A letter to Cogent

[IanUK]

I have just sent the following to Cogent in the UK and USA:
After NTL ignoring me for weeks, I felt it was time to bypass the monkeys and start talking to the organ grinder...I doubt it will get me anywhere, but it sure made me feel better !

=======
Dear Cogent,

I am a simple man, I'd like to ask you a simple question if I may.

My ISP is NTL in the UK, every night for about 6 weeks any connections that
use your companies bandwidth to a server that I rent in the USA are awful,
the problem is pretty easy to see and involves a bad peering point (8).

Target Name: www.froopter.com
IP: 66.98.246.48
Date/Time: 13/09/2005 20:00:45

2 10 ms [10.82.176.1]
3 7 ms wapk-t2cam1-a-ge-wan41-112.inet.ntl.com [80.1.170.57]
4 8 ms popl-t2core-a-ge-wan64.inet.ntl.com [62.255.81.65]
5 8 ms pop-bb-a-so-330-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.174.113]
6 13 ms pop-bb-b-ae0-0.inet.ntl.com [213.105.172.77]
7 10 ms tele-ic-1-so-010-0.inet.ntl.com [62.253.185.82]
(8) 199 ms [212.250.14.62]
9 208 ms p6-0.core01.par01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1.122]
10 284 ms p14-0.core02.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.206]
11 286 ms p15-0.core01.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.21]
12 421 ms p3-0.core01.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.90]
13 423 ms g0-2.na21.b015619-0.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.64.66]
14 428 ms everyones_internet_2.demarc.cogentco.com [38.112.25.158]
15 138 ms gphou-66-98-241-27.ev1.net [66.98.241.27]
16 140 ms gphou-66-98-241-125.ev1.net [66.98.241.125]
17 138 ms srv1.froopter.com [66.98.246.48]

The (8) 212.250.14.62 is in the UK and in the morning pings are about 6 or 7
and speeds are fine.

This is quite plainly congestion, easy to see, even to a simple man like me.

However trying to get NTL to do anything about this, is about as simple as
an ant riding a bicycle.
For almost 4 weeks now I have been attempting to get NTL to recognise this
problem, they will not.
They seem too busy crowing about their new 10mb coming soon service - which
they don't seem to realise is pretty useless without a decent connection to
utilise it.

Is there anything you can do to help me resolve this state of affairs.
Talking to NTL is about as useful as a fish trying to blow dry his hair.

Please


Regards

Ian
=========

you have to be congratulated for your persistence & wry sense of humour, if nothing else

- I hope it pays off

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

my personal view is that by being sarcastic about NTL your reducing your chances of Cogent responding as you come across as a persistent whinger. IMHO you would have been better off just stating the problem, the actions you have taken and the results you have obtained. Stick to the facts and be straight to the point.

But then again you might stumble across a person with a sense of humour and takes pity on your problem.

[Derek]

Nice letter. I think most of the humour will be lost on the Americans but still you tried.

Still honestly do you expect them to do anything?
I don't think they will get involved with another ISP and try to force them to make changes/upgrade their network.

[IanUK]

Still honestly do you expect them to do anything?

Nah, but I felt it was better than swearing and cursing.
All Cogent will do (if anything) is point me back to NTL I guess, but it made me feel a bit better.

[Swoopie]

If you think that tracert is bad, check this 1...

9 306 ms 307 ms 298 ms 212.250.14.62
10 286 ms 284 ms 280 ms p6-0.core01.par01.atlas.cogentco.com [130.117.1.122]
11 385 ms 390 ms 388 ms p14-0.core02.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.206]
12 338 ms 354 ms 355 ms p15-0.core01.dca01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.21]
13 417 ms 426 ms 435 ms p3-0.core01.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.4.90]
14 408 ms 395 ms 391 ms g0-2.na21.b015619-0.iah01.atlas.cogentco.com [66.28.64.66]
15 419 ms 424 ms 417 ms everyones_internet_2.demarc.cogentco.com [38.112.25.158]
16 421 ms 425 ms 430 ms gphou-66-98-241-29.ev1.net [66.98.241.29]
17 419 ms 404 ms 395 ms gphou-66-98-241-124.ev1.net [66.98.241.124]
18 402 ms 417 ms 414 ms ev1s-67-15-23-***.ev1servers.net [67.15.23.***]


but gl with your letter :P

[Chrysalis]

Cogent might if you lucky send a message to NTL that their customers are complaining and take the opportunity to sell them an upgrade to their peering . Or they might confirm there is overuse which gives you evidence of it at least. I have never found an isp so hard to report this kind of problem to, even Bulldog who got treated harshly by ofcom and the press have a guy on forums @ adslguide dealing with speed issues, NTL are unscathed with much worse problems.

[IanUK]

Not quite sure why this thread has been moved to 'Internet' when its a specific NTL Broadband issue but anyway.....


I GOT AN ANSWER FROM COGENT !!!

copied below:
=====
Hello,

Thank you for your enquiry.

The peering capacity between NTL and Cogent is currently being upgraded to
address this kind of issues. Connections are in place and should be passing
traffic within the very next days.

Thank you for your interest in Cogent.

Info-Europe
Cogent Communications
====

So in the next couple of days we should see a return to good speeds according to the Organ Grinder, shame the Monkeys couldn't pass on this information in over 6 weeks

[Jules]

Well done for sticking to your guns over this

[Chrysalis]

Good stuff, if only ntl had the same communication skills.

I think the connection is already up since I have seen some traceroute changes kicking in every now and then and that dreaded hop I checked at midnight yesterday and it wasnt lagged. I havent been able to check at middle of peak time recently tho.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Good stuff, if only ntl had the same communication skills.

Obviously they had the skills to communicate with congent and upgrade the connection - or perhaps you think that congent could just do it off their own back and then bill ntl afterwards ?

[Chrysalis]

Umm I mean they can communicate with customers ringing them up and filling in responsetek's about the problem.