Road Runner and StreamAudio.com

[Itsme]

I tried to listen to a couple of radio stations online and had no problems until I tried one that uses StreamAudio from www.streamaudio.com

I continually get a "site not found. I could not even go to www.streamaudio.com.

So, after trying all kinds of things I sent an email to RoadRunner and asked for their help.

Here is their response....quite amazing to me.

======================================================
Thank you for writing us in regard to issues with loading web sites.

I can certainly address this issue for you.

Currently, there are routing issues outside the Road Runner network that
are preventing Road Runner customers from connecting to many web sites.
This is due to major network restructuring and sites that are hosted on
the affected network are not accessible at this time. These sites should
become available again when the restructuring is complete.

The main cause is that Cogent (an Internet transit provider) has been
been de-peered by another transit provider named Level 3. The effect
this has had is to essentially break the Internet into two parts,
isolating Cogent servers from much of the rest of the Internet. Until
new arrangements are made, millions of Internet users, including Road
Runner customers, will be unable to reach many Cogent-hosted sites, such
as www.playnet.com and photobucket.com. Our engineers are looking into a
short term resolution for this issue.

Conversely, all Internet Service Providers on Cogent's network cannot
access Level 3 web sites.

If you want more information on this issue, you can search for news
online from web sites such as www.google.com or you can try contacting
Level 3 technical support directly at 1-877-4LEVEL3.

You can also read an article and an open discussion on this issue at the
following website:

http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?s...d=95&tid=187&t
id=4),
or some of the threads from the North American Network Operators Group
mailing list archive
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/n...ads.html#00140

[Thesifer]

yeah was just reading about that.. crazy stuff

[zippyjuan]

My cable service is though Earthlink, but the service is provided by Time Warner/Roadrunner. I use Photobucket to host my pictures. Thankfully that is still working! But maybe they use different servers. I tried one of the stations at the link and it worked- but not at first. I had to allow popups in the Windows SP2 pop up blocker. The little window would open, but would not play until I disabled it.

[Itsme]

Net backbone outage fixed, for nowBy John Borland, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: October 7, 2005, 4:06 PM PT

Forward in EMAIL Format for PRINT ZDNet Tags: Internet Cable
A three-day dispute between large Internet network backbone companies came to a quiet end on Friday, restoring normal Net service to thousands of customers who had Web sites and e-mails sporadically blocked.

Level 3 Communications, which had cut off a direct connection between its network and that of rival Cogent Communications on Wednesday morning, restored normal service late Friday afternoon.

But the decision was temporary, made to let Cogent and customers find alternative arrangements, Level 3 said. The link between the two networks will be cut again at 6 a.m. EST, Nov. 9, unless Cogent agrees to pay for the connection.

"As has always been the case, we are willing to work with Cogent to reach a contractual arrangement that is equitable to both parties," Level 3 Executive Vice President Sureel Choksi said in a statement. "If this is not possible, we expect that Cogent will make arrangements with one of the numerous alternative carriers currently offering such services."

The situation stems from the breakdown in a so-called peering arrangement, in which companies of similar sizes agree to exchange data traffic across their networks without compensation.

Level 3 contends that it is larger than Cogent, and so a free peering relationship is no longer appropriate. It has asked Cogent to start paying for the connection, but Cogent has so far refused, saying that it is of comparable size to Level 3.

Because both companies rely heavily on direct connections, there was no alternate route for data to travel between the networks when the link was cut. That meant that customers on Level 3's network could not visit Web sites or send e-mail to people on Cogent's network. Thousands of people, including Time Warner's Road Runner cable modem customer base, were affected.

Cogent released a terse statement Friday, saying that it had only had time for short technical dialogue with the other company.

"We are pleased that Level 3 has taken the necessary actions to restore the full Internet to their customers and ours," a Cogent spokesman said. "We welcome this move, and hope and expect the peering connections will be maintained."

[zippyjuan]

I guess the Wild West days of the internet are coming to an end with the cattlemen starting to fence off the plains? To quote Rodney King, "Can't we all just get along?"

[Kevster]

Since I work for a network services provider, I can tell you that Level 3 is definitely larger than Cogent! We have many large circuits with Level 3 and many other tier-1 providers (dark fiber and wavelength circuits - 2.5GB and 10GB circuits all over the US, Canada and Europe). I just checked and we have 1 circuit, a local loop circuit only, with Cogent. I was surprised even by that because they apparently do not meet our requirements for fiscal stability (not that Level 3 is any better).

My company, Infonet (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of British Telecom) have internet traffic peering relationships with most major providers in Europe, Asia and the US and we transport a large quantity of that traffic across the Atlantic for our customers. Since we have deidcated node sites most of the major internet PoPs, our customers use our network for dedicated internet access as well as for their own intranet needs. This has gotten us into some trouble with other countries that want to maintain control of all communications in their country and control what their citizens can access - most notably China, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, and Pakistan in my experience. This kind of squabble between Level 3 and Cogent is what drives business customers away from them and to providers like us. I wouldn't be surprised if Cogent eventually rolls on this one, though they probably will try to save face.