Since yesterday afternoon I have been unable to access pollster.com. It took me about 24 hours to find out why. It turns out Sprint, my ISP, is having a feud with Cogent, pollster's service provider. So they just blocked all connection between the two providers.
PC Mag has the story.
Sprint Nextel has severed its peering connection with Cogent, preventing Sprint customers from seeing Cogent-hosted sites. Cogent has filed suit, and the two sides are currently in litigation, according to a statement from Cogent.
Sprint did so in violation of a contractual obligation to exchange Internet traffic with Cogent on a settlement free peering basis, Cogent said in a statement.
"Cogent regrets that Sprint chose to take this unilateral action rather than await a determination by the court as to the rights of the parties," the company said. "Cogent remains ready to reestablish, on the same settlement free basis as previously existed, the connections that Sprint has severed."
A spokesman for Sprint, however, said that there was no formal agreement between the two companies to begin with. A 2006 trial agreement between the two companies established a peering relationship, but Cogent did not satisfy a set of undisclosed peering criteria between the two companies. At that point, Cogent had a choice: either pay Sprint for continued peering, or sever the connection themselves. Cogent did neither, the Sprint spokesman said, and Sprint filed its own suit and disconnected Cogent.
I hope all Sprint data customers will go to Sprint's website and file a complaint. We are paying for service and should not have to suffer because of Sprit's legal disputes.
Is this the kind of thing that would be prevented by net neutrality laws? Do we have any legal recourse? I have a two-year contract with Sprint, so I don't know if I can change providers, but it seems that I should be able to if they downgrade their service in this way. Maybe if enough people complain they will back down on this.