DaveNet: Thursday, October 16, 1997; by Dave Winer.
Conxion on Peering
Conxion, http://www.conxion.com/ is our ISP.We've had some complaints lately from scripting.com users about their inability to connect to us thru Conxion. We're very concerned about this, we chose Conxion because of their high level of throughput and professional service.
The last inquiry came from a user of pacbell.net, who gets to the net thru something called "AGIS".
I've been forwarding the comments to Antonio Salerno, the CEO of Conxion, antonio@conxion.com. Here's what Antonio said.
Conxion on Peering
There are a few reports that some people are unable to access Conxion sites. These people are customers of a single other Internet provider, who has decided not to implement peering with Conxion.
Peering is a mutual arrangement in which one ISP agrees to exchange routing information and direct access to, and with, another ISP. This allows clients from each ISP to access Internet sites, services and routing information between each other, and to other locations on the net.
Conxion has made every attempt to establish peering with this ISP (AGIS) and will continue our policy to peer with every ISP possible. Their decision affects their customer's ability to reach all of Conxion sites. (including Microsoft, Intel, InterNIC and hundreds of other sites).
We have a completely open peering policy, and have always peered with any network that wishes to do so. We currently have almost one hundred peering networks, either through direct BGP4 or via the Routing Arbiter in those locations where the Arbiter appears. In every case we are aware of a peering problem, we have sent many requests to them, including email, FedEx, letters, and telephone conversations with their CEOs. None of the Internet's other large networks have this problem, and indeed the top 8 networks would report that we run a very clean, high-performance network.
Please note that only networks that might view us as a competitive threat are doing this, and perhaps have some agenda that leads to their action.
There is no technical reason for these ISPs not to peer with Conxion. We have all OC-3 connectivity and all Cisco 7513 routers at MAE-East, MAE-West, AADS (Chicago), and PB NAP. Further, we have one of the highest performance backbones in existence between all our locations. Conxion's Internet exchange point architecture is a matter of public record, and has been in place for quite some time. Again, Conxion has a completely open peering policy, and have always peered with any network that wishes to do so.
Should these specific ISPs choose to fix the problem, the solution takes 2-3 minutes by Conxion personnel to implement. (2-3 minutes from their staff also).
We regret any inconvenience to anyone, but our hands are tied. The only course of action is for these ISP customers - who have a right to expect access to the full Internet - to contact the non-peering ISP.
Antonio Salerno