Network feud leads to Net blackout By John Borland
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."
The Internet's wobbly legs
Blackout shows Net's fragility
A dispute between major Internet backbone companies has selectively shut down e-mail and Web sites for many online.

"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 exchan..more at http://news.com.com/Network+feud+lea...l?tag=nefd.pop

I used to work for bbn and worldcom and i remember when an outage was only backbone wide not national. providership is now a right not just a privilege, can anything be done to legally establish consequences for lost downtime due to router jockeys?