot it in that state since we were down so 
> I had to disable the session ASAP. Once the RFO comes in, I'll be 
> asking a lot more questions about it. My only experience with BGP is 
> as a customer so I'm not too familiar with the intricacies on the 
> provider side. We had an outage in the AM the same day and we failed 
> over just fine. I'm very curious why the same didn't happen in the evening.
> 
> 
> 
> On 2/7/2014 3:03 PM, Bryan Socha wrote:
> > Did you verify your problem was announcements on the other side of the
> > outage?   This sounds to me like you are using a bgp announced default
> > route from cogent which is always sent.I think the problem was you
> > were sending traffic out a path that was broken.   Since you mentioned
> > your outbound balancing this would explain some packet loss and not 
> > 100% loss.
> >
> >
> > Bryan Socha
> > Network Engineer
> > DigitalOcean
> 
> --
> Vlade Ristevski
> Network Manager
> IT Services
> Ramapo College
> (201)-684-6854
> 
> 
> 

Re: carrier comparison

[Faisal Imtiaz]

This is exactly what I thought had happenedThe outage that affected you was 
one our two routers up-stream from your connection to that provider.

I am not trying to defend any Carrier, but there is no 'routing protocol' what 
will react to this kind of an issue.

Regards.

Faisal Imtiaz
Snappy Internet & Telecom
7266 SW 48 Street
Miami, FL 33155
Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232

Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: supp...@snappytelecom.net 

- Original Message -
> From: "Vlade Ristevski" 
> Cc: "nanog list" 
> Sent: Friday, February 7, 2014 3:57:00 PM
> Subject: Re: carrier comparison
> 
> We don't get a default route from them. At the time of the outage my bgp
> session was up and I had a full routing table from them.  I didn't have
> much time to troubleshoot it in that state since we were down so I had
> to disable the session ASAP. Once the RFO comes in, I'll be asking a lot
> more questions about it. My only experience with BGP is as a customer so
> I'm not too familiar with the intricacies on the provider side. We had
> an outage in the AM the same day and we failed over just fine. I'm very
> curious why the same didn't happen in the evening.
> 
> 
> 
> On 2/7/2014 3:03 PM, Bryan Socha wrote:
> > Did you verify your problem was announcements on the other side of the
> > outage?   This sounds to me like you are using a bgp announced default
> > route from cogent which is always sent.I think the problem was you
> > were sending traffic out a path that was broken.   Since you mentioned
> > your outbound balancing this would explain some packet loss and not
> > 100% loss.
> >
> >
> > Bryan Socha
> > Network Engineer
> > DigitalOcean
> 
> --
> Vlade Ristevski
> Network Manager
> IT Services
> Ramapo College
> (201)-684-6854
> 
> 
> 

Re: carrier comparison

[Vlade Ristevski]

We don't get a default route from them. At the time of the outage my bgp 
session was up and I had a full routing table from them.  I didn't have 
much time to troubleshoot it in that state since we were down so I had 
to disable the session ASAP. Once the RFO comes in, I'll be asking a lot 
more questions about it. My only experience with BGP is as a customer so 
I'm not too familiar with the intricacies on the provider side. We had 
an outage in the AM the same day and we failed over just fine. I'm very 
curious why the same didn't happen in the evening.




On 2/7/2014 3:03 PM, Bryan Socha wrote:
Did you verify your problem was announcements on the other side of the 
outage?   This sounds to me like you are using a bgp announced default 
route from cogent which is always sent.I think the problem was you 
were sending traffic out a path that was broken.   Since you mentioned 
your outbound balancing this would explain some packet loss and not 
100% loss.



Bryan Socha
Network Engineer
DigitalOcean


--
Vlade Ristevski
Network Manager
IT Services
Ramapo College
(201)-684-6854

Re: carrier comparison

[Bryan Socha]

Did you verify your problem was announcements on the other side of the
outage?   This sounds to me like you are using a bgp announced default
route from cogent which is always sent.I think the problem was you were
sending traffic out a path that was broken.   Since you mentioned your
outbound balancing this would explain some packet loss and not 100%
loss.


Bryan Socha
Network Engineer
DigitalOcean

Re: carrier comparison

[Mark Tinka]

On Friday, February 07, 2014 04:49:09 PM Faisal Imtiaz 
wrote:

> Based on my understanding on BFD, it will not help you...
> BFD will detect the direct connected port being down
> quicker and force the BGP session down, (faster than the
> time  BGP session timers take to determine something is
> broken)

You would also need your provider to support BFD (and by 
support I mostly mean willing to run, as modern gear today 
is technically capable).

Mark.


signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part.

Re: carrier comparison

[Faisal Imtiaz]

Based on my understanding on BFD, it will not help you... BFD will detect the 
direct connected port being down quicker and force the BGP session down, 
(faster than the time  BGP session timers take to determine something is broken)

This is the common issue / challenge in how to determine up-stream path outage 
and then doing appropriate route engineering on an automatic basis.

Maybe a SLA monitor type scripting/configuration be useful in your case.

Faisal Imtiaz
Snappy Internet & Telecom
7266 SW 48 Street
Miami, FL 33155
Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232

Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: supp...@snappytelecom.net 

- Original Message -
> From: "Olivier Benghozi" 
> To: nanog@nanog.org
> Sent: Friday, February 7, 2014 5:25:53 AM
> Subject: Re: carrier comparison
> 
> Hi Faisal,
> 
> > You might have to deploy some other means of (script ?) to bring your BGP
> > session down from the 'broken' Service Provider.
> > 
> > To the best of my knowledge, BGP does not have any mechanism to determine
> > broken connectivity upstream past the router you are BGP session is up
> > with.
> 
> Well, technically there's BFD that might do the trick. But of course it won't
> be available; it's not usually, so specially with Cogent... :)
> But maybe its link was just overloaded in fact.
> 
> 
> --
> Olivier
> 
> 
> 

Re: carrier comparison

[Vlade Ristevski]

I'm not setting it on my router locally but sending it over to Cogent as 
a community string per page 22 of their user guide.


http://cogentco.com/files/docs/customer_service/guide/global_cogent_customer_user_guide.pdf

They use it to manipulate how traffic gets back to me so that is 
incoming from my routers view.


I also pad the AS  for the networks that I prefer to come back through 
the other ISP..



On 2/7/2014 5:27 AM, Olivier Benghozi wrote:

Hi Vlade,

Well, if you are trying to balance the incoming traffic load with local-pref 
attribute, I can understand your disappointment :)
Since it doesn't work at all this way: local-pref is local to an AS and deals 
with outgoing traffic only.


B)  We have our own AS and IP space. I advertise them to both Cogent and our 
other ISP. I use the local preference attribute to share the load for incoming 
traffic between both ISPs. In the last 5 outages over the last few years, this 
has happened twice. I'm waiting on the RFO so I can further investigate why 
this happened. I think someone mentioned this in a post a few months ago too.




--
Vlade Ristevski
Network Manager
IT Services
Ramapo College
(201)-684-6854

Re: carrier comparison

[Olivier Benghozi]

Hi Vlade,

Well, if you are trying to balance the incoming traffic load with local-pref 
attribute, I can understand your disappointment :)
Since it doesn't work at all this way: local-pref is local to an AS and deals 
with outgoing traffic only.

> B)  We have our own AS and IP space. I advertise them to both Cogent and our 
> other ISP. I use the local preference attribute to share the load for 
> incoming traffic between both ISPs. In the last 5 outages over the last few 
> years, this has happened twice. I'm waiting on the RFO so I can further 
> investigate why this happened. I think someone mentioned this in a post a few 
> months ago too.


-- 
Olivier

Re: carrier comparison

[Olivier Benghozi]

Hi Faisal,

> You might have to deploy some other means of (script ?) to bring your BGP 
> session down from the 'broken' Service Provider.
> 
> To the best of my knowledge, BGP does not have any mechanism to determine 
> broken connectivity upstream past the router you are BGP session is up with.

Well, technically there's BFD that might do the trick. But of course it won't 
be available; it's not usually, so specially with Cogent... :)
But maybe its link was just overloaded in fact.


-- 
Olivier

Re: carrier comparison

[Faisal Imtiaz]

Based on your description, it sounds like the outage did not bring your BGP 
session down, as such you were connected and advertising to the broken Service 
Provider.

e.g. Cogent typically does multi-hop bgp, as such if there a network outage 
past the BGP router, you will experience the situation you described.

You might have to deploy some other means of (script ?) to bring your BGP 
session down from the 'broken' Service Provider.

To the best of my knowledge, BGP does not have any mechanism to determine 
broken connectivity upstream past the router you are BGP session is up with.

Faisal Imtiaz
Snappy Internet & Telecom
7266 SW 48 Street
Miami, FL 33155
Tel: 305 663 5518 x 232

Help-desk: (305)663-5518 Option 2 or Email: supp...@snappytelecom.net 

- Original Message -
> From: "Vlade Ristevski" 
> Cc: nanog@nanog.org
> Sent: Thursday, February 6, 2014 5:25:53 PM
> Subject: Re: carrier comparison
> 
> B)  We have our own AS and IP space. I advertise them to both Cogent and
> our other ISP. I use the local preference attribute to share the load
> for incoming traffic between both ISPs. In the last 5 outages over the
> last few years, this has happened twice. I'm waiting on the RFO so I can
> further investigate why this happened. I think someone mentioned this in
> a post a few months ago too.
> 
> It sucks for us, because we're a small school and don't have someone in
> a NOC to monitor our networks 24x7. I literally had to get out of bed
> and disable our BGP session with them for us to get through the outage.
> I was getting around 90% packet loss from my home to our router.
> 
> 
> On 2/6/2014 4:57 PM, Eric Flanery (eric) wrote:
> > Vlade,
> >
> > When you say that "they still advertise your routes", do you mean:
> >
> > A: That you were having them originate your routes, and they failed to
> > stop doing so when they had problems? Or...
> >
> > B: That routes you were originating continued to be propagated by
> > them, even though your session with them was down? Or...
> >
> > C: Something else.
> >
> > I ask, as we are considering some cheap Cogent bandwidth in the
> > not-too-distant future, to allow us to keep commit rates low on higher
> > quality connections. 'A' wouldn't be a real problem, since we run our
> > own AS and originate our own routes; 'B' could be potentially devastating.
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 8:04 AM, Vlade Ristevski  > <mailto:vrist...@ramapo.edu>> wrote:
> >
> > We have had Cogent over Verizon's Fiber for more than a few years
> > now. Cogent goes down once at year at minimum. They had 2 outages
> > in a single day a couple days ago in Northern NJ.  One in the AM
> > "..caused by a power outage in a vendor data center where Cogent
> > is collocated." They went on to have another outage at around 9:30
> > PM on the same day for which I'm still waiting for an RFO. During
> > this outage, they still were advertising our BGP routes so we
> > didn't fail over to our 2nd provider. I notice that happens alot
> > with them. When they go down, they still advertise your routes.
> >
> > As far as price goes, for us Cogent is cheap but Lightpath is cheaper.
> >
> > Our college is kind of far from things so we don't have a lot of
> > outside fiber coming. The last mile fiber for both of our
> > connections are different from our Internet providers. I've never
> > had a big issue with the two working with each other. The only
> > issue we had is I suspected we weren't getting as much bandwidth
> > as we paid for. They had to work out where the policer and/or
> > bottle neck was. This is the only issue we had in 5 years with
> > this set up and it got resolved. IME, when there is a full outage,
> > it's always been clear who the responsible party is.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 2/6/2014 10:17 AM, Adam Greene wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> > We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based
> > DIA contract
> > that is coming up for renewal.
> >
> >
> > We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are
> > finding out
> > what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use
> > Time Warner
> > fiber for last mile.
> >
> >
> > My questions are:
> >
> > -  Will we be sacrifi

Re: carrier comparison

[Vlade Ristevski]

B)  We have our own AS and IP space. I advertise them to both Cogent and 
our other ISP. I use the local preference attribute to share the load 
for incoming traffic between both ISPs. In the last 5 outages over the 
last few years, this has happened twice. I'm waiting on the RFO so I can 
further investigate why this happened. I think someone mentioned this in 
a post a few months ago too.


It sucks for us, because we're a small school and don't have someone in 
a NOC to monitor our networks 24x7. I literally had to get out of bed 
and disable our BGP session with them for us to get through the outage. 
I was getting around 90% packet loss from my home to our router.



On 2/6/2014 4:57 PM, Eric Flanery (eric) wrote:

Vlade,

When you say that "they still advertise your routes", do you mean:

A: That you were having them originate your routes, and they failed to 
stop doing so when they had problems? Or...


B: That routes you were originating continued to be propagated by 
them, even though your session with them was down? Or...


C: Something else.

I ask, as we are considering some cheap Cogent bandwidth in the 
not-too-distant future, to allow us to keep commit rates low on higher 
quality connections. 'A' wouldn't be a real problem, since we run our 
own AS and originate our own routes; 'B' could be potentially devastating.



On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 8:04 AM, Vlade Ristevski > wrote:


We have had Cogent over Verizon's Fiber for more than a few years
now. Cogent goes down once at year at minimum. They had 2 outages
in a single day a couple days ago in Northern NJ.  One in the AM
"..caused by a power outage in a vendor data center where Cogent
is collocated." They went on to have another outage at around 9:30
PM on the same day for which I'm still waiting for an RFO. During
this outage, they still were advertising our BGP routes so we
didn't fail over to our 2nd provider. I notice that happens alot
with them. When they go down, they still advertise your routes.

As far as price goes, for us Cogent is cheap but Lightpath is cheaper.

Our college is kind of far from things so we don't have a lot of
outside fiber coming. The last mile fiber for both of our
connections are different from our Internet providers. I've never
had a big issue with the two working with each other. The only
issue we had is I suspected we weren't getting as much bandwidth
as we paid for. They had to work out where the policer and/or
bottle neck was. This is the only issue we had in 5 years with
this set up and it got resolved. IME, when there is a full outage,
it's always been clear who the responsible party is.






On 2/6/2014 10:17 AM, Adam Greene wrote:

Hi,


We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based
DIA contract
that is coming up for renewal.


We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are
finding out
what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use
Time Warner
fiber for last mile.


My questions are:

-  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
(yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills
for my spine)

-  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that
utilizes another
carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if
there is a
downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of
confusion and
finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?

-  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?


Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in
what others
have to say about these questions, out of respect for the
carriers in
question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list.


Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I
could consult
to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most
welcome.


Thanks,

Adam





--
Vlad

Re: carrier comparison

[Eric Flanery (eric)]

Vlade,

When you say that "they still advertise your routes", do you mean:

A: That you were having them originate your routes, and they failed to stop
doing so when they had problems? Or...

B: That routes you were originating continued to be propagated by them,
even though your session with them was down? Or...

C: Something else.

I ask, as we are considering some cheap Cogent bandwidth in the
not-too-distant future, to allow us to keep commit rates low on higher
quality connections. 'A' wouldn't be a real problem, since we run our own
AS and originate our own routes; 'B' could be potentially devastating.


On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 8:04 AM, Vlade Ristevski  wrote:

> We have had Cogent over Verizon's Fiber for more than a few years now.
> Cogent goes down once at year at minimum. They had 2 outages in a single
> day a couple days ago in Northern NJ.  One in the AM "..caused by a power
> outage in a vendor data center where Cogent is collocated." They went on to
> have another outage at around 9:30 PM on the same day for which I'm still
> waiting for an RFO. During this outage, they still were advertising our BGP
> routes so we didn't fail over to our 2nd provider. I notice that happens
> alot with them. When they go down, they still advertise your routes.
>
> As far as price goes, for us Cogent is cheap but Lightpath is cheaper.
>
> Our college is kind of far from things so we don't have a lot of outside
> fiber coming. The last mile fiber for both of our connections are different
> from our Internet providers. I've never had a big issue with the two
> working with each other. The only issue we had is I suspected we weren't
> getting as much bandwidth as we paid for. They had to work out where the
> policer and/or bottle neck was. This is the only issue we had in 5 years
> with this set up and it got resolved. IME, when there is a full outage,
> it's always been clear who the responsible party is.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 2/6/2014 10:17 AM, Adam Greene wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>> We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA contract
>> that is coming up for renewal.
>>
>>
>> We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are finding out
>> what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time Warner
>> fiber for last mile.
>>
>>
>> My questions are:
>>
>> -  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
>> (yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my spine)
>>
>> -  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes
>> another
>> carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
>> downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion and
>> finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?
>>
>> -  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?
>>
>>
>> Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what others
>> have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers in
>> question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list.
>>
>>
>> Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could
>> consult
>> to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most welcome.
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Adam
>>
>>
>

Re: carrier comparison

[Blake Dunlap]

I use Cogent as well, no real issues other than I wouldn't single home to
them. Personally, I don't understand why someone would depend on a single
provider for connectivity however...

-Blake


On Thu, Feb 6, 2014 at 3:22 PM, Matthew Crocker wrote:

>
>
> IMHO  Cogent bandwidth is fine so long as it isn't your only bandwidth.
>  Good, Cheap, Fast,  Pick any two.
>
>
> --
> Matthew S. Crocker
> President
> Crocker Communications, Inc.
> PO BOX 710
> Greenfield, MA 01302-0710
>
> E: matt...@crocker.com
> P: (413) 746-2760
> F: (413) 746-3704
> W: http://www.crocker.com
>
>
>
> On Feb 6, 2014, at 10:17 AM, Adam Greene  wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> >
> > We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA
> contract
> > that is coming up for renewal.
> >
> >
> >
> > We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are finding out
> > what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time Warner
> > fiber for last mile.
> >
> >
> >
> > My questions are:
> >
> > -  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
> > (yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my
> spine)
> >
> > -  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes
> another
> > carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
> > downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion and
> > finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?
> >
> > -  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?
> >
> >
> >
> > Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what others
> > have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers in
> > question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list.
> >
> >
> >
> > Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could
> consult
> > to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most welcome.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Adam
> >
> >
>
>
>

Re: carrier comparison

[Sam Moats]

+1 Same feeling here.
Sam Moats

On 2014-02-06 16:22, Matthew Crocker wrote:

IMHO  Cogent bandwidth is fine so long as it isn’t your only
bandwidth.  Good, Cheap, Fast,  Pick any two.


--
Matthew S. Crocker
President
Crocker Communications, Inc.
PO BOX 710
Greenfield, MA 01302-0710

E: matt...@crocker.com
P: (413) 746-2760
F: (413) 746-3704
W: http://www.crocker.com



On Feb 6, 2014, at 10:17 AM, Adam Greene  
wrote:



Hi,



We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA 
contract

that is coming up for renewal.



We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are 
finding out
what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time 
Warner

fiber for last mile.



My questions are:

-  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
(yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my 
spine)


-  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes 
another

carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion 
and

finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?

-  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?



Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what 
others
have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers 
in

question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list.



Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could 
consult
to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most 
welcome.




Thanks,

Adam

Re: carrier comparison

[Matthew Crocker]

IMHO  Cogent bandwidth is fine so long as it isn’t your only bandwidth.  Good, 
Cheap, Fast,  Pick any two.


--
Matthew S. Crocker
President
Crocker Communications, Inc.
PO BOX 710
Greenfield, MA 01302-0710

E: matt...@crocker.com
P: (413) 746-2760
F: (413) 746-3704
W: http://www.crocker.com



On Feb 6, 2014, at 10:17 AM, Adam Greene  wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> 
> 
> We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA contract
> that is coming up for renewal. 
> 
> 
> 
> We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are finding out
> what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time Warner
> fiber for last mile.
> 
> 
> 
> My questions are:
> 
> -  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
> (yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my spine)
> 
> -  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes another
> carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
> downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion and
> finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?
> 
> -  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?
> 
> 
> 
> Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what others
> have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers in
> question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list. 
> 
> 
> 
> Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could consult
> to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most welcome. 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Adam
> 
> 

RE: carrier comparison

[Martin Hotze]

> My questions are:
> 
> -  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
> (yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my spine)


Jehova!

Popcorn!

 :-)

We used Cogent for some time. We dropped them, but not for poor quality (au 
contraire) but for other more complex reasons. IMHO, Cogent is far better than 
many say (any many of them only from 'knowledge' from word of mouth), Cogent 
has some oddities that you have to deal with, yust like with almost all other 
transit providers. Having said that: I don't want to be single homed again.

hth, martin

Re: carrier comparison

[Vlade Ristevski]

When I priced out providers 2 years ago for 500Mbps over 1 gig fiber 
link the list from most expensive to least expensive was:


Verizon-->XO-->Cogent-->Lightpath

This is for Northern NJ. Abovenet and some of the other big providers 
couldn't reach our Campus. Lightpath ate the cost of running Fiber to 
our campus while the other weren't willing to do that.



On 2/6/2014 11:28 AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:

On Feb 6, 2014, at 11:22, Joshua Goldbard  wrote:

Cogent always has the cheapest rates

Objectively, provably false.

Re: carrier comparison

[Seth Mattinen]

On 2/6/14, 7:17 AM, Adam Greene wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>  
> 
> We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA contract
> that is coming up for renewal. 
> 
>  
> 
> We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are finding out
> what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time Warner
> fiber for last mile.
> 
>  
> 
> My questions are:
> 
> -  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
> (yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my spine)
> 
> -  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes another
> carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
> downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion and
> finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?
> 
> -  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?
> 
>  
> 
> Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what others
> have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers in
> question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list. 
> 
>  
> 
> Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could consult
> to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most welcome. 
> 
>  


Short answer: multihome.

~Seth

Re: carrier comparison

[Patrick W. Gilmore]

On Feb 6, 2014, at 11:22, Joshua Goldbard  wrote:
> 
> Cogent always has the cheapest rates

Objectively, provably false.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick


> but they also have the most peering disputes of any operator. I've seen 
> intra-data center hops between cogent and Verizon take over 150ms.
> 
> As with all things Internet, your mileage may vary. I would not put something 
> with a 5 9'a uptime requirement on cogent without a failover circuit. For 
> less sensitive applications it seems like a win.
> 
> The Internet is both incredibly robust and fragile simultaneously.
> 
> Cheers,
> Joshua
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Feb 6, 2014, at 8:06 AM, "Vlade Ristevski"  wrote:
>> 
>> We have had Cogent over Verizon's Fiber for more than a few years now. 
>> Cogent goes down once at year at minimum. They had 2 outages in a single day 
>> a couple days ago in Northern NJ.  One in the AM "..caused by a power outage 
>> in a vendor data center where Cogent is collocated." They went on to have 
>> another outage at around 9:30 PM on the same day for which I'm still waiting 
>> for an RFO. During this outage, they still were advertising our BGP routes 
>> so we didn't fail over to our 2nd provider. I notice that happens alot with 
>> them. When they go down, they still advertise your routes.
>> 
>> As far as price goes, for us Cogent is cheap but Lightpath is cheaper.
>> 
>> Our college is kind of far from things so we don't have a lot of outside 
>> fiber coming. The last mile fiber for both of our connections are different 
>> from our Internet providers. I've never had a big issue with the two working 
>> with each other. The only issue we had is I suspected we weren't getting as 
>> much bandwidth as we paid for. They had to work out where the policer and/or 
>> bottle neck was. This is the only issue we had in 5 years with this set up 
>> and it got resolved. IME, when there is a full outage, it's always been 
>> clear who the responsible party is.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 2/6/2014 10:17 AM, Adam Greene wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> 
>>> We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA contract
>>> that is coming up for renewal.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are finding out
>>> what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time Warner
>>> fiber for last mile.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> My questions are:
>>> 
>>> -  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
>>> (yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my spine)
>>> 
>>> -  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes another
>>> carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
>>> downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion and
>>> finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?
>>> 
>>> -  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what others
>>> have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers in
>>> question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could consult
>>> to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most welcome.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>> Adam
> 

Re: carrier comparison

[Joshua Goldbard]

Cogent always has the cheapest rates but they also have the most peering 
disputes of any operator. I've seen intra-data center hops between cogent and 
Verizon take over 150ms.

As with all things Internet, your mileage may vary. I would not put something 
with a 5 9'a uptime requirement on cogent without a failover circuit. For less 
sensitive applications it seems like a win.

The Internet is both incredibly robust and fragile simultaneously.

Cheers,
Joshua

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 6, 2014, at 8:06 AM, "Vlade Ristevski"  wrote:

> We have had Cogent over Verizon's Fiber for more than a few years now. Cogent 
> goes down once at year at minimum. They had 2 outages in a single day a 
> couple days ago in Northern NJ.  One in the AM "..caused by a power outage in 
> a vendor data center where Cogent is collocated." They went on to have 
> another outage at around 9:30 PM on the same day for which I'm still waiting 
> for an RFO. During this outage, they still were advertising our BGP routes so 
> we didn't fail over to our 2nd provider. I notice that happens alot with 
> them. When they go down, they still advertise your routes.
> 
> As far as price goes, for us Cogent is cheap but Lightpath is cheaper.
> 
> Our college is kind of far from things so we don't have a lot of outside 
> fiber coming. The last mile fiber for both of our connections are different 
> from our Internet providers. I've never had a big issue with the two working 
> with each other. The only issue we had is I suspected we weren't getting as 
> much bandwidth as we paid for. They had to work out where the policer and/or 
> bottle neck was. This is the only issue we had in 5 years with this set up 
> and it got resolved. IME, when there is a full outage, it's always been clear 
> who the responsible party is.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 2/6/2014 10:17 AM, Adam Greene wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>>  
>> We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA contract
>> that is coming up for renewal.
>> 
>>  
>> We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are finding out
>> what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time Warner
>> fiber for last mile.
>> 
>>  
>> My questions are:
>> 
>> -  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
>> (yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my spine)
>> 
>> -  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes another
>> carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
>> downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion and
>> finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?
>> 
>> -  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?
>> 
>>  
>> Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what others
>> have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers in
>> question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list.
>> 
>>  
>> Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could consult
>> to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most welcome.
>> 
>>  
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Adam
>> 
> 

Re: carrier comparison

[Vlade Ristevski]

We have had Cogent over Verizon's Fiber for more than a few years now. 
Cogent goes down once at year at minimum. They had 2 outages in a single 
day a couple days ago in Northern NJ.  One in the AM "..caused by a 
power outage in a vendor data center where Cogent is collocated." They 
went on to have another outage at around 9:30 PM on the same day for 
which I'm still waiting for an RFO. During this outage, they still were 
advertising our BGP routes so we didn't fail over to our 2nd provider. I 
notice that happens alot with them. When they go down, they still 
advertise your routes.


As far as price goes, for us Cogent is cheap but Lightpath is cheaper.

Our college is kind of far from things so we don't have a lot of outside 
fiber coming. The last mile fiber for both of our connections are 
different from our Internet providers. I've never had a big issue with 
the two working with each other. The only issue we had is I suspected we 
weren't getting as much bandwidth as we paid for. They had to work out 
where the policer and/or bottle neck was. This is the only issue we had 
in 5 years with this set up and it got resolved. IME, when there is a 
full outage, it's always been clear who the responsible party is.






On 2/6/2014 10:17 AM, Adam Greene wrote:

Hi,

  


We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA contract
that is coming up for renewal.

  


We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are finding out
what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time Warner
fiber for last mile.

  


My questions are:

-  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
(yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my spine)

-  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes another
carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion and
finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?

-  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?

  


Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what others
have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers in
question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list.

  


Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could consult
to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most welcome.

  


Thanks,

Adam

carrier comparison

[Adam Greene]

Hi,

 

We're a small ISP / datacenter with a Time Warner fiber-based DIA contract
that is coming up for renewal. 

 

We're getting much better pricing offers from Cogent, and are finding out
what Level 3 can do for us as well. Both providers will use Time Warner
fiber for last mile.

 

My questions are:

-  Will we be sacrificing quality if we spring for Cogent?
(yesterday's Cogent/Verizon thread provided some cold chills for my spine)

-  Is there a risk with contracting a carrier that utilizes another
carrier (such as Time Warner) for the last mile? (i.e. if there is a
downtime situation, are we going to be caught in a web of confusion and
finger-pointing that delays problem resolution)?

-  How are peoples' experiences with L3 vs TWC?

 

Although I assume everyone on the list would be interested in what others
have to say about these questions, out of respect for the carriers in
question, I encourage you to email frank opinions off list. 

 

Or if there are third party tools or resources you know that I could consult
to deduce the answers to these questions myself, they are most welcome. 

 

Thanks,

Adam