Sprint blocking Cogent network traffic...

by Jesse Robbins | @jesserobbins | comments: 3

It appears that Sprint has stopped routing traffic (called "depeering") from Cogent as a result of some sort of legal dispute. Sprint customers cannot reach Cogent customers, and vice versa. The effect is similar to what would happen if Sprint were to block voice phonecalls to AT&T customers.

Here's a graph that shows the outage, courtesy of Keynote :

Rich Miller at DataCenterKnowledge has a great summary of the issues behind the incident, which has happened with Cogent before. Rich says:

At the heart of it, peering disputes are really loud business negotiations, and angry customers can be used as leverage by either side. This one will end as they always do, with one side agreeing to pay up or manage their traffic differently.

I think this is particularly Radar-worthy because it provides an example of the complex issues around Net Neutrality . In this case customers are harmed and most (especially Sprint wireless customers) will have no immediate recourse.

(continue reading)

BarCampBank is spreading

by Jesse Robbins | @jesserobbins | comments: 1

When Ben Black and I organized the first BarCampBank in North America last year, we hoped that it would spread. According to William Azaroff's post on NetBanker, the movement is there and growing:

What's all this about BarCampBanks? From a North American premiere in Seattle almost a year ago, we've witnessed two more in the last few months, and eight more are either scheduled, or in the planning process.

Well, maybe not exactly “planned.” BarCampBanks emerge more than they are planned.

[...]It started as a technology summit, an un-conference where developers and technology geeks could share exploits, connect, and find like-minded companions to extol the virtue of open-source and emerging technologies over pizza and wine.

And then someone decided that this forum would be a perfect place to talk about banking and finance. Weird. And yet it works.

The next event will be BarCampBankDallas on June 21-22nd at the American Bank of Texas Building in Frisco, Texas. William has details on the other events this year on his blog, and a current list can always be found on the main BarCampBank wiki.

DisasterTech from Where2.0

by Jesse Robbins | @jesserobbins | comments: 2

I was honored to speak with Mikel Maron at Where2.0 about innovation in Disaster Technology, a topic that is extremely important to me. Here is the video:

This talk covers the ongoing efforts of: World Shelters, the UN Joint Logistics Centre, Humanitarian.info, InSTEDD, and Humanlink.

You can read about the development of SMS GeoChat, the Sahana effort for Burma/Myanmar (Radar post), and the Mesh4x KML sync engine on Eduardo Jezierski's blog and on Jon Thompson's Aid Worker Daily.