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Hurricane Electric

Hurricane Electric is a global Internet service provider offering Internet transit, tools, and network applications,[1] as well as data center colocation and hosting services at one location in San Jose, California[2] and two locations in Fremont, California,[3] where the company is based.

As of June 2024, according to its own data, Hurricane Electric is the largest global IP network as measured by network adjacencies in both IPv4 and IPv6.[4] It is also the largest global IPv6 network as measured by IPv6 prefixes announced, and the fifth-largest global IP network as measured by IPv4 prefixes announced, according to its own data.[5]

IPv6

Hurricane Electric operates the largest Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) transit networks globally, as measured by the count of peering interconnections to other networks.[6] The majority of these adjacencies are native IPv6 BGP sessions.

Hurricane Electric offers an IPv6 tunnel broker service,[7] providing free connectivity to the IPv6 Internet via 6in4 IPv6 transition mechanisms. Prior to 2020, the service allowed users to peer with Hurricane Electric over the tunnel using Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) to announce their routes. Users attempting to sign up to use BGP over a tunnel received a message that they were no longer available for free due to abuse. Regular tunnels remain available.[8] The company provides an online IPv6 certification program to further education and compliance in IPv6 technology.[9][10] As of June 18, 2024, the company reports 52,760 provisioned tunnels spanning 174 countries[11] via the IPv6 tunnel broker. 21,512 individuals in 164 countries have reached the highest level of the IPv6 certification.[12]

Peering

Within its global network, Hurricane Electric is connected to more than 330 major exchange points[13][14] and exchanges IP traffic directly with more than 11,000 different networks.[15] Hurricane Electric currently has 50+ Terabits per second active public peering capacity and 400+ Terabits per second active private peering capacity.[13][16]

The European Internet Exchange Association (Euro-IX) ranks Hurricane Electric first in the world for the number of connections to Internet exchange points, with presence at more than 170 of Euro-IX member IXPs.[17][18]

Cogent dispute

There is a long-running dispute between the provider Cogent Communications and Hurricane Electric. Cogent has been refusing to peer settlement-free with Hurricane Electric since 2009. Due to this, IPv6 traffic cannot be interchanged between both networks.[19][20] IPv4 traffic can still be interchanged since Hurricane Electric is only a Tier 1 operator for IPv6 but not for IPv4. IPv4 traffic between both networks is routed via Arelion.[21]

IncogNET dispute

In July 2023, Hurricane Electric added a BGP filtering rule to deny traffic to and from the controversial discussion forum Kiwi Farms.[22] The ISP company IncogNET filed a complaint to the Washington State Attorney General's Office in response to this.[23] As of 2025, there is no publicly available record indicating that the Washington Attorney General pursued enforcement action or issued a formal ruling related to the complaint.[24][25]

External links

References

  1. Cherry. IPv6 is Coming--Just in Time IEEE Spectrum, 2011-01-27^
  2. Colocation at Hurricane Electric Hurricane Electric Internet Services, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  3. About Hurricane Electric Hurricane Electric Internet Services, retrieved May 1, 2021^
  4. BGP Peer Report: Adjacencies Hurricane Electric BGP Toolkit, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  5. BGP Peer Report: Prefixes Hurricane Electric BGP Toolkit, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  6. Huston. AS's ordered by AS Adjacency^
  7. Henderson. Hurricane Electric Launches Premium IPv6 Tunnel Broker Service Web Host Industry Review, 2011-06-06, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  8. blondguy. Hurricane Electric no longer offers free BGP tunnels r/ipv6, 2020-04-23, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  9. Deploy360 Programme. Training: Hurricane Electric Free IPv6 Certification Internet Society (ISOC), retrieved June 21, 2012^
  10. Salmela. Earning the IPv6 Certification from Hurricane Electric on Mac OS X 2013-11-03, retrieved November 9, 2014^
  11. Tunnels By Country Hurricane Electric Internet Services, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  12. IPv6 Sages by Region Hurricane Electric Internet Services, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  13. Hurricane Electric Peering Policy Hurricane Electric Internet Services, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  14. Internet Exchange Report: - Exchange Participants Hurricane Electric BGP Toolkit, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  15. AS6939 Hurricane Electric LLC Hurricane Electric BGP Toolkit^
  16. IP Transit Hurricane Electric Internet Services, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  17. Hurricane Electric Euro-IX.net IXPDB, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  18. IXPDB ASNs sorted by number of IXP connections Euro-IX.net IXPDB, retrieved 2024-06-18^
  19. Kieren McCarthy. Another problem with IPv6: It's sparked a punch-up between top networks The Register, 2018-08-28^
  20. Mike Leber. IPv6 internet broken, cogent/telia/hurricane not peering NANOG mailing list, 12 October 2009^
  21. AS6939 Hurricane Electric LLC - bgp.he.net bgp.he.net, retrieved 2024-09-21^
  22. Ernesto Van der Sar. Kiwi Farms' Copyright Battle Could Spell Bad News for DMCA Transparency TorrentFreak, 2023-10-19, retrieved 2024-06-28^
  23. IncogNET. Today we filed an official complaint against @henet (Hurricane Electric) with the @AGOWA (Attorney General of Washington State) over their censorship of legal and protected speech. Twitter, 2023-07-29, retrieved 2023-08-09^
  24. IncogNET filed an official complaint against Hurricane Electric with the Washington State Attorney General LowEndTalk, 2023^
  25. Hurricane Electric blocking Kiwi Farms-related traffic Hacker News, 2023^