VAIRES

I have reviewed all information available at this time, including discussion threads on many sites more specialised than Slashdot. This is bad. Very bad. Right now, there are millions of Internet users with partial connectivity.

But the action of Level3 is not merely an inconvenience to end users; it is hurting a great many small businesses, badly. There are thousands of small businesses that depend on single-homed Internet connectivity and that cannot afford dual-homing. There are dozens of low-cost datacenters that provide single-homed bandwith to tens of thousands of servers.

As we speak, the livelyhoods of thousands of entrepreneurs are being threatened. Many people depend on being able to offer internet services to any peer on the net. But today, Level3 has changed the rules of the game, and have split the Internet into two somewhat isolated internets.

This is happening on a very large scale. Sure, most of the affected people and businesses are going to get through it just fine. But given the sheer scale of the Internet, a small percentage of those depending on full connectivity will not escape this ordeal unscathed.

You can be sure that a few small businesses will close because of this, the reputations of a few persons will be damaged, and there will be a few bankruptcies - all because of Level3's evil actions. You won't hear about it in the media - nobody cares about such small-scale damage. But the damage is already done, and it is getting worse with every passing hour.

I urge you to join me in a five-minute hate against Level3 and all that their evil discriminative ways stand for. While Cogent is widely recognized for its shitty cut-rate network, they are the good guys here. In the past few years, Cogent has been a major driving force for lowering bandwith costs. Level3 is fighting back, and they long for the days where they charged 5000$/mbps. I say: down with Level3 !