all due respect Mike, but you have about every fundamental misunderstanding of how peering works as can possibly be counted, and in the space of only a few comments! most untech-nerdy people understand the trouble from their own anecdotal perspective: IE i can't get to drudge so level 3 or cogent is bad/evil. the business aspect of it could not be more clear, and the press releases by both parties during the fiasco showed the blatant ludicrousy of cogent's position.
think of it like this: you and i each own a used car lot, next to each other. however, i keep selling cars off your lot for half the price.
how long will you allow me to do that?
and this one particularly tickled me:
"When I worked for DISA, I remember having issues with Level 3, mainly they couldn't ever believe something of theirs was down."
the irony there is that i have worked with DISA in a similar capacity before, and it almost always WAS DITCO/DISA's fault, or their failure to select anyone other than Verizon as a local carrier.
The whole networking thing is beyond my understanding. I do know though that we are fortunate to have people like you guys who make it work.
The other thing I believe(hope) is that if enough people cannot get to their desired site, all hell will break loose. We must have our FR fix or get to the Drudge so a fix will be found. (Hopefully not costing US more $$ but probably a futile hope.)
Jen
the hell...
we used MCI and their DISN NOC for 99% of our stuff and THEN they made us use Level3.
I HATE Level3 with a passion, at least their idiot techs. They wouldn't even test whereas MCI would test with us head to head.