Major Internet Carrier Problem!!!

[Sniper]

This feud from 2 weeks ago, may have escalated...


Network feud leads to Net blackout
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 5, 2005, 5:00 PM PDT

Two major Internet backbone companies are feuding, potentially cutting off significant swaths of the Internet for some of each other's customers.

On Wednesday, network company Level 3 Communications cut off its direct "peering" connections to another big network company called Cogent Communications. That technical action means that some customers on each company's network now will find it impossible, or slower, to get to Web sites on the other company's network.

William Steele, a senior network engineer for Syncro Services, said his company noticed the problem Wednesday morning.

"There are some people I can't send an e-mail to," Steele said. "At home, I have Road Runner as an ISP, and wasn't even able to remotely connect in order to manage our servers."

"Peering" arrangements are maintained by network companies that agree to connect their networks directly together to exchange traffic more efficiently. When the companies are of roughly equal size, money rarely exchanges hands.

Level 3 contends that its arrangement with Cogent is no longer financially viable, since it is larger than the other company. It has asked Cogent to seek other arrangements, possibly including paying for the traffic exchange, a Level 3 representative said.

Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer contested that claim, saying that its network is at least as big as Level 3's, and that it makes no sense to pay for the connection. Cogent is offering any Level 3 user who can't get to Cogent sites free Internet service for a year, in an attempt to attract its rival's customers.

"Our goal is to have this problem go away, whether through Level 3 reconsidering or their customers coming to us," Schaeffer said.

The Level 3 representative said the company was unlikely to reconsider its position, however.

The problem is likely to affect only a small number of each company's customers. Many network company customers have several connections to the Internet and can use an alternate connection to reach a site that might otherwise be blocked.

A similar Net blackout happened in 2001, when Cable & Wireless and PSINet were embroiled in a billing dispute.

[Sniper]

Direct from Level3 support...

Level 3 communications is currently experiencing a large scale network instability affecting most markets. The time to restore is unknown at this time. The trouble ticket number is: 1429209.

There is currently a partial restore.

The problem was caused by internal routing issues and they are investigating.

[brimstone1]

Ok, I've read everything you've shared with us, but I have an ignorant yet clear cut question: is it safe to go back into the waters yet?

(from what I understand, the answer is a clear-cut "no", am I right?).

[Borknagar]

Police found out they hacked 1,5 million pc's, not 100.00. Scary eh? HEre's a link to a Dutch newssite. You'll figure it out.
Dutch hackers

[Sniper]

Major Disruption In Level 3 Network Slows Internet Traffic Oct. 21, 2005

Problems on Level 3's -- and the smaller NTT network -- slowed Internet response, a monitoring firm says

By J. Nicholas Hoover and Larry Greenemeier
InformationWeek

Internet users worldwide may have experienced a slower Internet early this morning due to a major disruption of service from tier one carrier Level 3 Communications.
Performance measurements by Keynote Systems showed significant drops in availability and increases in Internet response time around the world in the overnight hours, with the worst disruption around 2 a.m. eastern standard time. Some Web sites were unreachable and service was shut off for some users, says Keynote, which monitors Internet and E-commerce performance. Level 3 did not return phone calls seeking comment on the disruption. Keynote also showed extensive performance degradation on the networks of NTT Communications subsidiary Verio. An NTT spokeswoman says those access problems may have been related to Level 3's problems.

Level 3 is among the largest providers of wholesale service to ISPs in North America, connecting millions of customers to the Internet. Earlier this month, the company was involved in a spat with fellow provider Cogent Communications that blocked access for thousands of users over a two day period. One Level 3 customer says his company's had outages before. "It shouldn't happen this often for a tier one ISP, and it concerns us," says David Geller, president and CEO of WhatCounts Inc., an E-mail marketing firm, via E-mail. "It impacted all of our customers in that our site and tools were inaccessible for several hours."

Disruptions this widespread are unusual. "I don't think I've ever seen an entire backbone network go down like that before," says George Roettger, Internet security specialist for NetLink Services Inc., a provider of Internet access for the greater Ohio and surrounding areas, via E-mail.

Nevertheless, businesses would be well served to look deep into redundancy plans and understand in detail who their underlying service providers are, Forrester Research analyst Brownlee Thomas says. Says Thomas, "You only wake up to the need for physical diversity when something happens to you."

[Sniper]

For the tech savy, this was also released this morning after the problem was corrected...

[ QUOTE ]
Level 3 has resolved their internal issues. They were having some internal OSPF issues, but are going to send out an official RFO sometime this morning. For now Internap is turning up each BGP session with Level 3 out of the PNAPs and will be closely monitoring the situation. As soon as we get the official RFO from Level 3 we will forward it on to the customers.

[/ QUOTE ]

OSPF = Open Shortest Path First

BGP = Border Gateway Protocol

PNAPs = Private Network Access Points

RFO = Reason for Outage