Net Neutrality Order Spurred TWC Interconnection Deal, Cogent CEO Schaeffer Says

The FCC net neutrality order was seemingly the stimulus for an agreement ending the long-running Cogent/Time Warner Cable interconnection feud, and could motivate other companies to sign similar agreements, Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer said Thursday, after the companies announced signing an interconnection agreement for their public IP networks. "Talks had been going on for a very long time, but they were going nowhere until there was a legal framework that had penalties for violating the open Internet order," Schaeffer told us. He said in past interviews that TWC was among those ISPs the Internet backbone company was considering filing a net neutrality complaint over (see 1505010033).

The companies were mum on the details except to say it was for multiple years and "allows the exchange of Internet traffic in a scalable and reliable manner to accommodate the growing use of the Internet." Schaeffer said Cogent "took great pains to make sure there's a mechanism to put in adequate capacity and increase that capacity along with the growth of the Internet. It achieves what we want to deliver to our customers, hopefully what Time Warner [Cable] wants to deliver in terms of quality of service" and what the FCC intended with its net neutrality order. Cogent's network remains settlement free under the TWC agreement, Schaeffer said.

The congestion between ISPs and the backbone provider affects the quality of video streaming and other services, Cogent has said. With the better interconnection agreement, TWC customers should see "a marked improvement in the quality of connectivity," Schaeffer said. With Cogent carrying about 21 percent of the world's Internet traffic, he said, "They now have much better connectivity to that traffic." The Cogent/TWC agreement is effective immediately. "We're ready now," Schaeffer said, saying TWC's part of the interconnection deal, including installing more ports, will take "a little bit of time."

The FCC is looking at TWC's relationship to Cogent as part of its regulatory review of Charter Communications' buying of Bright House Networks and TWC. Included in a mountain of data the FCC requested from TWC last month as part of the review were copies of written communications with Cogent -- as well as Akamai, Google, Level 3, Limelight and Netflix -- on interconnection agreements (see 1509220057). A TWC spokesman said the Cogent agreement wasn't connected to Charter, since those talks have been going on for some time and TWC continues to operate independently of Charter. Cogent has never had a congestion problem with Charter, Schaeffer said.

Cogent has complained in the past about "problematic ISPs" such as CenturyLink and Deutsche Telekom not upgrading their interconnection capacity (see 1508060048). Neither company commented Thursday. Schaeffer said Cogent is in negotiations with numerous ISPs about interconnection issues "at different speeds and stages, but the open Internet order has been powerful in helping us get people to the finish line."