William Blake Nebuchadnezzar

That's when Sprint decided to sue.
Sprint's lawyers alleged that Cogent had failed the trial and thus should be paying for the connection under the contract's terms. Cogent's counter-suit claimed that it had actually passed the trial and besides, if Sprint no longer felt it on Sprint (like the U.S. federal court system) for Web access could no longer communicate with customers who relied solely of Cogent for their Web connections (like many large law firms), and vice versa.
Angry calls from customers began to flood both companies, and it quickly became clear that Sprint had made a grave strategic error. In the was getting value out of connecting to Cogent directly, it was free to do what any utility would do to a non-paying customer: disconnect that's exactly what Sprint began to do. It started severing the 10 links between the two networks, hoping that Schaeffer would back down. He didn't. At 4 p.m. ET on Oct. 30, Sprint cut the last connection. In an instant, customers who relied solely