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Level 3 Shaken Down By Comcast Over Video Streaming
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like the gloves are really coming off; Level 3 Communications had to pony up an undisclosed amount of cash to keep Netflix streaming to Comcast customers. Perhaps now the FCC might actually do something to ensure that the internet remains open. Level 3's Chief Legal Officer, Thomas Stortz, said: 'Level 3 believes Comcast's current position violates the spirit and letter of the FCC's proposed Internet Policy principles and other regulations and statutes, as well as Comcast's previous public statements about favoring an open Internet. While the network neutrality debate in Washington has focused on what actions a broadband access provider might take to filter, prioritize or manage content requested by its subscribers, Comcast's decision goes well beyond this. With this action, Comcast is preventing competing content from ever being delivered to Comcast's subscribers at all, unless Comcast's unilaterally-determined toll is paid — even though Comcast's subscribers requested the content. With this action, Comcast demonstrates the risk of a 'closed' Internet, where a retail broadband Internet access provider decides whether and how their subscribers interact with content.'"
You should have done what FOX and NBC have done in the past - Cut off Comcast. When that happens the customers invariably blame the cable company for being greedy, not the broadcasters or Level 3 or netflix
Then Comcast would be forced to stop banning netflix, else risk losing customers.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Only two levels to go!
We're doomed!
"Sorry, you cannot access Netflix from Comcast Internet. Please contact your local Comcast retentions department for advice."
You are no longer my ISP.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
uses a tremendous amount of bandwidth. I know we should be arguing that they need new infrastructure, but just try to convince comcast to spend 2 billion dollars so you can watch fresh prince of bel-air. Not gonna happen.
Yet another showing by Comcast as to how the net shall lose it's neutrality in the coming years. Between the major ISP's, MPAA, RIAA, DHS and ICANN, we're going to be hosed. Had problems with these asshats for years now. Apparently either myself or my roommate downloaded something Comcast didn't like and now we are restricted to a maximum of 35MB per download, anything beyond that and Comcast decreases our bandwidth. They will not admit it to us though.
Keep the government out of my internet! The corporations can solve their problems in a way that the consumer is not effected!
Right?
Guys?
anyone?
I generally respect Karl Denninger's viewpoint on these issues since he was one of the people actually involved in building out the internet.
Comcast sucks. Most of the HD content is very repetitive. I don't watch much tv.. except for Big Bang Theory, Fringe, and a couple of other shows. I wok out after supper now. Also I've gota few home projects I'm working on. So I stripped my Comcast account to be Internet and basic cable. .. they weren'y happy.. I went from $125.00/month to $50.00 / month (Internet is next tier up). If they dont' watch it I'll be looking for another way to get service.
Netflix is getting throttled down... I've played a few movies that dropped from HD to SD due to bandwidth throttling. Plus my Vonage service had due to Comcast bandwidth sucking. I live in a rural area.
Old business model:
1. Create ISP
2. Provide Service
3. Charge for Service
4. Profit
New business model:
1. Create ISP
2. Provide Service
3. Charge for Service
4. Redefine Service
5. Charger for Service Again
6. More Profit
Then Comcast would be forced to stop banning netflix, else risk losing customers.
Uh, that's not how I see it going down. That would be like a staring contest and I'd bet that Netflix would blink first.
Customer: Hello, Netflix, I can't stream your movies anymore.
Netflix: Uh, well, that's your ISP's fault for not coordinating with our CDN.
Customer: But the rest of the internet is working fine.
Netflix: Yes, well, you need to get a different internet provider.
Customer: Comcast is the only broadband provider in my area.
Netflix: Well, write them an angry letter because it's not our fault.
So do you think the user is going to quit using Comcast or do you think they'll have no choice but to stop subscribing to Netflix since they can no longer stream movies? I think the latter is more likely what would happen. It's different because Fox and NBC provide a lot of free content and can easily tell the customer that their ISP is blocking the news. With Comcast, they know that Netflix is pulling down tons of money (look at their stock value) and they know that if they hold out they can wring more money out of L3 and, eventually, Netflix. And since in most of Comcast's realm there's a complete lack of a competitor. That's the real issue here, that Comcast customers often have no choice and there's a barrier of a cost to entry for anyone else to enter in as competition with them. Fix that and you solve this whole problem because then your scenario might work if users are really upset enough to change ISPs when Netflix doesn't work because their current ISP is trying to negotiate for more cash.
My work here is dung.
The customers get screwed.
I heard this on the radio and there was some noise about Comcast losing cable TV business. WAAAAA! If I'm paying you to provide me with internet and I'm doing so in preference to paying you for TV maybe you should take that as a sign that your customers want generic internet access instead of cable TV. Instead Comcast sees its own business as a threat to itself and then tries to get someone else to pay for it. Netflix has a good reputation, but they aren't going to just eat this cost either.
Comcast says the issue with Level 3 is a peering dispute and says it "offered Level 3 the same terms it offers to Level 3s CDN competitors for the same traffic." The issue seems to be that the Level 3's addition of Netflix as a customer may have altered the balance of the traffic exchange between Level 3 and Comcast. In other words, Comcast says the volume of traffic is the issue, while Level 3 says the type of traffic is the issue.
Finally, a real example people can point to and say, "SEE!" when talking about net neutrality.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
If Comcast are a monopoly supplier (ie customers cannot get broadband from another ISP) then maybe the customers who cannot get Netflix (or whatever else) should bring a class action suit against Comcast.
Nobody save a moron would make the ridiculous claim that customers will not be affected by either government involvement or lack thereof. The issue is, in which way will the customer be most positively, or least negatively effected. Unfortunately this was handled poorly by Level 3, who should have said "no problem, cut us off, we'll get our lawyers to start the class action suit on behalf of your customers right away." They should have then sent out snail mail to all their customers who have comcast (determinable by IP) informing them of Comcast's actions, and their right to enter the lawsuit. That being said, I am all for a law that makes it illegal for anyone, government included, to fuck with the internet.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
is Netflix should start billing Comcast for agreesing to deliver content to Comcast customers. I wonder how Comcast would like THAT.
And not looking for alternatives right now, I'd be mighty ashamed of myself.
Do any of these hold water?
Illegal interference of a business relationship (between for example Amazon and a Comcast customer)?
Simple fraud and wire fraud, by telling customers that they're getting access to the Internet, when in fact Comcast knows its delivering only a subset of the Internet?
Copyright violation, because by filtering out some content, it loses Common Carrier status under the DMCA, and is thus liable for any coyright violations passing through its network?
Antitrust, because they're abusing their local near-monopoly on broadband internet into other areas of commerce.
You guys have it better than we do at the moment. Ed Vaizley (Communications Minister) has supported the idea of paying extra for access to certain content on the internet. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11773574 As you can imagine I'm not too pleased about this, you guys are still looking to your government to help you, ours has already said they'll do the opposite.
Already waiting for FIOS here, but if Comcast had cut off Netflix that would have driven me to DSL in the interim. Admittedly, streaming video takes more of Comcast's bandwidth than static pages, but there is streaming video from Apple trailers, youtube, porn, news sites and plenty more. Either Comcast builds and bills a service that supports that, or not. If not, they will lose out business to companies that can.
My at&t DSL may only be 1.2 mbps but its a reliable 1.2 and Netflix streaming works reliably. What good
is comcast's "high speed" cable internet if its a high speed road to nowhere?
Free market should solve it, right? Are you a communist if you want to stop these poor companies from getting their profit?
the equipment necessary to stream the kind of bandwidth Netflix needs to a significant portion of their customers simply can not be purchased and maintained for the current price of a residential broadband connection.
Do we know that for a fact? I am skeptical. Bandwidth usage globally is increasing, and the rate of increase is increasing, and it's only going to get worse. Every ISP in the world has to deal with this every day, every year, and so on. Comcast is a huge company. If carrying Netflix is putting them in the red, why doesn't it do the same to small, local cable ISPs, who only have a few thousand customers? Why aren't the local ISPs' upstream providers doing the same thing? What about ISPs in Europe and Japan, where they provide comparatively enormous amounts of bandwidth to users? Why aren't they going bankrupt when they're sending 10x the bandwidth Comcast provides to each customer?
I may be wrong, but I suspect it's not a matter of losing money carrying Netflix content, but simply a matter of corporate greed.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Notice that the dispute is not between Comcast and Netflix -- it's between Comcast and Level3, which doesn't create content, only owns pipes. Level3 and Comcast have a "peer" agreement; they generate a similar amount of traffic, so they accept each others' traffic for free. That's a typical arrangement. However, this was before Netflix changed CDN from Akamai to Level3. Akamai sends much more traffic to Comcast than it receives, so it pays Comcast for receiving the traffic. That's also a typical arrangement. Now that Neflix will be going over Level3 instead, Comcast is just trying to negotiate the same deal w/ Level3 as with Comcast:
Net neutrality may be an important issue, but it's not the issue here.
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.
Obviously, a geographically-enabled monopoly does not qualify as a free market. If Comcast had competition, and its customers had more choice of ISP, it would be at least somewhat of a free market, and it would change things considerably. Since Comcast has a monopoly in many areas, and since it's providing competing content--a conflict of interest--it needs more regulation.
Your argument is fallacious.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
I use Comcast for my ISP, but if this happens - if the tolls go up -- I'll dump as much of their TV service as I can. I get far more entertainment out of NetFlix than I get out of their TV services (cable + on demand + Fancast). My practical alternative is Verizon DSL or FiOS internet, but I don't want to enter into a two year contract with Verizon - and who knows if they'll be adding NetFlix or Hulu tolls as well.
The only thing that concerns me is we might see a drop in future TV content quality as more people move to NetFlix and Hulu. I don't know what slice of the $100 or so dollars a month I shovel over to Comcast ends up in the hands of the folks who produce TV shows, but I have to think it's more than the slice that comes from the $7.99 NetFlix or 9.99 Hulu Plus gets. I know I'll survive, but I don't want to see Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, or even American Pickers go away.
But I'm a one-percenter in more ways than one.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
As soon as authority gets involved in commerce, the market ceases to be free, and falls prey to regulation and rent-seeking.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
This isn't about Netflix, this is about a peering agreement. L3 has effectively said, "We anticipate we will move a lot more traffic in the near future across our peering links." L3's press release makes NO mention of Netflix. It seems as likely that L3 is posturing as that Comcast is posturing. Comcast isn't (in anything public) threatening to restrict L3 traffic. Losing that peering connection means it would be routed to Comcast through one of L3's other links... which they would also pay for. Cogent and Sprint, for example, had a huge peering spat. Of course, that did result in a partitioned Internet, but that could have been dealt with by alternate peering that I bet L3 has.
L3, in another world, would charge Comcast if they transmitted more traffic away from Comcast than to Comcast.
This ignore the fact that I think Comcast is a scum company, but that's another story...
SIG: HUP
I have it on good authority from my Republican Senator that the free market will make the right decision, as it always does.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Wait, L3 should pay Comcast for the privilege of supplying more of the content Comcast customers want? After paying to increase their own capacity?
No, the net neutrality geeks are right. This is simultaneously leveraging their consumer monopoly and protecting their video business. A competitive ISP without mixed interests wouldn't be pursuing this angle.
Level 3 should just pull the plug for ALL traffic originating from Comcast's network. They must want a new peering agreement. That would make it instead of the WorldWideWeb The ComcastWideWeb (maybe The TX-ComcastWW , CA-ComcastWW, etc). It would also smack the head of Congress & FCC with a 2x4 (wake-up)!
If I were Level3, I block all traffic too and from Comcast. I don't just block it, I accept then blackhole it. DROP
It kinda feels like if I come to a wholesaler and tell them to pony up for me to sell their goods to my clients...
I find this whole argument ridiculous. Isn't the simple, effective solution to simply charge customers based on the amount of data they consume?
I mean, if I want to use Netflix, shouldn't I pay for the bandwidth required to use the service? Why should that cost be shared by my neighbor, who only uses the internet to check his email and the news?
Charge consumers per byte of data they send/receive. Yes, it sucks if you are a bandwidth hog, but its really the only fair solution.
I mean, there's a reason other utilities, such as electricity, water, or waste disposal don't give unlimited plans. It's just not a reasonable way of doing things. You should pay for what you are in fact consuming, rather than subsidizing the consumption of your neighbor who has a hundred torrents going all night, every night.
I agree, it sucks but it's really the only fair solution. It might stifle growth of some services which consume lots of data, but it would also have major benefits, for examples companies would be motivated to reduce the amount of bandwidth their services provide.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Maybe the deal means that any Netflix streaming wont be measured into the 250GB a month cap that comcast enforces?
Could also mean that Comcast caches the content on their own servers.
So Comcast, who is also the largest Cable provider in the country, is putting the squeeze on Netflix, who is one of the biggest threats to the cable industry. If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck.....
In my area, I have access through Time Warner, AT&T and a local provider who uses AT&T to run the fiber right to your home, though you have to pay an exorbitant fee to have this put in. Right now, I am using Time Warner's service, mostly because I have had bad dealings with AT&T in the past (while I used them for wireless, they completely jacked up my bill every single month, and finally, after I had cancelled the contract and paid the termination fee, they started to get all concerned about "customer satisfaction" and "retention"...too little too late)
I will tell you the truth; I hate both Time Warner and AT&T with a passion. Just last month I started having DNS resolution issues. Websites that I had previously been able to access would suddenly pop up with a 404 page (conveniently hosted by...Time Warner!). I called the local office and they said they knew nothing, even checked to see if there were any outages, and nothing came up on their screen. Finally got through to one of their internet support and he informed me that they switched over to new DNS relay servers in our area. One switch over to my router, and I plugged in Google's public DNS servers where I had previously allowed the Time Warner DNS to relay...and all the sudden, my pages started to resolve just fine. In fact, the resolution was even faster than it had ever been before.
My wife noticed the difference immediately. She's an avid WoW player, and she said her latency went down considerably...how could DNS affect latency, I thought, unless the DNS was routing all the traffic through some sort of filter? Did I just stumble on some sort of nefarious scheme on the part of TW? I experienced the same issues with Netflix movies over the TW network as well. While under TW DNS, my netflix movies would have to recache at least once every 30-40 minutes. Now, under the Google DNS, it never has to cache. I wonder...
The article makes out like the whole issue would be resolved by the saintly network neutrality some people so want.
Ok, any supporter of network neutrality, explain how exactly regulations around providing equal access to hosts have anything to do with high level peering agreements. Are you seriously saying that network neutrality will lock in current peering agreements regardless of who carries what traffic? That amounts to a guarantee that anyone using a particular CDN cannot leave it, because other CDN's will never be able to afford to carry more traffic than they currently have.
Also I daresay network neutrality says nothing about access to any given host, only that if you allow connection to a host you route traffic to it on the same terms as other hosts. IF you allow connection... of if the government allows it. The government blocked DNS for some sites it deemed illegal, while in a world of network neutrality instead of just altering the DNS they could also have all ISP's not allow traffic to a given set of IP's for the same reason. Just remember that is the door you are opening when you seek government control over the internet.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The issue is a lot more subtle than this. Comcast wasn't about to block netflix traffic, they were just going to close Level3's direct connections to the comcast network. This would not prevent access to netflix to comcast customers, it would just close of the most direct route.
The issue is that level3 wants that comcast routes it's traffic for free, directly, and for huge (and growing) bandwidth demands (and expects comcast to upgrade it's links for this). It's not about to firewall netflix from their customers.
The issue is that level3 now gets to deliver netflix traffic (that they get paid for) for free to comcast. When comcast closes the settlement-free interconnects ("peerings") that means level3 will need to pay on of the other tier-1 carriers to deliver netflix traffic, which is why they're so upset about this.
This is not a net neutrality shake down.
Level 3 will be using more of Comcast's infrastructure than Comcast is using of its. So, Level 3 has to pay a fee. Dozens of companies already pay similar fees for peering. Think of the internet like a house full of room mates. If room mate Comcast is responsible for the telephone service and room mate Level 3 gets a girlfriend in a different state maybe it is okay for Comcast to ask Level 3 to pay some of the bill.
All this is was Level 3 exploiting Netflix's name and the already unfounded fears of the Comcast/NBC merger to try to get a lower peering fee.
I had the 1.2 mbps service it was just fine, until it broke and I spent every night for 2 weeks fighting with india support, buying all new crap, rewiring my system 3 times, just to notice the fucking exchange box was wide open and half ripped apart 2 blocks down the street
another fine example is the time I was outside holding the cut and frayed end of the phone line in my hand and they refused to help me until I reset my modem, cause from their end they "showed no problems"
it works fine until it breaks, then good fucking luck
Comcast's claims here are that the large increase in traffic to their network from L3 because of Netflix puts them in violation of their peering agreement, and that an adjustment is necessary.
Is this normally how peering arrangements work? If so, Comcast's position is reasonable.
So, this is like if the government gave a monopoly to a company to control all of the surface streets (interstates controlled by someone else) and charge whatever they want and ban anyone from the roads that they want.
And your argument would be "The local monopoly is not the problem. If someone has a problem with it, they could always use a helicopter!".
You fail.
Is part of the problem not the use of "hot potato routing"?
Hot potato routing mean that each ip package is delivered to the nearest place where the 2 networks peer. This mean that in most cases, the destination network will transfer the ip package over a much longer distance, compared to the source network. Which is a problem when one network(The content network, in this case level 3/netflix) send out 100 times as much data as they receive.
Which bring me back to something i newer understod. Why does anyone use hot potato routing? Would a "Let's exchange packages someware in the middle" not be a better and more fair solution. That way each company would have to carry all packages half way, and the send/receive ration would not matter.
Full disclosure: I worked in a Comcast department that helped to determine what future internet bandwidth requirement were going to be. They fired me for reasons I don't feel like getting into, I'll try to give an unbiased account of what I think their thinking is.
Honestly, Comcast is extremely frugal. This can be both good and bad. In 2008, Wall Street types were encouraging them to take on a lot more debt before the debt bubble popped.
They do a lot of things in order to free up bandwidth and to satisfy bandwidth demand. It's not like they are sitting on their butts and collecting money. But what they are not going to do is put fiber optics straight to your home, which would be the clearest way to expand the amount of bandwidth. That is extremely expensive and only Verizon is doing that. No other telco is doing that.
When they are converting analog channels to digital, they are doing that to free up bandwidth. They are trying to roll out Switch Digital Video in order to free up bandwidth (80 or so channels which barely anyone watches in a given service group will be swapped in and out when needed). They split off customers into different service groups to mitigate this as well. They are constantly monitoring this and a lot of hard work goes into this.
What I think is going on is not that they are worried about cable revenues going down (and I think they know that it is inevitable) but they are freaking out about an increase in web video eating up all their bandwidth. I can't be certain about this. But you have to also understand a corporation has several different parts. One part might not care about something while another part may view Netflix as an existential threat.
So while I would love to bash Comcast because I feel they screwed me over, I can't sit here and tell you that they aren't doing anything.
However, Verizon does have a superior product in my opinion which works better for reasons I could get into. But that basically comes down to the fact they don't have much legacy equipment on their system and they went with fiber-to-the-home instead of fiber-to-the-neighborhood.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
12:50 - press return.
Yeah, that pretty much says it...
Has Comcast disconnected your Internet account? Same here. You can read about it at http://comcastissue.blogspot.com
That is the very best answer. Any blackmail that users' ISPs try to levy on others, should be passed right back to those users, and as directly as possible, rather than amortized across all users. There's nothing wrong with someone paying for stuff, as long as it ends up becoming a market force that favors those who are able to minimize that cost.
If Comcast can charge Level3 whatever the hell they want without there being any counter-pressure, then everyone eventually loses. If whatever Comcast charges Level3 ends up raising the price of Comcast from Comcast's customers' point of view, then we'll still have a relatively healthy (and fair!) situation (ignoring the fact that Comcast doesn't have competition in some areas).
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I vote that we take all of Comcast's executives, and everybody else at Comcast that was involved in the decision to do this, and line them up against a wall and shoot them in the face repeatedly.
Violence is the only thing that's going to change what's happening right now.
The best way to end Comcast's behavior is to deny them the life-blood a corporation needs to survive... Revenue...
The Internet is assymetrical. I click a few times, and in comes gigs of movie. Even when I wax on about something important here, or send a Christmas email of a few kilobytes, I read many more. One post on facebook yields me megabytes of web page.
This is an old complaint. Multiple providers used to complain about peering arrangements in the late 90s, and then they got together and dealt with it. Sprint and Cogent get into hissy fits regularly, mostly because Cogent undercuts Sprint access pricing, and Sprint tries to hurt Cogen by raising their peering fees. It all goes away.
Now the cable companies are whining that other content providers are taking advantage of their networks by pouring data into their gateways without compensating these poor media delivery networks for the effort.
This would be a lot easier to deal with if the cable co ISPs, in particular, had a content delivery business that they could sell to non-subscribers, but they don't. So they want to encourage their subscribers to 'stay at home' and use the content they DO have, which is pretty much on-demand TV and pay-per-view movies. So far, subscribers aren't as interested as expected, and seem to prefer Netflix. Pricing has a lot to do with this, but massive numbers of new releases are the big driver.
So do the cable cos have a beef here? Should they be compensated by other Internet media providers for the highly assymetrical traffic they are receiving?
No. They already are being compensated by subscribers.
I pay Cox about $50/mo for Internet service, and I rarely watch or stream anything. My limited gaming is no great burden, the issue there being latency. My occasional downloads of ISOs for a Linux distro are so rare they can't be causing Cox any real trouble. I don't Hulu, don't Netflix, don't even YouTube. But I may have to. My video bill with Cox is closing in on $100/mo, and it's not worth it. In high season, I pay about $3 per show that I WANT to watch on TV. That's about 30 shows, assuming it is October and all my favs are on. Now that several have ended for the season, it actually costs me almost $5 per show tha I WANT to watch. The rest is idle channel-surfing, entirely optional viewing, and I could not do any of it and not feel cheated. Seems like a lot. If I could stream current episodes of some programming, I could kill my cable. Actually, I could kill my cable since only one show can't be had over the air, and I can deal with that. I can use ATSC and be done with cable. I live so close to the DSL box I can get slammin' speed and Qwest seems ready to call me back. I even have a wireless DS option that's good for 5MB down, and the hardware isn't too expensive. I may yet have to exercise my freedom and go elsewhere. I can buy a ChannelMaster DVR at Fry's for $300 if I'm too lazy to whip up a media server/PDVR out of stuff I'm not using any more.
But this is really about the ISP, this case being a cable co, trying to get paid twice. I pay for access to content. They want the providers to pay separately. Imagine the Post Office making you buy a stamp to send an envelope, and then having to buy another stamp to pick up your incoming mail. Nice.
Of course, in the end, we pay.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
This article submission is pure FUD, and very misleading.
The issue at hand is Level 3 currently have a peering agreement. They send each other traffic at a 1:1 ratio, more or less. Level 3 acquired Netflix as a customer. The traffic ratio will now change to 5:1 in Level 3's favor. Anytime traffic is that out of balance, a commercial (monetary) peering arrangement is made. This has nothing to do with neutrality, or video, or netflix, or anything else. This is simply Level 3 whipping up the childlike fear of no net neutrality in hopes to gain a better peering agreement. Very Shady on their part, and very silly for anyone who gobbles it up.
http://gigaom.com/2010/11/29/level-3-comcast-in-a-cat-fight-over-online-video/
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101129/17242612047/companies-come-out-woodwork-to-claim-comcast-is-violating-net-neutrality-exaggerations-abound.shtml
This would be the type of service that led to them winning the award.
Comcast sucks.
I work for a small cable isp. We care. We really do. We just don't have the resources to continue to support company's that compete against us. That isn't the only factor though. The other is bandwidth. Not the little sippy straw bandwidth that most people have. Netflix is crushing our usage. If we have to pay for programming Netflix is going to have to pay for pushing their programming to us. I would like to block them here. Other company's such as espn (espn360.com) block our customers from streaming their video unless we pay by the subscriber. I haven't heard of any backlash for them doing this. But block netflix then suddenly we are the evil cable company. If we had the pull comcast had we would have done that around here a long time ago.
Comcast wants to paint this as a peering dispute: you send me way more bytes than I send you, ergo you pay.
Comcast is an eyeball network, with extreme Down:Up ratios--what do they expect? It's the nature of the business they're in. Their customers pull far far more than they push. And many customers want bytes from Netflix, which they pay Comcast to deliver to them. Double-dipping, pure and simple. This peering rule of thumb no longer makes much sense, with the world divided into content networks and eyeball networks.
What I think this is really about is Comcast
A) wanting to preserve its extremely high profit margins on its broadband business. For years, the average subscriber has paid his $45/month for broadband, and used it lightly. Now that there's a high-bandwidth killer-app in the form of streaming Netflix, people are using broadband, like broadband, and it's a threat to broadband providers and their massive infrastructure oversubscription ratios.
B) Wanting to favor its own streaming content. Traditional CATV is in trouble, and netflix has a big jump on competitors both in terms of public perception, and technical polish. Comcast wants in that game, and what better way to get a leg up than to leverage your last mile advantages.
Rubbish. It's time for the govt. to step in and take ownership, or heavily regulate, the last mile pipe. Then, allow competitive service offerings through that pipe.
It may be increasing over time, but it is still finite, and there is a definite cost for that increase.
Bandwidth costs real money. An ISP oversubscribes because they gamble that not all their customers will want to use it at once. They also use misleading advertising.
I'd love to have actual service level agreements with my ISP, complete with minimum and maximum speeds, allowed burst rates, etc. That way both sides could monitor the connection and ensure that the standards are being met.
The current "unlimited" plans lead to issues where the ISP isn't actually obligated to upgrade except when public pressure gets too great and people start leaving. Incidentally, riding that line (just before people actually leave) probably gives the greatest profits to the ISP.
Can you still use alternates that do pretty much the same thing (like HULU, or YouTube)?
(Thanks for the info. - I know, you don't deal with comcast anymore, but I am asking because at least you HAVE dealt with they apparently, in the past...)
I.E.-> As far as alternatives? Well - Personally, I just started viewing YouTube this year (6 months back or so, yes, "late bloomer" here) for instance, & personally? I found that You can find films that I'd never thought I'd see from say, the realm of Science Fiction (of which I am a fan) &/or Horror flicks that I didn't think would be online, & yet? They are!
(E.G.-> "The Thing" & "They Live" by John Carpenter - I just watched them, in full, on YouTube the past couple nights over last weekend in fact, as an example of what I meant above).
APK
P.S.=> You see - I don't belong to COMCAST, so I have no idea what you folks are dealing with (mainly IF you can still reach alternatives or reasonably similar ones like YouTube &/or HULU as just a couple examples I know of), but if you have alternatives then it wouldn't be so bad!
(Again - I haven't done much of this "streaming media stuff" until recently (YouTube), but I do know that alternatives exist, and that would be what I'd be concerned about - the ability to find an alternate source of the same basic material (if they cut THAT off too though? Then, perhaps I'd be more concerned really... i.e.-> IF even the alternatives that did the same basic service like HULU for streaming media got "cut off"))... apk
I pay Comcast to send and receive my internet traffic from wherever I choose to send and receive it from. End of argument.
"Dear Xxxxxxxx,
We want to let you know about two important changes to the Netflix service.
1. The price of your current plan, which includes access to Blu-ray discs, is changing from $16.99 a month to $17.99 a month. This new price will be effective with your next billing statement on or after January 2, 2011, and will be referenced in your Membership Details. With your current plan you can both instantly watch unlimited TV episodes and movies on your computer or TV and receive unlimited DVDs by mail........."
If I ever get a choice, I'll be dropping Comcast like a hot rock; its not bad enough that they raise the prices and cut the services they provide every year, but now on top of everything else, they are going to cause the cost of everything I do and/or subscribe to online to go up too? Jesus what a bunch of fuckin' douchebags....
It's in how you position it. You do what a network would do. Blast a big message on the front page saying: Comcast is threatening to block Netflix. Call Comcast and tell them when you pay $400 a year for unlimited Internet access you expect unlimited Internet access.
Ultimately that's the problem I think the FCC has. Instead of telling ISPs what to do they should force them to put a big black box on all their ads and bills disclosing "Limited Internet Service - We reserve the right to block your access to any site or service for any reason, including blocking competing services." The FCC should set the bar for what "Unlimited Service" is and make Comcast and others call their service "Limited Internet Service". Most cable companies complete with the local telco. So far Telcos have refrained from this sort of BS.
Betsy Ross was the pinko commie that put red in the American flag.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Please note that our system totally favors a TWO party system. Requirements to get on ballots are written so that only two majors can really field a candidate. Smaller parties are usually co opted to one "line" or the "other". Even Ross Perot found this to be a huge stumbling block. At the end, the Republicrats magnanimously "agreed to waive any challenges" to the Perot candidacy. Both parties realized that this could have morphed into a "why is a third party so hard to do" (and probably figured he'd hurt the other side) conversation so they turned the discussion onto Perot and away from the system. No water for Perot, but he is a great example of a person with the ability and wealth to pose a serious effort. He was "rejected" from the body politic like a bacteria. Meanwhile, your third party candidate won't easily get on any ballot here in NY, and I'm sure that applies not only in the EasternUrbanIntellectualNorthEastVeryBlueState but also in DownHomeMiddleOfTheNationPatrioticVeryRedState too. The lack of a real choice is nationwide. The Tea Party, by nominally siding with the Repub side, missed this huge set of rocks in the river. They may come under that umbrella but if the co opt efforts from the owners of the current R Party don't work, they might be tossed out into the wilderness of election law.
Go to England. You'll learn about Nelson.
Make them all common carriers. Then you can deal with them the same way crooked trucking companies who attempt extortion are dealt with: Management gets room and board at Club Fed.
Have gnu, will travel.
This combined with the fact that recently Netflix streaming sometimes goes intermittent (and isn't an issue claimed by Netflix as service-wide) makes me really want to dump Comcast. I just signed up though and my options are pathetic for "better speeds than DSL" providers.
With an asymmetric peering point, money flows in the same direction as the majority of the traffic.
Perhaps Netflix could get their Comcast customers to send a bunch of traffic in the other direction when they haven't got anything better to do.
Then by Comcast's rules, they would need to L3.
I think we are seeing the economics of peering evolve.
The summary paints it slightly differently and the article is vague on it.
If Charter is angling for more money or they'll drop the link, then this is fine. Just another day in peering agreement battles.
If Charter is angling for more money or they'll drop the link just for Netflix data, then it is arguably a net neutrality violation.
Dropping Link = fine.
Dropping specific subset of data = bad.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Enough said
Even if the below poster is true that this has nothing to do with Net Neutrality, the GP above is 100% correct. Double Dipping. It's the new thing, everyone is doing it, companies, governments (sales tax AND income tax, I mean WTF???)
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Call this what it is in the future, and exactly what it's been called in the past: a peering dispute. It's not the first time, especially for Level 3. The hyperbole seemed unwarranted, unless of course the goal is to incite rather than inform.
And if history has show us anything about Toll Roads it's that they cause problems. While it seems cities can build Toll Roads, that ultimately pay for large civil engineering projects (arguably.) This whole situation with Comcast brings to mind the old west settler who owns a section of a river. Want to move through his section of the river, gotta pay a Toll. But in this case, Comcast created the river, which might change things. Taking into account the Anti Trust issues, and the River Toll analogy, I fail to see how the government can allow this to continue. Is it a matter of time before the "Comcast is the only high speed provider in my area" statement goes away and other smaller, ISP's are able to setup shop in most cities? Or will the government actually pass a law about this?
I do remember quite a bit from history class, and we were never taught that. I would remember the Vikings being paid off.
This is quite shocking to me actually. It was always my understanding that Viking life was very much about the raping and pillaging. Gold is one thing, but the Vikings going without nookie in strange and new places (on fire of course)? Not the Vikings I thought I knew.
At the same time, I think all the babes on the east coast of Britannia were very grateful to the English monarchy.
COMCAST is a ISP? that's news.
i thought they were a cable-tv company?
Instant-runoff or Ranked-choice voting is viable. it would change things a lot in my opinion. Think of the way you vote for movies at netflix.I'd say it's the single most important change we could make. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.--Mark Twain
I get it now, thanks for the explanations everyone :)
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
This analogy would only work if the traffic from the "cheap state" left the state with the flat fees, not terminating in the cheap state. This isn't happening. Peering relationships don't have to be balanced to make sense if one side is consumer heavy.
Comcast is acting as a service delivery proxy between content producers and content consumers. This is a natural attempt to associate costs with delivering the service to the largest of each.
On the consumer side, its done via tiered bandwidth pricing.
On the producer side, they tax the heavy producers (CDNs). With netflix traffic hitting 20% and growing, they are the obvious starting point.
Comcast's association of costs is probably rather complex, so this is rather crude:
There are is a substantial cost in the core network infrastructure and management. Some costs are passed on "per subscriber". CDN fees make up the rest.
The delivery (cable in the streets, modems, customer support, etc) are costed between TV, Internet and Voice subscribers based on subscriber counts and business unit efficiencies.
Why isn't the pricing model for Comcast subscribers sufficient to pay for the infrastructure costs?
I'd guess its because the heavy producers (like Netflix) are responsible for a disproportiionate amount of core infrastructure costs, and making all subscribers pay for the network capacity to handle NF traffic isn't "fair".
By taxing NetFlix, those costs get passed on to NetFlix subscribers.
I'm curious: Is this an industry norm and we just don't know about it? Do CDNs pay fees to networks and we've just never heard about them before?
What really happened:
I bet when L3 priced out the deal internally, they didn't account for the Comcast fees. Now that Comcast is asking for them, it's making the deal less attractive, and some L3 execs are scrambling to make it Comcast's fault (CYA).
Denninger wasn't "one of the people building out the internet" any more than Comcast is today. He had a dialup ISP business. He didn't work on protocols, routing, software etc. He took advantage of the status quo in the technology at the time and built a thriving business on top of that, just like other ISPs do today.
That out of the way, all ISPs including Comcast have been subsidized handsomely for building the "last mile" of cable, including forced right-of-ways through people's property. That is what gives them the monopoly today, because you can't just start out digging a new trench for cable today even if you had the resources and wanted to.
Netflix gets the revenue because they are selling the content. They also pay their own ISPs for bandwidth so it's not like they have no costs. Comcast also gets revenue because its customers are paying them for the bandwidth. It is their own problem that they chose to overcommit and sell more than they have, and no one else's.
The solution is simple and leaves the network neutral. Charge by usage. Fair and square.
But I doubt that this is about bandwidth at all. Comcast, Time Warner and other cable monopolies sell Pay-Per-View movies at $3-$4 a pop. Netflix gives you all you can eat for $8 a month. That should give you an indication of how much profit the cable company stands to lose if they don't get rid of Netflix.
"Dear Xxxxxxxx, We want to let you know about two important changes to the Netflix service. 1. The price of your current plan, which includes access to Blu-ray discs, is changing from $16.99 a month to $17.99 a month. This new price will be effective with your next billing statement on or after January 2, 2011, and will be referenced in your Membership Details. With your current plan you can both instantly watch unlimited TV episodes and movies on your computer or TV and receive unlimited DVDs by mail........." If I ever get a choice, I'll be dropping Comcast like a hot rock; its not bad enough that they raise the prices and cut the services they provide every year, but now on top of everything else, they are going to cause the cost of everything I do and/or subscribe to online to go up too? Jesus what a bunch of fuckin' douchebags....
This was a Netflix wide price increase. I don't have Comcast anymore and neither do several of my friends (not even in the service area) and we all got the same email. If I remember I think I got a letter in the snail mail too.
If a Comcast customer set up a proxy server at some cheap:bandwidth hosting company, they could get Netflix data sent to the proxy, encrypted there, then sent down to their home (and the reverse for requests). A simple passphrase and XOR could make the encryption extremely low overhead, and easily set up over ssh or SSL. These hosts can cost as little as $10 a month but be reliable, which added to Netflix's charges is still cheaper than paying for Comcast TV.
And indeed all traffic could be routed through that simple VPN, protecting everything from Comcast's prying, now that Comcast has proven (again) that it cannot be trusted. Email, web, IM, everything.
That's the principle. What's the current best software to set up the proxy at the host and at the LAN?
--
make install -not war
Actually, hot potato routing is subtly different. It means that if the best peer is saturated, it will send traffic out the next best peer. The effect is that packets (tend) to get shoved out faster. There's no buffering on the sending side, and most of the time, the destination gets the packet sooner. In theory, the next best peer could be so much worse that buffering would be better. In practice, this doesn't happen much.
It might be slightly more fair to always use the same paths, but it's way better for way more people to move packets faster.
My main complaint? $20/month to get 13 channels. of those, 4 are religious / state mandated, 3 are shopping channels, and the rest are OTA channels that are delivered clear by cable.
Even my wife want's to get rid of of that extra fee which btw amounts to $240/year. If I wasn't so busy posting on /. I'd go do it right now!
Doesn't have anything to do with if you personally have Comcast, but Comcast just increased their price of doing business and so netflix has accordingly spread the cost to all of its customers to cover said outgo.
It's getting better.
In the November election in Ohio, I got to choose from a variety of different parties. There were the big two, obviously, but also a surprising number of independents and libertarians as well as (IIRC) two different Green Party candidates for some race or other. The biggest surprise was a singular showing from the Ohio Socialist Party.
It was quite a change from the usual choice between red and blue. I don't recall ever having such a broad selection of parties before.
I did what any Slashdot user named adolf would do, and voted alternate-party wherever possible without regard for the merits of the particular candidates. Some might say I threw my votes away since none of these guys actually had any meaningful chance at winning, but I believe that simply I voted to support more viable choices in the future.
Kid-proof tablet..
Not to be a dick but I paid for the fucking bandwidth. And so did all of Comcast's other subscribers. Comcast is trying to double-dip here - chargin me, the subscriber, for the bandwidth as well as charging Level 3 for the bandwidth. And that's just bullshit.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
His point is that local bandwidth is cheap but long-haul bandwidth is expensive and the equipment necessary to stream the kind of bandwidth Netflix needs to a significant portion of their customers simply can not be purchased and maintained for the current price of a residential broadband connection.
And I call that bullshit. For how many years have Comcast and other ISPs been overcharging their customers for the services they provide? If they sell unlimited bandwidth then they should expect heavy usage and they should be investing heavily in upgrading their network to support the bandwidth requirements of the future. Comcast's customers have been paying a premium for years to use the bandwidth. If Comcast was shortsighted enough to not see that bandwidth usage would be increasing dramatically then it's their own damn fault for not upgrading their infrastructure to keep pace.
The subscribers have been and are currently paying for the bandwidth. Level 3 shouldn't have to pay for something that Comcast's customers have already paid for.
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Yes, but ISPs also pay each other for bandwidth, and for large enough ISPs the rule is generally "sender pays", unless traffic volume in each direction is similar, where it is more common to have an unpaid peering arrangement.
Here Level 3 wants to dump an enormous amount of additional traffic on Comcast's network, so Comcast wants to be paid for the extra load. That of course causes in increase in Level 3's costs, which ultimately causes an increase in Netflix's costs. Either way the customer ultimately pays, either in increased Netflix service fees or in increased Comcast connection charges.
As long as Comcast is not filtering or blocking traffic, they appear to have the better of the argument here, and Level 3 / Netflix will almost certainly have to pay something resembling market rates to send very high volumes of traffic into Comcast's network.
What happened is that Comcast and Level 3 signed a deal whereby they would exchange traffic between their networks for free as long as both sides exchanged reasonably equal amounts of traffic. But now that Level 3 has Netflix on their network, the amount of data is no longer anywhere near equal. Hence Comcast wants to end the peering agreement.
As a customer, I'm paying Comcast for 10 mbps of bandwidth. Period. It shouldn't matter where I request that content from. The 10 mbps pipeline to funnel that content down to me has been paid for. Netflix happens to be in the position of providing data that I want, so I am filling my little 10 mbps data-pipe with that content. Just because I have a preferred vendor for the data I request, doesn't mean Comcast should hit them up for more money. I paid for the bandwidth. I paid for the data. If it's a problem for Comcast, they should ask me for more money.
... And I'm thinking that you took a complete day to respond so that you could look up a few buzzwords and claim that you understand them, when you clearly don't. I will obviously have to stop being technical and bring things down to a level even a moron can understand.
There is no reason to believe that Comcast customers are any bigger consumers of Netflix content than anyone else on the planet. Google definitely serves more content than Netflix. It would be just as ridiculous to argue that Level 3 should pay every service provider on the planet a fee as it would to argue that Google pay every service provider on the planet a fee. Comcast isn't special, but you clearly are, so give it up Corky. Just accept that you are a moron and hurry up to catch the short bus; you're late for school, and too slow to justify missing it, even for a day.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Right ... could it be that one checks slashdot not like a caffeine addict that's just been informed of a defect in his pacemaker, but once a day (or not even that) ?
Why am I even responding to your bullshit ? Do you think personal insults improve your argument ?
The link summarizes things nicely http://blog.ioshints.info/2010/12/internet-peering-disputes-follow-money.html ...
Oh and the actual cause of the dispute is that level3 demanded comcast install 20 extra 10G links to them in their network. And Comcast, rightly, said "pay us for it, like anyone else". That is the "network neutrality violation" you talk about, and yet another reason you're a total buffoon.
I'm sorry. What service did you say Comcast provides to Level 3 again?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Comcast gives level3 around 500 gigabits of free transit.
-and-
Level3 gives comcast about 350 gigabits of free transit.
These are guesses based on what's seen at 1 IX, multiplied by how many contact points they have (and since I'm neither comcast or level3, I can't really see any more than that, should be somewhat accurate though)
The idea is that since they provide eachother services of "about" equal value, neither party pays (much) to the other. However, comcast's been having to provide more and more service compared to level3. Obviously at some point they would start charging, so I really don't see what you got your knickers in a knot over.
Incidentally, level3 refuses to peer with us. If people like you got their way suing people would be the only way to do business on the internet.
Oh ... OK ... now I understand everything you wrote ;-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun