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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
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.
Yes they use a lot of bandwidth, that Comcast's customers pay for in overpriced monthly fees.
So glad I don't have to deal with Comcast anymore
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
How can Comcast complain that the traffic going to consumers is unbalanced? By the very nature of what consumers do the traffic is always going to be unbalanced.
Netfiix can fix this imbalance. Change their front end apps to send an endless stream of zeros to a bit bucket in Level3.
As soon as authority gets involved in commerce, the market ceases to be free, and falls prey to regulation and rent-seeking.
That may be true, but there's a catch. There's a minimum amount of "authority getting involved" required to have a free market in the first place - you need stuff like courts and police and land ownership. It turns out that minimum level is also enough that the market will inevitably cease to be free and fall prey to rent-seeking.
Not only that, but both regulation and rent-seeking can occur for reasons other than Government intervention. Take a look at how the stock market functions, for example - the vast majority of both regulation and rent-seeking is carried out by the stock market owners themselves. The Government regulations tend to be restricted to eliminating fraud, and fraud has no place in a free market anyway. Alternatively, look at scientific journals.
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.
Alternatively, due to Comcast's monopoly abuse, NetFlix and Akamai were absorbing costs that, in a fair market, would be absorbed by Comcast and the consumer.
This is an interesting isomorphic thought exercise, but it contributes very little to the discussion.
This *isn't* a peering dispute. Comcast is sending Level 3 data to route off somewhere. Level 3 is sending Comcast bits because Comcast subscribers are asking for them. Comcast is routing Level 3's traffic around anywhere but directly to their subscribers, and Level 3 certainly wouldn't need them to in the first place.
So to recap: all data coming from Level 3 to Comcast is requested by Comcast, and paid for by the subscribers. This is simply Comcast's typical greed and hand-waving.
This isn't a peering dispute; Comcast is only try to paint it as one -- and you bought it.