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Time Warner Defends Comcast In Level 3 Dispute
MojoKid writes "On December 21, the FCC will finally vote on adopting net neutrality rules. This may (or may not) have been caused by Comcast's spat with Level 3 after Level 3 won a big contract to handle Netflix's video streaming. Grind it all together, output it to Facebook and you get this campaign: 'Save the Internet: Stop Comcast from Blocking Netflix. Without strong net neutrality rules, companies like Comcast can demand fees from innovative companies like Netflix in an attempt to choke consumer freedom and coerce users to adopt its own video services instead.' Comcast insists that this has nothing to do with blocking the upstart Netflix's business but about how much of Level 3's traffic it must carry before they get to send Level 3 a bill. Level 3's traffic has greatly increased thanks to Netflix. On Thursday, Comcast's frienemy, Time Warner, issued a statement of support for Comcast that explained the pro-cable provider side of the fight."
Because they need more money and they have a right to it because it's pro business to let them do what they want.
Don't they have some sort of peering agreement that covers this? Aren't they supposed to charge their peers, and their customers, more when their bandwidth usage goes up? Or am I missing something here? Obviously telcoms are greedy and will try to take whatever they can, but isn't there already a channel established for that?
Qxe4
How much Intarweb must cary befoer send Intarweb teh bill?
corporate censorship or government censorship. either way, the best years of the network are gone.. say good bye to peer freedom.
No, Netflix does not pay Comcast anything. That is the entire dispute.
In the end, I think the campaign's name is going to work against them. I'm a Comcast customer, I'm a Netflix customer, and I've had no trouble watching Netflix' streaming video.
Thing is, I understand what the underlying issue is (wrt net neutrality) - but the average person certainly won't in any detail. All they're going to say is "What do you mean, stop them from blocking Netflix? I'm having no trouble streaming Netflix over my Comcast cable, so it must not be a problem!"
#DeleteChrome
... the one saying that Level 3's claims are complete bullshit and they have nothing to do with net neutrality
Here it is
right...
There is already geotargeted of videos online done on commercial grounds. If different types of traffic get "throttled" it'll only make it harder on the users of any high-bandwidth activity whether video, gaming or anything else where the ISPs are likely to be costed more than these consumers are paying. For example I used to be able to watch The Daily Show on the Comedy Channel's website from the UK. Since they sold the rights to E4, that isn't possible without going through a proxy.
Video Game cheats, hints a
So long as the majority of broadband is offered by corporations that have 'content generation' as a part of their business model, there will never be a real chance for net neutrality. The conflict of interest there is just too strong a force.
Back in the '90s, electricity deregulation was a big topic; I recall that the state of Maine ended up differentiating between the electricity providers and the electricity carriers--while before, there had been two monopolies (a biopoly?) serving different areas of the state, there was, afterwards, a number of smaller generating companies (content generation) and a couple of larger companies that provided and maintained the transmission and delivery equipment (broadband providers).
As my parenthetical notes indicate, I think that the same model could be effectively used--or, rather, ought to be enforced--for the current debate. Differentiate the providers of the connection from the providers of the content, and much of the impetus for the anti-neutrality standpoint will go away.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
The L3/Comcast issue became public after the December 21 net neutrality vote was announced, so no it didn't cause it. Secondly, from everything we've heard the net neutrality rules to be proposed will not effect on the L3/Comcast dispute as it is between network operators, and does not discriminate based on content type or source.
One concept may moving to a credit card type funding model.
If you charge the people who have less influence, or are more of a captive audience, in the deal, and then lower the prices or add perks to those who are not as much of a captive audience, then you get a lot more money through a large customer base. The people of the captive audience can't afford to buck the system, and the people who can don't know enough or care enough to.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
the big cable co's all help each other also I think they try to use stuff like cable labs and indemand to make it look like a 3rd party is doing the stuff they do.
...I am paying Comcast for already?
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Time Warner != Time Warner Cable != Time Warner Telecom
This is about Time Warner Cable, whereas the vague term Time Warner is often used to refer to Time Warner Cable and/or Time Warner Telecom which are separate companies. (granted, the does the same thing)
That said, having another company say that what Comcast is doing is unfortunate. Comcast is trying to bully L3 into settlement-based peering, but it is Comcast's end traffic (as an eyeball network, not a transit provider) that is causing this imbalance. If you ask me, Comcast should be the one paying L3 as a customer (like they probably were at some point).
Based on my admittedly limited understanding:
Backbone providers work on the assumption that data goes both ways: I don't charge you for shoving ten lumps of data down my tubes because you don't charge me for shoving what might be nine, might be eleven lumps of data down yours. We're all doing roughly the same thing so it all comes out in the wash.
When someone turns around and says, "Don't worry, I'll keep taking your ten lumps of data for free. Now here are the five hundred I'd like you to keep carrying for free, too. Oh, and by the way, yes I do charge the generator of all those lumps a hell of a lot for my transporting them to and dumping them on your tubes." then it's somewhat understandable to think the relationship's gone a bit one sided.
When Netflix is using fully 20% of prime time US bandwidth (source) and Level 3 are happily billing Netflix for the right to put that on the net, it's pretty understandable the other companies who have to shoulder what's become a very one sided relationship for free are a little touchy.
In this case, I'm tempted to agree it's not about stomping competition, not about charging one source more or less for a better or worse service, it's about whether the fundamental model for the backbone is being abused.
I'm for network neutrality. But isn't there also a degree to which neutral also means the neutral flow back and forth, not all of the data going one way with one company charging for it and expecting the others to just suck it up?
It is double dipping, but not like you think.
I pay my ISP for bandwidth. ISPs want to charge Netflix for bandwidth too.
If i'm using more bandwidth now because of Netflix, that should be between me and my ISP, but ISPs don't want to mess with that relationship for fear of pissing off customers and spurring real competition in the marketplace. It's cheaper to buy legislation mandating your business model than to compete.
If we had real competition then net neutrality would be a non-issue because we could choose open networks over closed ones, but with the near-monopoly of the big operators in most markets, it's usually just a choice between their crappy service or another crappier, more expensive option.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
I usually back up my friends in a bar fight too, even if we've had minor disagreements in the past. The difference is, of course, that me and my friends don't walk around punching people in the face for shits and giggles...or for cash.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
That's the closest someone has come so far in this discussion, but it's not quite accurate. Comcast and Level3 had an agreement where basically they just swapped traffic for free. Each side sent approximately the same amount of traffic, so an even exchange seemed fair. Now that agreement is about to expire, and at the same time the numbers have changed significantly. Now Level 3 is sending significantly more traffic to Comcast than Comcast is sending back, so the previous "even swap" agreement no longer makes sense, since it's not, you know, even. Netflix and net neutrality really have nothing to do with any of this, and as much as it pains me to say this, I agree with Comcast (though I'll continue to pray that they die a slow death and then rot in hell for all eternity).
Comcast sends way more traffic to my home network than my home network sends to Comcast. Clearly they should start paying me for using up my network bandwidth.
This isn't how it works.
Even if Comcast drops Level3 completely, you will still get Netflix - Level3 will just pass off the traffic to someone who does peer with Comcast. It'll be slower than if Level3 directly peered with Comcast, but it will still get there.
Netflix doesn't need to pay Comcast anything. Netflix is already paying Level3 to be their CDN. Level3 just now needs to pay for the bandwidth they're using.
Huh? Aren't Comcast's customers, the one's who are streaming Netflix, already paying for that bandwidth that they're using? This sounds like Comcast wanting to double-dip.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
And those customers are paying Comcast to transit whatever data they want, not because it's today Netflix and tomorrow YouTube.
So I would see it as a breach of contract between Comcast and their customers when they try to levy toll on individual suppliers to their customers.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
As consumers of information we can not have a system in which certain players can create choke points on the internet to deny access and distort democracy. At the same time it is obvious that nothing in life is free and that one must accept that some kind of payment is required to build and maintain the physical infrastructure that makes such connectivity possible.
The government needs to establish simple rules regarding the exact nature of what these fees can be based on a universal formula for all in terms of proportion of available bandwidth consumed/provided. These rules can not be based on the nature of the content or all hope for democracy and a rational market is lost as each player conjures up new ways to game the system. As long as corporations and individuals understand the fee structure and that they are not allowed to unilaterally change it, the market can get about the business of letting different players work within the fee structure to most efficiently and competitively provide services/bandwidth. This would bring a level of stability to the market, essential to developing systems architectures and services. Otherwise, other countries with far more progressive governmental policies concerning the internet like Korea, Japan and increasingly Europe and China are going to move so quickly ahead of us in terms of dominating the internet that petty conflicts like that between Comcast and Level 3 will be largely irrelevant.
While we dither over who is going to pay what to whom for Netflix services, Korea for example is moving to systems that will provide its end users the ability to download the entire Netflix movie library in minutes for about $20/month for end users, making anything these two companies are doing essentially irrelevant to the forefront of technological change, competivness, or benefit and therefore meaningless.
If America wants to be competitive in internet mediated business, then it needs policies that increase the number of software and hardware engineers and developers and decreases the number of lawyers, greedy corporate executives and their lobbyists, and paid-for politicians. Otherwise, we are lost.
There seems to be something terribly wrong with the US ISP market (I am not American), such that consumers can't/won't leave Comcast for another ISP, because they want Netflix.
If the market was free, wouldn't this problem fix itself?
(OTOH, I do think regulation mandating net neutrality would be a good thing, for other issues)
Seriously? Who?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
All these ISPs are out there to make money. We get it. But they are also in the business of providing internet access to their customers. If they block or limit access to certain points on the internet, they are failing in their business agreement and their mission. They are an ISP, not a OCPISP (Only Certain Parts of the Internet Service Provider).
The way I see it, if you can't do something right, you shouldn't do it. AT&T apparently got in over their heads with iPhone and the problem is only getting worse with the various UMPCs with phone service capability. They want to sell a lot! They just don't want to deliver on their promises. The FTC and the FCC need to come down on these companies hard. If I offered to perform a service and ended up making excuses about why I can't do it, I couldn't stay in business for long. But as these companies often have regional monopolies and large contracts, it's not so easy to simply not do business with them. (I have a friend who is sick to death of his iPhone and AT&T's decreasing quality of service and wants to get off AT&T, but literally everyone else in his family uses AT&T... to leave AT&T would be to disconnect from his family and/or offend many people close to him.)
It's past time for the government to represent the people.
Please stop posting this! The same basic thing has been posted 3 days in a row, and every time all the +5 comments are the ones correcting it. Just stop. I'm tired of having friends say "We gotta cancel our Comcast, they are blocking NetFlix" and having to explain that the FCC is not voting to stop Comcast, and Comcast is not violating Network Neutrality. This was a simple peering dispute between two companies.
No, Netflix does not pay Comcast. They used to, in a sort of indirect way. Netflix used to pay Akamai, a content delivery network, to deliver streaming video to customers. Akamai does this by having data centers all over the place that can serve up content faster than anything centralized. And Akamai pays to link their data centers to Comcast so they can do this.
Well, here comes Level 3. Traditionally a backbone provider, they go to Netflix with a sweetheart deal on delivering content. Netflix dumps Akamai for them, and Level 3 realizes they lack the bandwidth to Comcast needed to deliver Netflix's streaming video. So they want additional links to Comcast, like Akamai had, only they don't want to pay for them. And why? Because they're a backbone provider, peer links should be free.
So Level 3, not wanting to pay Comcast (probably because those costs were not factored into what they charged Netflix), is playing the Network Neutrality card to provide CDN services under the guise of a backbone provider. But in reality Comcast isn't saying they are going to degrade Netflix traffic. But that they won't provide additional bandwidth for one service for free.
At the end of the day the customer is going to pay Comcast to deliver that content one way or another. Whether it is directly in the form of higher internet prices, or indirectly through Netflix in the form of higher subscription fees; I see very little difference.
Anyway, Comcast's letter to the FCC is worth reading.
If only I had mod points. More people need to see this and understand what's really going on here before the "OMG NET NEUTRALITIES!" bandwagon starts up in full.
Because that would result in an "OMG teh Soshulistz" response from a lot of pro-business sources. Where I live in Seattle, I've got basically 3 choices of internet provider plus dial-up. Unfortunately, they all suck. Latency is a joke and googling for it earlier this morning and I couldn't find anybody that's operating locally that's able to provide decent latency.
Service for cablemodems probably has gotten better since I ditched them quite a few years ago, but at that point they were actually going backwards in terms of actual service. Service was getting both slower and less reliable. DSL is getting faster, but at a much slower rate. And FiOS isn't available at all as far as I can tell, suspiciously enough they won't even tell you if there in a rough geographic area without asking for a specific address. Until recently they couldn't even locate my address let alone provide service.
A municipal ISP as a utility or Google coming in with their service is about the only way that any of the telecoms are going to care enough to make any effort at improving service. What's particularly embarrassing is that we've got it quite good compared with most of the country.
Mod up. The end users are already paying Comcast for the bandwidth. Why should anyone else do it again?
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
Yeah, Level3 should already be paying for the traffic they send to Comcast's network. That's usually how peering agreements work: you pay for traffic that you send to another network, but not traffic that you are receiving. Uploading costs money, downloading doesn't. It's why most broadband service is structured with low upstream bandwidth.
If Comcast doesn't like what Level3 is paying them to accept L3's traffic, they should renegotiate. It shouldn't matter if the upsurge in traffic is due to Netflix or streaming porn.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
If you imagine there is a great big interstate highway designed by the government that's called the Internet, and people like to drive on it, and order packages to be delivered to their homes by trucks using it we have a place to start.
This Internet didn't go everywhere, and to get on it, people needed a driveway from their garage to the onramps, so ISPs sprung up that provide those for people, for a price. Now some of the ISPs wanted to get the access fees from a lot more people, but the Internet was too far away, so they agreed to extend the Internet buy building a new portion from pre-existing part to where they needed it. Of course it had to be just as accessible to other traffic on the Internet as all the pre-existing stuff, because they have pretty good traffic control that automatically attempts to route traffic around congestion and damage. And for a while, things continued on.
Then some of the ISPs decided to get more money from their customers and said "Hey, give us more money per month, and we'll enlarge your driveway, maybe even make it two lanes and smooth enough to drag race on.". A while after that they decided for some reason (congestion, insufficient driveways, pure greed, whatever) that the existing traffic was too much for their resources to handle so they started making new rules. You can't drive anything larger than a subcompact, and No more trips than 2 per day, and if more than 6 delivery trucks come up your driveway per month, we're going to yank your driveway...
Move a bit further in time, and now the the ISP is getting pissed that some other ISP or delivery company is sending lots of big trucks over the portion of the Internet they built. Is it going to their customers, or someplace else on the Internet? My point is this, I don't F-N care! You joined the game of share the internet and get paid by your subscribers, you can't just decide to charge the traffic that goes over the backbone, and if it goes to your subscribers, they are responsible for it. So get your hypocritical greedy mitts off the traffic, and try to actually make your customers happy with your 'service'.
Because that's how peering works. If you buy a connection from an ISP, or a socket in a datacenter, then you pay the upstream provider for bandwidth. They typically pay a big upstream provider for their connection. Sometimes, however, two networks will agree that it is mutually beneficial for them to be connected and so will agree to peer - i.e. neither pays the other for transit. The definition of a Tier 1 network is one that only has peering agreements, or agreements where others pay for transit (i.e. pays nothing for off-network traffic, and may be paid for it). A Tier 3 network is one that only has transit agreements (i.e. pays for all off-network traffic). A Tier 2 network is one somewhere in the middle, with a mixture of peering and transit agreements.
Typically, a peering agreement has an agreement that says that the amount of traffic flowing in one direction must be within some percentage of the amount flowing in the other direction. A lot of big ISPs have agreements like this, which are somewhere between a peering and a transit agreement - if the balance of traffic remains approximately equal, neither side pays, but if one side is sending more traffic to the other, then one side pays. Whether this counts as a peering or a transit agreement is largely based on which case is expected to be the most common.
In this case, L3 and Comcast have an agreement which regulates the amount of traffic that L3 can send to Comcast without paying. Recently, however, Netflix has moved from their previous network provider to L3. This has dramatically increased the amount of data that is flowing from L3 to Comcast, so L3 is liable to pay.
Normally, this would result in a fairly simple renegotiation of the peering or transit agreement, but because network neutrality is such a buzzwordy topic now, it's being spun as a network neutrality complaint, because Comcast operates a service that is vaguely similar to Netflix. All of the big networks and ISPs benefit from this, because it serves to muddy the waters surrounding network neutrality just as the FCC is about to rule on the issue, and detracts from the real issues at stake.
Presumably the aim is for L3 and Comcast to convince the FCC that this is what network neutrality means, and get them to impose network neutrality rules that require them to come to the same sort of transit agreement that they would normally have reached anyway. Then the FCC and the politicians can claim 'we did our part for network neutrality', ignorant voters are happy because their politician stood up for something that the media told them vaguely was important and in their interests, the ISPs are happy because there is no real regulation on network neutrality. The average customers and small businesses are fucked, but no one cares about them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
mod up!, thats exactly what I think. Since when is L3 sending traffic to Comcast?, unless it's a DDoS attack or something (sending large amounts of unrequested trafic). They way I see it, Comcast (it's users) is requesting this huge amount of traffic to be sent to them, so they should pay for the bandwidth.
I think Comcast (and others) charging both ends of a transfer for the bandwidth is the issue here. Comcast customers have been sold plans that allow them to transfer a certain amount of data. Why is Comcast trying to charge both the senders and receivers for that data transfer?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
You need to ask your government why there is a lack of competition in the ISP market in your country.
Network Neutrality is a non-issue used to cover up the real problem. It is only an issue at all in the USA.
Web Design
We the comcast clients are Pulling/Requesting the data to be downloaded.
Once this is understood is very clear that Level 3 is (or any other) should pay any fee for data Comcast customers are requesting.
It be a an other story if Level 3/Netflix was sending unrequested data on their own.
One could argue that if some were to pay a fee for using bandwidth it should be Comcast as you can say Comcast network is requesting very large amounts of bandwidth from Level3.
BSD licensed software can't be stolen....
. Now Level 3 is sending significantly more traffic to Comcast than Comcast is sending back
Yes, but they are sending it to Comcast's customers who requested it. It's not like the traffic is just being funneled through Comcast's network as a shortcut, Comcast is the end-point. It is their customers who are causing the increase in traffic, not Netflix/Level 3 - they are just the source. So instead of charging their customers more for their increased demand, Comcast is trying to charge Level 3 more for having data their customers desire. From my perspective it just seems backwards. Why should Level 3 have to pay Comcast to provide the data that Comcast's customers want and are paying Comcast to deliver? It's double-dipping, burning the candle from both ends, or however you want to put it and wrong.
Can you name some of these places where the gov't actually paid to lay the cable or did it themselves?
Incentivized others to do it? Sure, but I'm not aware of many, if any, places where the gov't itself actually owned or directly paid for the outside plant.
Level 3 isn't using any of Comcast's bandwidth. Comcast's paying customers are requesting the videos from Netflix. Netflix pays for the bandwidth they are using from Level 3. Comcast's customers are paying for the bandwidth they are using from Comcast when the streaming video crosses their network.
What Comcast would like to do is get paid from their customers and from Level 3 for the same data. That, my friend, is called double dipping.
The bottom line is that if Comcast's customers found that Netflix was unacceptably slow, they would have to sign up with some other video-on-demand provider, and Comcast would like it to be them.
My blog
Netflix feeds data to level 3 which distributes it out to its servers spread across the land. The stream then is handed off to Comcast for delivery to consumers. Comcast would have a valid point if the network looked like this:
Netflix -> L3 Los Gatos ->Comcast ->L3 Server ->Comcast ->user
In which case L3 would be using Comcast's network to keep its distributed servers current and Comcast's complaint would be justified.
The alternative picture, and what most of us presume is correct is looks like this:
Netflix-> L3 Los Gatos -> L3 fiber network -> L3 Server ->Comast ->user
In which case Comcast is on the receiving end and according to Comcast, they should be paid by L3 since more data flows their way than vice-versa. However, if that's true, then Comcast should pay me since more data flows to my PC from Comcast than vice versa.
So Comcast, do you owe me money?
If L3 pays Comcast, then Comcast pays me to watch Netflix movies.
It's not like Level 3 is holding Comcast down and forcing data into them. Although that's an interesting mental picture.
Level 3/Netflix is providing a service that Comcast customers are buying. The traffic wouldn't exist if Comcast customers weren't using it. One of the reasons for choosing Comcast is that they advertise big tubes and fast throughput. In marketing terms, Netflix is an enabler for Comcast.
I've never really understood why the various broadband ISPs advertise huge download speeds and then .... they don't want you to make use of it. I mean, WTF? So my pr0n website updates in 1/125 of a second instead of 1/8 of a second. This is not a reason to pay for big tubes. Big downloads are a reason to pay for big tubes. And besides a few geeks torrenting Nervous Nematode, (or whatever the next Ubuntu will be called) just about the only LEGAL use by non-geeks for all that bandwidth is Video on Demand. Why block the very reason for your existence? It doesn't make any damn sense.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The question is whether the movie is on a server outside Comcast's network or on a server Inside Comcast's network. Why can't they act like grown-ups and decide on a division of costs for "co-locating" a movie server inside the comcast network? Netflix does not even offer "Live" content. How much would the hardware and electricity for a file-server cost? The entire library does not have to be on the server either; just the titles in the instant queue for people who subscribe to comcast. The netflix website could start copying it to the cache machine as soon as you put in into your instant queue.
Because the cable companies will sue the local government for competing with the service it wasn't providing in the area and buy some politicians to make state laws passed that prohibit municipalities from providing internet service to its citizens. This literally has happened.
So the solution is to have all Comcast users seed as many "Ubuntu Distributions" as possible. Equaling the bandwidth.
That's right. The fallacy here is that Comcast calls it "Level 3's traffic". It's not Level 3's traffic, it's their own customers' traffic that they've already been paid for.
If Level3 isn't using any of Comcast's bandwidth, I guess they won't mind then if Comcast shuts down all interconnections to Level3's network. Level3 can connect to Comcast's network through a third party.
Comcast does not want to get paid twice for the same data. They want all people who connect to their network, regardless of who they are (cable customer or ISP customer), to compensate them in some way. That, my friend, is how the internet works. That is how every network provider in the world operates.
"Aren't Comcast's customers, the one's who are streaming Netflix, already paying for that bandwidth that they're using? This sounds like Comcast wanting to double-dip."
zactly. Unless Level3 is somehow using Comcast as a transit network, in which case Level3 needs more peers, and Comcast has a right to bitch. But, I doubt very much that's the case.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I'm fairly sure this is a peering issue as has been stated many times. If Level3 is cut out of the private exchange, you'll still get Netflix, it will just take normal 'longer' transit routes to your house instead a shorter route at their private exchange(s).
Why should Comcast have to foot the bill for power and equipment and maintenance so Level3 can send traffic to you faster? It's not like these are $99 Linksys routers we're talking here. With a near 1:1 ratio that might make sense, but I'm kinda thinking Comcast is actually not the bad guy here.
You're the ones who are so staunchly anti-net neutrality because you think it's about a government takeover of the 'net or some such paranoid nuttery.
This is just the beginning. I guarantee it.
Right, because this article isn't about the FCC voting on this on the 21st of December. Except that it is. Regardless, I fail to understand why the FCC is attempting this. It seems to me that a similar FCC attempt was struck down by a federal appeals court in April. I think someone needs to explain to the FCC that they lack authority in this area.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
In San Antonio, we only have government utilies for our gas, water, and electricity. Trust me, the city plays the same price games that private companies have as well as having the abilty to declare certain levels in which water usage fees double. During the summer, you are ecven assigned watering days that are enforacele with fines
"But in reality Comcast isn't saying they are going to degrade Netflix traffic. But that they won't provide additional bandwidth for one service for free."
Comcast has already been paid for that service by their own customers who are requesting the Netflix traffic. That's where the lie resides.
Comcast charges less to terminate traffic on their own network than to pass the traffic on to some other network... Comcast is trying to charge Level3 to move traffic over Comcast's network, just like every other network operator in the world.
Imagine the telephone analogy. If person A wants to call person B, they must each pay for a telephone line. What you're suggesting is that the telephone company should give person A a free telephone line because person B wants to receive the call. No, that's not how it works. Both parties must pay for telephone lines to make calls through the telephone network.
please seed more.
Your torrent ratio must suck.
Note: I host a collection of open source torrents including the last 4 versions of ubuntu, my ratio for some of them is in the hundreds.
No, that's not quite how the Internet works. You're describing the legacy telecom interconnect that masquerades as the theory behind the Internet. In the old days, SS7 was used as the message to charge/clear/balance long distance calls and 'wire time'.
Comcast wants to make it tougher for Netflix to succeed over Xfinity offerings, because Xfinity competes directly at all levels with Netflix via Neflix's content delivery network/CDN, who is Level 3. Because the traffic is lopsided, e.g. downloads from L3 are huge, and the traffic from Comcast is small, Comcast feels they must charge for this imbalance.
In reality, the Internet was conceived with one of it's principals as equal access- meaning that if you stick a leg on to the network, your run whatever traffic in an unimpeded fashion, no matter what direction, what time of day, what protocols, etc. To help QoS, you might be nice and respect various QoS protocols so as to not screw up isochronous media types, like audio and video. But Comcast doesn't believe in that. They believe their cable system is unique and God-given, and therefore, the rules do not apply to them. Netflix/L3 caved, because if they didn't, your next flick w ou ld l ook li ke th is.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
"Uploading costs money, downloading doesn't. It's why most broadband service is structured with low upstream bandwidth."
Huh? The asymmetry to users is because of the way subscriber connections tend to be engineered (like DOCSIS cable modems and DSL) - they're built on the assumption that a "home" user sends small requests and gets large responses, and so that's the way they balance the available broadband bandwidth between send/receive. At the peering level, all the connections are symmetrical - there's no difference in cost.
Your website is aptly named - profound nonsense.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Peering:
(emphasis mine)
That, my friend, is how the Internet works and that is how it worked from the beginning.
My blog
Comcast has already been paid for that service by their own customers who are requesting the Netflix traffic. That's where the lie resides.
This.
One wonders why Comcast doesn't have to pay Level 3.
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
Your ISP doesn't come after you for more money because they have already sold you that 5 mbps connection. You are not using more than your alloted 5 mbps so they really have nothing to come after you for. The problem is that they have oversold their bandwidth. They sold that same 5 mbps connection to you, and to your neighbors hoping that you all would not use enough of that bandwidth at the same time to notice. So when something like Netflix comes along and everyone decides to use it at the same time things get shaky. They are afraid people will start to realize they are not getting the 5 mbps they were sold. The solution? Hold that popular service ransom at the other end, hoping they can get a payday they can then use to either upgrade their infrastructure or line their pockets with before the customers start asking questions. Incidentally I think this is the same reason (at least here in Canada) we are suddenly seeing ISP starting to enforce download caps. They claim it is because of the dirty, dirty pirates but I believe it is because they are afraid of Netflix and similar services increasing peoples use of the services they have paid for and they realize they can do a little double dipping. Pay for the connection and pay for the data.
Comcast customers paid for a specific amount of bandwidth to Comcast's internetwork, not to Netflix. That's the problem, Comcast can not be expected to provide end to end bandwidth to services not on their network. And I am sure their customer agreements to do not gurantee as much.
After all, why should Netflix partner with Level 3 at all? They could simply call themselves a backbone provider and demand free links to all of the different major ISPs.
What you're missing from this equation is that this traffic used to be handled inside Comcast's network, likely at a lot of different locations, because Akamai used to be Netflix's CDN and Akamai colocates servers with ISPs for quicker response times.
In other words, this is new external traffic to the network, and I have a feeling no matter where it passes into Comcast's network, they're going to want an increase in money from whomever is passing it in.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Read the first paragraph on the same page:
Instead, Comcast would like get paid from their own customers and from Level 3/Level 3's customers.
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I don't know what reality that is, but it's not ours. If you want to connect to someone else's network, you either pay or agree to a ratio of traffic. Once that deal is made, THEN, yes, you can send any kind of content you want.
If Comcast doesn't like what Level3 is paying them to accept L3's traffic, they should renegotiate. It shouldn't matter if the upsurge in traffic is due to Netflix or streaming porn.
That's exactly what's happening, and Level3 is throwing a hissy fit about it.
The cost of maintaining your physical connection far outweighs the cost of the transit you consume.
I've been following this topic over on Ars for a bit, and it's one of the few cases where I actually bother to read the comments. I have no background in network stuff, so please correct me where I'm wrong:
Comcast and L3 have a peering agreement, which applies to traffic that is coming from one network and moving through the other network. That is, if Comcast wants to send something to a third party and the easiest route is through L3's network, the peering agreement applies. Per the agreement, no money exchanges hands as long as the traffic sent through each network remains about equal. For data intended for a network, there is no charge.
Netflix previously was hosted through Akamai, who paid Comcast a fee to gain special access to Comcast's network. As Akamai is a straight-up CDN, they had no real network of their own -- or at least no back-bone -- so Comcast was essentially their ISP. Netflix is now contracted with L3, so traffic enters the Internet on L3's network and goes where ever it needs to go.
Now, L3 is acting as a CDN in some capacity because they are hosting Netflix's data, and they are also acting as a service provider because they are providing the connection to this hosting service. Comcast sees that L3 is now sending a lot more traffic its way and wants L3 to pay extra due to the increased bandwidth usage. Further, L3 has requested some number of extra ports so that they can send this data to Comcast further, and Comcast has given them a small number of the requested ports but is balking on the rest due to costs. They are asking L3 to pay for the additional ports, and to pay an additional monthly fee for each port.
I can see this a couple of ways. Say Netflix hosted with AT&T now, and they sent their traffic through L3 on its way to Comcast. In that situation, why would L3 be liable for extra fees to Comcast? On the other hand, if L3 is asking for additional equipment so that they and/or Comcast are more easily able to handle the load, then yes it may make some sense for L3 to foot some or all of the cost of the hardware upgrades they want Comcast to put in place. I guess my real question is whether Comcast is asking for money simply for profit's sake, or are they asking L3 to pay for the improvements to their network that they are making for L3's (and tbh, theirs as well) benefit?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, no. This is just a tribute.
What you're suggesting is that the telephone company should give person A a free telephone line because person B wants to receive the call. No, that's not how it works.
Yes, they both need access to the physical line that the call is routed over and both have to pay for it. This parallels Comcast/Level 3 - Level 3 pays Comcast for the physical connection to Comcast's network, this is fine.
Where your analogy breaks-down is where this conversation started - (cell phones aside) the caller is the one who pays for the call, not the receiver. Only one side pays for the usage of the line, the side that initiated the call. In the Level 3/Comcast scenario, Comcast's customers are initiating the data transfer and are the ones responsible for increasing the traffic on Comcast's network and adding to Comcasts costs and therefore they should be the ones who pay for it. It's not Level 3's fault Comcast promised unlimited Internet to their customers and their customers are finally taking advantage of it, that's Comcast's problem. To be clear, I have no problem with Level 3 having to pay for bandwidth for data that goes through Comcast's network but doesn't terminate there, that is perfectly reasonable. I just have a problem with the way Comcast frames this argument - they say it like Level 3 is just pushing this traffic onto their network, unsolicited when it is Comcast's customers (basically Comcast itself) that is requesting the data be sent. I mean come on, if Comcast wins this, they can just sit there and request data from Level 3 all day everyday and just bill Level 3 for it! How does that make any sense at all????
The disconnect (pun intended) here lies in the expectation that Comcast provide end-to-end connectivity between their customers and any possible end-point the customer demands at the speed the customer demands, even if that end-point is not on their network. That is simply unreasonable, and has nothing to do with network neutrality.
The problem with your thinking is that Comcast was paid to provide their customers access to their internetwork at a guranteed speed, not to any other end-point the customer demands, and certainly not Netflix.
"If Comcast doesn't like what Level3 is paying them to accept L3's traffic, they should renegotiate."
They did renegotiate. Level 3 accepted the new terms and signed the deal. Then Level 3 started the public complaints. And according to Comcast, it doesn't matter what the the upsurge in traffic is due to, it's just that Level 3 told them the volume of data would be more than doubling over what had previously been agreed to.
You don't seem to have noticed the "exchanged" part of that definition. This implies that there is an equitable exchange going on here, which is what Comcast wants. An equitable exchange. Level3 doesn't want such an exchange.
Oh I think it *is* a network neutrality issue.
From the Comcast customers point of view, traffic originating on L3's network is being discriminated against if Comcast stops accepting that traffic even though its destination is Comcast.
Allowing this sort of thing sets up an easy way for all consumer ISP's to discriminate, making its own services far more competitive than they would be had there been a level playing field.
"His name was James Damore."
It doesn't matter that Comcast customers are requesting it. They're only requesting the service because Level 3 is offering it. You can't expect to just start up any service you want and shit high volumes of traffic to other networks for free.
Network upgrades need to be paid somehow. Either Comcast increases rates to customers or it gets money from the network sending unequal amounts of traffic to Comcast. It isn''t double dipping, Comcast and Level 3 are customers of each other.
Sure you pay. I have seen very few deals where a ratio was capitulated to.
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If L3 accepted then I don't see what they have to bitch about.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
Where your analogy breaks-down is where this conversation started - (cell phones aside) the caller is the one who pays for the call, not the receiver. Only one side pays for the usage of the line, the side that initiated the call.
That's not how telephony works for most of the world. Most places, both sides pay for the call. This applies to the US too when it comes to cellphones and VoIP, and it applies to landlines most places outside of North America.
It's not Level 3's fault Comcast promised unlimited Internet to their customers and their customers are finally taking advantage of it, that's Comcast's problem.
It's not Comcast's fault that Level3 promised gigabits of connectivity to Netflix, and Netflix is taking advantage of it. That's Level3's problem.
I just have a problem with the way Comcast frames this argument - they say it like Level 3 is just pushing this traffic onto their network, unsolicited when it is Comcast's customers (basically Comcast itself) that is requesting the data be sent
Network providers don't get metaphysical about the reason the data transfer exists, about who requested what or why. Packets come in, money or packets go out.
If every network operator were required to let other network operators connect to them for free, where exactly is the revenue going to come from for ISPs that don't have any retail customers?
Assume there is a world where there are no ISPs that have no retail customers. (Never mind that that is already basically the case.) Why is that a bad thing?
But I'm not downloading torrents. When I am, which is generally just WoW patches, I do seed for awhile after I am done downloading.
Most of my inbound in Netflix.
Comcast customers paid for connection to the internet, not comcast's garden.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
If Comcast doesn't like what Level3 is paying them to accept L3's traffic, they should renegotiate.
That is what this is about, Comcast is telling Level3 that they need to renegotiate their peering agreement because Level3 is about to significantly increase the amount of traffic they send over Comcast's network. Netflix used to use Akamai as one of their primary ISPs. Akamai paid Comcast for the traffic they sent to Comcast's network. Level3 had a peering agreement with Comcast whereby they didn't pay to send traffic to Comcast because Comcast sent as much traffic to Level3's network as Level3 sent to Comcast's. That is about to change with Netflix switching from Akamai to Level3. Level3 is screaming because they undercut Akamai's price to provide service to Netflix on the basis of not paying Comcast to send data to Comcast's customers.
This has nothing to do with Netflix competing with Comcast (at leat not that anyone has so far offered any evidence for), this is about Level3 increasing the amount of traffic they send over Comcast's network without a similar increase in the amount of traffic that Comcast sends over Level3's network.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yes you have it exactly right. In our reality companies like Comcast are supposed to PAY to connect to the internet (ie Level3) or agree to a ratio of traffic. They agreed to send Level3 as much data as they received. Now they can no longer meet that agreement and should be paying Level3 some money.
Upstream is also limited to minimize end users setting up servers. There is no technical reason to restrict the upstream to a small fraction of the downstream except that one costs more than the other. Comcast doesn't do that because people don't "need" it, they do it because they want a ton of upstream traffic incurring peering charges with their upstream provider (i.e. Level 3.)
Apparently, Level 3 signed a new agreement and contracted to pay Comcast for the traffic it would be delivering. If Level 3 doesn't like it I suppose they could demand equal upstream charges to accept data from Comcast.
I should have stated my original post more clearly. Obviously, the hardware Comcast and Level 3 own is just as capable of sending data in one direction as it is the other. But peering agreements typically only charge to send data upstream. In this case, Level 3 would be sending Netflix data upstream to Comcast, which wants to be paid for it.
I think it's only problematic if Comcast is charging an exorbitant amount per byte vs. whatever they're charging other downstream providers.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
But Comcast isn't trying to charge Netflix. Comcast is dealing with Level 3.
Peering agreements are based on, and always have been based on, the difference between traffic of two connected networks. Level 3 is the largest ISP, controlling a large share of the North American Internet backbone, and route pretty much all traffic between dial-up and VoIP providers, in addition to being interchange points for most major ISPs, including Comcast... at present. It would not surprise me in the least if Comcast and Level 3 currently have a symmetric peering agreement, despite cable being asymmetric, because of this.
However, if they pile on a bunch of additional traffic that Akamai used to handle within Comcast's network, then that changes. And since Akamai was hosting it inside Comcast's network before, Comcast likely has a good notion of exactly how much traffic that is.
Oh, did I mention this means Akamai isn't paying Comcast to host those services inside its network any more?
Why would Netflix's bandwidth usage magically go up between November 30th and December 1st? Here's a tip: it didn't. However, because Akamai used to pay Comcast to colocate CDN servers that supplied Comcast with local Netflix mirrors, even no change in Netflix usage means an increase in traffic across Comcast's network, and a massive increase in incoming traffic where Comcast and Level 3 (or whomever else handles Netflix traffic) interconnect.
Use a time machine and go back to the early 90s and tell NSFNet not to privatize the U.S. Internet backbone then! The government used to have control of the Internet backbone, but sold it off... in 10 sections, as I recall. I have no idea who all owns parts now, but if I recall correctly the big ones are AT&T, Verizon, and Level 3, with Level 3 owning the majority.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I'm so confused. Someone else said L3 already renegotiated with Comcast and is just pissed about the deal they got. Oy.
Thank you for your explanation, it's substantially more detailed. I didn't figure Netflix really had anything to do with it--traffic is traffic, as far as Comcast is concerned. Hurting Netflix would be a nice effect for Comcast's VOD service but it doesn't seem to be a sufficient motive for all this.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
You don't seem to have noticed the "exchanged" part of that definition. This implies that there is an equitable exchange going on here, which is what Comcast wants. An equitable exchange. Level3 doesn't want such an exchange.
And I think you missed this part:
The pure definition of peering is settlement-free or "sender keeps all," meaning that neither party pays the other for the exchanged traffic; instead, each derives revenue from its own customers.
Sorry, but this is bullshit. If Comcast is allowed to get away with this, then Time Warner can charge Level 3. Then AT&T can charge Level 3. Then Verizon and Sprint will charge Level 3. Then these companies will charge each and every web page and web service to be allowed access so their customers can access web content.
Eventually, you're going to end up with different ISP's having access to different web pages/services. For example, you might be allowed to only use Google, Netflix, and Slashdot on Time Warner. Comcast will grant you access to Yahoo, Redbox and Engadget. On your Microsoft phone, you will have access to Bing, MSN, and MSN (through payoffs to each carrier). Carriers/ISPs will advertise that they allow for more web pages than their competition and charge their customers (You and me) for the privilege to access the only the content served from the highest bidder. Meaning if you are content provider, you better have a big bank roll as the amount you are willing to pay will have a direct effect on the amount of customers that want to access your service.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
No, it's not. Comcast and Level 3 agreed to exchange traffic directly at a set ratio. If they didn't agree to this, they would have had to use a Transit network to exchange traffic and that would cost them. This way the exchange is free, so long as it stays at whatever ratio was agreed on in the peering agreement. Now the ratio agreed to has been violated and Level 3 has to pay for the extra traffic they're sending. This is a pure traffic issue and it's irrelevant whether the traffic is coming from Netflix or another Level 3 customer.
Someone else mentions that this traffic used to be handled by Akamai and that Akamai colocates servers on Comcast's network. What they didn't mention was that Akamai, also, paid Comcast to send this traffic. Now that Level3 is handling this traffic Comcast wants them to pay the fee that Akamai paid. Level3 doesn't want to do that because they offered Netflix a lower CDN price than Akamai based on not having to pay Comcast to handle the traffic (this is me reading between the lines).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That makes so much more sense then the other explanations. I hate it when people talk about bandwidth in this situation as if it is a fixed commodity being traded.. What I don't get is why isn't Level 3 and Comcast both willing to pay for the upgrading costs. Why should level 3 pay to increase the backbone of another network? They do need to find a new peering agreement, but what Comcast is asking for is abusive. Comcast should be interested in promoting service access to its consumers which it obviously is not happening in this case. I don't think net neutrality could even fix a system that is this fubar from companies abusing monopolies. Government regulation would be much more effective.
Very very well explained VGPowerlord. I wish I had mod points. Instead, I'm giving you my first comment in some number of years. Use it wisely. Or not. Anyway, your description of Akamai's distributed nature brought it further together for me. Comcast's mistake has been in letting this seem like they're targeting Netflix traffic specifically. If it's a content-agnostic peering agreement they're after (and I hope it is), then it makes total sense. When it seems like they want to make a special fee specifically for Netflix traffic is when it seems anticompetitive.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
Why is it already the case? Can you point out any retail customers for, for example, Savvis?
In your analogy, since all costs are paid by retail customers, there is no transit (since an ISP has no reason to move data between two different networks since they won't be paid for it) and now every ISP in the world is required to interconnect with every other ISP in the world. Very few companies could afford to do that, and we'd likely end up left with a small handful of ISPs per continent. No network operator could survive unless they had millions upon millions of customers to cover the costs of connecting to everybody else.
That's usually how peering agreements work: you pay for traffic that you send to another network, but not traffic that you are receiving.
You are leaving out one very important fact. Peering agreements are made based on the concept that some of the traffic you are sending is going through the network to another network. Comcast doesn't do that though. They just take the data and deliver it to their users.
Oh I think it *is* a network neutrality issue.
Then you have no idea what network neutrality means, no idea what the issue at question is, or both.
From the Comcast customers point of view, traffic originating on L3's network is being discriminated against if Comcast stops accepting that traffic even though its destination is Comcast.
L3 is going from a 1:1 peering agreement to a 5:1 traffic ratio. Do you think that Comcast should just keep letting them pay nothing? If so, great for every other ISP - they can now get a cheaper deal from L3 than from Comcast to carry traffic to Comcast's customers and there's nothing that Comcast can do about it.
Allowing this sort of thing sets up an easy way for all consumer ISP's to discriminate, making its own services far more competitive than they would be had there been a level playing field.
Allowing what sort of thing? Depeering is something that has happened loads of times before in the history of the Internet, and quite a few times in the last few years. It happens whenever the traffic ratio between two peers suddenly shifts, as happened when L3 gained Netflix as a customer.
This has absolutely nothing to do with network neutrality. Comcast is not rejecting traffic because it comes from Netflix. Comcast is not rejecting traffic because it is streaming video. Comcast is threatening to reject traffic because it is not covered under their existing peering agreement and they want a new transit agreement. Any other company would have to get a similar agreement. Without the ability to form these agreements, the Internet would not function at all.
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then Time Warner can charge Level 3
They already do. Level3 pays either in money or bandwidth.
Then AT&T can charge Level 3.
They already do. Level3 pays either in money or bandwidth.
Then Verizon and Sprint will charge Level 3.
They already do. Level3 pays either in money or bandwidth.
Then these companies will charge each and every web page and web service to be allowed access so their customers can access web content.
They already do. Those web hosts pay for their connectivity, and each network along the way gets compensated.
You see where I'm going here?
Well, look. We all know that Comcast would like to steer you towards *their* media offerings, which of course many of us have zero interest in., They'd love to be able to lock you into their content, to go back to the late 80s when you didn't have much choice about where you go programming other than to drive to the video store.
However, their having self-serving, nefarious motives doesn't mean they don't have any valid points here. Level 3 is getting cash from Netflix with which they can, if need be, beef up their infrastructure to handle a lot more time sensitive traffic. They then hand that traffic to Comcast, who in order to handle all that traffic has to add more infrastructure. But Level 3 proposes that Comcast invest almost as much money as it does to carry this traffic, but that Comcast (unlike Level 3) should get no additional compensation. Essentially, Level 3 has externalized half the marginal costs of carrying Netflix traffic while privatizing all of the marginal revenue. Is that fair?
Of course Comcast's customers are paying for Internet service, but Internet protocols weren't designed to handle very large streams of data where *consistent throughput is critical*. Statistical multiplexing is a critical assumption in making Internet service affordable for everyone. You don't size your bandwidth for the peak demand, you exploit the high variability of bandwidth demand to fit 100 customers on to a link that is maybe only 10x the peak demand of any of them.
Now you can mix a little low quality video streaming into the mix and not disturb the statistical assumptions of the network. But introduce a *lot* of *HD* content that is *streamed*, and suddenly we're in a world where maybe we'd have been better off going with ISDN than TCP/IP. A network provider should be able to throttle a connection periodically to assure that every user has fair access to the bandwidth available. That wouldn't be a problem for customers renting or buying movies from Apple, but Netflix users are going to scream bloody murder unless the playback software buffers enough content to play without skipping. And if it does buffer enough content, they might have to wait a few minutes to fill up the buffer. That would be fair, and it's not going to kill anyone to have to wait five minutes for a movie to buffer before playing, but they'll still complain.
Such throttling would not in my opinion be a violation of network neutrality if it were applied equally to every content source, including the network provider's own. Alternatively a system where regulation enforced reasonable fees for carrying high volumes of time sensitive traffic would also be fair, if politically impossible.
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This isn't how it works.
Even if Comcast drops Level3 completely, you will still get Netflix - Level3 will just pass off the traffic to someone who does peer with Comcast. It'll be slower than if Level3 directly peered with Comcast, but it will still get there.
Netflix doesn't need to pay Comcast anything. Netflix is already paying Level3 to be their CDN. Level3 just now needs to pay for the bandwidth they're using.
Huh? Aren't Comcast's customers, the one's who are streaming Netflix, already paying for that bandwidth that they're using? This sounds like Comcast wanting to double-dip.
Uh, cause that's not how the internet works? The end-users pay Comcast for "internet connectivity" by which is usually meant the ability to connect to any other location on the internet. That's usually called "full transit" when you are talking about deals between networks rather than consumers. Now since not every host on the internet is on Comcast's network Comcast must negotiate with other networks to get access to those other hosts. Further since Comcast has no idea which hosts to which its users may want to connect it must either directly or indirectly negotiate deals with *all* other networks connected to the internet.
The most efficient way to do so is directly through peering. In order for the arrangement to be fair the ratio of traffic passing between networks ideally should be 1:1. If it's not, the one out of balance should compensate the other. Even if the out-of-balance network has to pay it's still likely cheaper to peer than not. If the networks do not peer, then they must purchase transit from each other or another network that connects both of them, if they want to communicate. As you may have noticed a network doesn't have to directly connect to every other network. It just has to do so transitively. Thus the most well-connected networks (i.e. "backbones" or Tier 1 providers) usually charge the most because it's easier to connect to one network (the backbone) than thousands (every network on the internet).
"It doesn't matter that Comcast customers are requesting it. They're only requesting the service because Level 3 is offering it. You can't expect to just start up any service you want and shit high volumes of traffic to other networks for free."
Yes, good thing there's not a group of people who have already paid Comcast to receive high volumes, perhaps even "unlimited" volumes of traffic from Netflix.
Because that would mean that Comcast's business model is fundamentally flawed, and we might see them begin to flail litigiously.
lol... so you're trying to say that Level 3's traffic stayed the same, but Comcast's return traffic dropped by 5? Sure, in THAT reality, Comcast or whatever the ISP is would end up paying.
In our reality, that's not what happened, though.
There is no technical reason to restrict the upstream to a small fraction of the downstream except that one costs more than the other.
Yes there is. ADSL operates on a limited range of frequencies (determined by cable quality and distance) on a single pair. Each channel that you allocate to upstream comes at the expense of downstream channels. When you are aiming your product at people that download a lot more than they upload (i.e: the vast majority of residential customers) it makes more sense to allocate more of your limited number of channels to downstream than upstream.
DOCSIS has a similar limitation, albeit for different reasons. The upstream channel needs to accommodate dozens to hundreds of modems that compete for time slots to transmit in. Owing to this limitation and others the upstream channel has considerably less bandwidth than the downstream channel. On DOCSIS 1.1 the bandwidth is roughly 42/10mbit/s. On 2.0 and 3.0 it's 42/30mbit/s.
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We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Whether it is directly in the form of higher internet prices, or indirectly through Netflix in the form of higher subscription fees; I see very little difference.
Seeing as I'm not a Netflix customer, I see a big difference.
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Let's suppose the NetFlix (or a similar service) is hosted on Comcast, and is only accessible from Comcast's network. By your logic, Netflix should be able to connect to the network for free, because the other Comcast customers have already paid. That makes no sense at all. So why would it change just because instead of fiber connecting directly to Netflix's servers the fiber is connected to Level3's router?
I get the impression that Comcast does not want to saturate their bandwidth at the border routers. If the caching servers are -inside- their border routers then all the data flows on their internal (and hopefully much faster) network. Are you thinking that Comcast is is concerned about intranet traffic levels too?
Comcast, (along with other final mile ISP's) typically limit upload bandwidth. These artificial caps are just that.. artificial. By corollary, Comcast is deliberately setting themselves up to receive paychecks by limiting the reciprocation on their pipe by it's customers. If you must limit yourself for financial reasons over what bandwidth you could utilize I understand, however for the sake of peering that amount should still be symmetric.
If asymetric pipes are allowed to continue, then as long as it is monetarily beneficial to maintain a high receive to send ratio, that ratio should grow until it becomes unrealistic to maintain useful bandwidth. The download portion then becomes a marketing gimmick only as the limit will be the TCP ACK packets being sent back to the publishing application.
Feel free to correct where/if I am wrong
- Sig
The purpose of a CDN is to host the content as close to the consumer as possible. It is not only fastest, but cheapest that way. Now, why would Netflix not choose to host it at Comcast? It looks like Comcast is having to learn the hard way about the value of hosting a CDN, and why extorting them is a bad idea.
L3 and Comcast can host the content for roughly the same cost, but it is worth far more to Comcast, as hosting it locally reduce their own offsite traffic substantially. Why couldn't Comcast offer an attractive price? The funny thing is that they have to handle the traffic anyway, now they just have to pay more for their greed.
As I understand it, CDNs used to get a free ride, as they served to cut costs for the ISP. At some point, that policy changed, and now it looks like it should be reconsidered again.
Comcast is charging anyone that wants to send traffic over its network. Just like every other provider. You pay to send traffic. If the traffic is equal, they'll just end up paying each other the same amount, so instead they agree on a settlement-free exchange. Now the traffic is no longer equal. Comcast is sending X and Level 3 is sending 5X. End result is that Level 3 ends up paying for that additional 4X of unequal traffic.
I think you have it backwards. Why should Comcast get to connect through Level3's network for free?
Generally speaking, companies providing a service charge companies whose customers want to access that service. This means that Comcast pays to get better access to servers like YouTube that are hosted by other networks like Level3, not the other way around. The very notion of Comcast charging Level3 for better access to their customers is absurd.
YouTube is providing a service. Comcast's customers are just consumers. They're interchangeable. Services like YouTube aren't. Therefore, in the grand scheme of things, faster access to YouTube matters, and faster access to Comcast's customers don't. YouTube doesn't benefit from those faster pipes. They get paid the same whether the customer gets a lower bandwidth stream or a higher bandwidth stream. They get paid whether it stutters every once in a while or not, so long as it isn't degraded beyond usability. Comcast's customers, on the other hand, demand better service, so Comcast should have to pay.
If Comcast wants to not pay such exorbitant bandwidth costs for peering, maybe they should have thought of that before they decided to become an ISP that almost exclusively caters to individual customers and small businesses. There's nothing inherently stopping Comcast from rolling out true business-grade pipes with guaranteed bandwidth to big businesses and putting themselves on a level playing field. They merely have chosen not to do so, and that's their choice. The consequence is that as ISPs go, they just aren't very important, so they have to pay to peer, and nobody pays them to peer. That's just the way the Internet works.
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I may be mistaken about the timing of renogiating, but yeah this is basically Level3 trying to use PR to get a better deal out of Comcast (something I think they based their pricing to Netflix on being able to get).
It looks to me like Level3 is pissed because they negotiated a deal with Netflix that undercut their competitors by a significant amount based on not having to pay Comcast anything for peering and now Comcast is saying they have to pay the same as their competitors and that Netflix deal isn't looking so good anymore.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Why is it already the case? Can you point out any retail customers for, for example, Savvis?
I think I may have been defining "retail customer" very broadly. I was thinking that anyone who is paid by an endpoint for access, or who in turn pays their uplink provider for access which is resold to downstream endpoints, is a retail customer. So then you get a hierarchy in which everyone pays the network closer to the core of the internet and is paid by the network farther from the core, and the core networks peer with each other but not with others, who they charge.
Given that definition of "retail customer" do you agree with me? Or can you identify a specific flaw that this simplification hides? Because the idea that there is no transit does not seem to happen: the network providing transit is closer to the center and so gets paid by both networks it is providing transit for.
Equitable isn't necessarily measured in bytes in each direction. In this case, the equity is the ability for Comcast customers to access Netflix (and other sites that route through Level 3). The only way this wouldn't be seen as an equitable arrangement by a network dominated by end-users, with traffic overwhelmingly flowing in one direction, was if Comcast had some sort of competitive offering with a quirky name that starts with an X.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
If every network operator were required to let other network operators connect to them for free, where exactly is the revenue going to come from for ISPs that don't have any retail customers?
lolwut ? That is how the internet has worked since the beginning of time. Do you not understand that the internet is just a series of connected networks ? Comcast does have retail customers, so that is a moot point anyways.
Why should Level3 get to connect to the network for free?
Because their customers are paying for the privilege of accessing content from any provider
Suppose you are an ISP, and some guy comes to you and says 'I have a great idea for an internet service. Your customers will love it, and I am going to get rich. All I need you to do is provide me with a few GB/s links that I can hook my servers to. And by the way, your customers already paid for the ability to download my data, so I expect you to provide me with the links for free.' Would you (or any sane company) actually go for such an arrangement? How is that any different from what Level3 is doing?
Seattle has laid a lot of fiber itself. It's mostly used by city departments and a lot of it is unused. The places that have tried to do that have ended up being sued by the telecoms that are supposed to be doing it. Leaving the municipality without the service they were trying to install and without any additional capacity.
To start out I want to say that I understand peering is a standard practice which is used by all ISPs. I merely want to examine the facts of the exchange process. * Comcast wants to charge me for the download and charge L3 for the upload. * Comcast wants to receive payment for both the upload and download of the same content. * If L3 were some other consumer/customer of the Comcast network then they would be charged based Bytes/second instead of on Bytes.
Netflix traffic, in theory, is already paid for. L3 is being paid by Netflix to send the traffic, and Comcast customers are paying Comcast to receive it. What Time-Warner described sounds more like a transit peering arrangement, in which L3 is passing at least some traffic to Comcast that is not terminating on Comcast but on networks to which Comcast is connected. Maybe L3 and Comcast do in fact have a transit peering agreement in place, but it seems rather unlikely. Comcast isn't really in the long haul network business and I can't imagine anyone wanting to use them for transit, except maybe as an absolute last resort, such as during a mass outage caused by a backhoe apocalypse.
That's not a price game, that's a practical necessity. The term is congestion pricing and particularly during the summers that there's a drought on there's not much the city can do other than raise prices and limit consumption. But summers tend to run dry in much of the world conserving the water that's there is the only way to ensure that there's plenty of it for the whole year. Happens up here in Seattle as well. The difference is that the infrastructure isn't generally created to justify increasing rates. Water rights are contentious and there isn't always enough to go around, I'm not sure why you seem to think that you're entitled to water at the same rates and as much as you like as during the winter when it's presumably less contested.
So by that sound logic any business running servers should have the ability to put such servers on an ISP's network for free, because other people have already paid for the ability to download?
They previously didn't have to pay Level3 because Comcast and Level3 worked out a peering agreement that assumed general parity of inbound versus outbound traffic, and neither one had to pay. Now that Level3 is serving up Netflix content, the traffic Level3 is sending into Comcast's network is much greater than the amount coming out of Comcast onto Level3. They need a new peering agreement, and this one is going to have to address the imbalance in traffic.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
The FCC was told that the authority they cited was not good enough, not that they have NO authority in this area. Whatever is voted on at the next meeting will likely have a different authority cited. It will be litigated and may not hold up either, but that's yet to be seen.
I hate Comcast but they are technically correct. Level 3 is wrong. Network neutrality is discrimination based on traffic type or protocol. Comcast is saying that Level 3 must pay for all traffic in excess of the ratio regardless of type or protocol. Level 3 is merely trying to leverage the momentum behind network neutrality in order to get the government to make-up for their poor ability to calculate margins. And given that Comcast has a monopoly on a huge chunk of eyeballs it puts a lot of pressure on Level 3 to capitulate in order to make Netflix happy. It's really Level 3 that's screwed here, not Netflix (assuming the additional router hops do not degrade quality too much). Of course, Comcast also runs some risk of losing customers/increased support calls if the quality of Netflix degrades but it is largely insulated by its monopoly in most markets. If there is anything offensive about this whole scenario, it's Comcast using its monopoly to abuse Level 3, not a net neutrality violation against Netflix.
Of course the fishy bit is that most of this traffic just happens to be Netflix content and Comcast is a provider of similar content. Comcast claims this is merely co-incidental. That's kind of hard to believe but guessing about motives is murky business.
Both of them are being stupid though. Level 3 looks incompetent by claiming this is a net neutrality issue and appears to be rent seeking by seeking regulation. Comcast looks like a big bully while they are trying to acquire NBC. I wouldn't be surprised to see some regulation around acceptable peering ratios between monopoly last-mile networks and other networks come out of all of this. And given the assumptions built into the download/upload ratios of most consumer broadband connections 5:1 seems reasonable.
The problem is that there is no "core" to be closer to or farther from. If the first ISP in the chain needs to get a packet to the last ISP in the chain, it picks an ISP that it connects to who both advertises that it has a route to the last ISP, and is closer to the last ISP. Through this manner, the packet eventually gets where it's going. There is no obvious point along the way where it makes sense to switch which party is paying.
If you want to define "retail customer" in terms of who pays who, and define "pay" to be strictly cash, and want to define the class of ISPs that have no such customers, then that is the definition of a tier 1 ISP. There are currently 11 ISPs that are agreed to be tier 1. Level3 is one of them, as are most of ma bell. Comcast is not.
It's likely that one of the reasons why Level3 does not want to pay Comcast is because Level3 would lose their status as a tier 1 ISP, although that doesn't necessarily mean anything important.
Comcast isn't a backbone provider. It's a retail ISP, and the vast majority of it's customers are home consumers. Since it's customers pull more data than they push, Comcast must expect to receive more data from its peers than it delivers. That's simple common sense.
It's Comcast's customers who are requesting Netflix streams, and it's Comcast's customers who are paying to receive them. Asking Level 3 for payment to deliver is undeniably double dipping - to deny traffic from Netflix via Level 3 is simply to deny the service their own customers have paid and contracted for.
Level 3 pulled something similar a few years ago with Cogent, but that was very different. Both were backbone providers, and Cogent was effectively using Level 3 as a transit network, and thereby transferring costs onto Level 3.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Your car analogy is flawed, let me restructure it to illustrate the situation:
Lets say I own a road and lease out access to that road to a video game store, and you own a road and run a video game store.
Your 'road' customers pay a toll to use your road.
Our roads are not currently connected. If people want to get from your road to my road, they have to get on interstate. Which takes them out of their way, makes for a slower trip, and increase the cost for everyone as we have to maintain the interstate.
To reduce the costs and improve the drive, I build a new road that connects directly to your road.
Your 'road' customers can now use your road to get to both your store and to my road and the video game store leased there. It's faster and cheaper than before and everyone is happy.
It has no effect over your road's congestion. All of the people that had been taking your road to the interstate to get to my store are now just going to take your road to my road. The same people are still doing the same thing.
Everyone is happy, except for your video game store. Your video game store is now losing sales because the customers who used to go there can now go to my video game store.
So you use your power over the road to charge me a fee for allowing your customers to get to my road with out using the interstate. You do this not because I am increasing the traffic on your network, but because I am taking sales from your video game store.
And there in lies the rub. An ISP that charges/alters traffic based on competition in other markets has an unfair business advantage and is exploiting their government mandated monopoly.
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
No no no, here's the deal. The increase in traffic from Level3 is not TRANSITING Comcast's network, it is TERMINATING on Comcast's network. That is a big, big difference. Because it means that the more subscribers Comcast has, the more traffic Level3 has to send them. Comcast is already getting paid for the increase in traffic at a rate of $50 a month times a lot of people.
And this is only not a net neutrality issue in the technical sense that they aren't discriminating against packets. But a huge ISP that happens to own a huge cable TV business threatening to stop serving their own customers the website of a cable TV competitor certainly seems to capture the essence of the net neutrality fight: Would you like to access the Verizon/Google Internet or the Comcast/Disney Internet? Uh, neither?
Basically they are saying they accepted the agreement under duress, because had Comcast just dropped them, there may have been interruption of services. Now that Comcast isn't going to "unplug" them, they are talking about the deal.
"But this one goes to 11!"
There is no obvious point along the way where it makes sense to switch which party is paying.
I'm not sure that changes much. Yes, when you have a connection between e.g. a large Tier 2 and a Tier 1, there is some question as to whether the Tier 2 should pay the Tier 1 or whether there should be "settlement free peering". In either event, the Tier 2 would be paying far less for the same bandwidth as a Tier 3 would.
The problem is that if you go the other way, things start to break. So Comcast (Tier 2) says Level 3 (Tier 1) has to pay them because Comcast has control over access to their customers and no one may send them data without paying Comcast. Now Level 3 has to squeeze the other endpoint for more money in order to pay off Comcast. The endpoint starts to feel the pinch.
Unless the endpoint is Hulu (which is owned in part by Comcast/NBC) in which case they can just get a good deal on bandwidth from Comcast/NBC. Which is why people are talking about network neutrality. ISPs charging Tier 1 providers for access to their customers means the ISP gets to pick winners and losers in the content market because all they have to do is refund some of their tithe to specific content providers while pricing all of the others out of the market.
Businesses don't pay a data provider for access to customers. They pay for access to the network nothing more nothing less. I buy a certain amount of bandwidth to the internet. That gives anyone on the internet access to my content who wants it. When someone from Comcast requests data from my service I am not arbitrarily sending unwanted data to Comcast, Comcast users are utilizing the bandwidth they paid for from their internet provider to get bandwidth from my internet provider. It's that simple my internet provider makes money from me their customer, Comcast makes money from theirs customers. Only big tier 1 providers like Level 3 get to make money from both ends. Comcast becomes a level 3 customer to ensuring that their customers have access to content that is available from level 3's network. Such as my data.
Some idiot with a business degree is trying to change the system that has been in place since the internet was created to their favor. They want to limit consumer choices by making sure that your or I, or the Facebook's, or Myspace's, or Youtube's can't get a foothold to get started without them making money from it first. It's a whole new world of media consolidation.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
I'm not sure why you seem to think that you're entitled to water at the same rates and as much as you like as during the winter when it's presumably less contested.
I don't. The levels they set before the price doubles leave us enough water that we would have plenty for 20 years without another drop of rain. Oil companies get slammed when they raise rates and their thresholds are not nearly so wide.
I am not arguing that CPS is wrong, I am pointing out that government running utilities do not mean lighter restrictions. In fact, it is usually the opposite.
According to Comcast's letter, what Level 3 was offering Comcast was free connections from their network enable data to flow faster for Comcast users; and all comcast had to do was make the physical connection available. If Level 3 did not do this then Comcast would have had to bear the brunt of the traffic its self. That is exactly how the system is supposed to work. Otherwise Comcast would have purchase additional bandwidth connections to provide their customers with access to the data they are requesting. What Level 3 offered was equatable and on the whole very inexpensive for Comcast and would have provided better service to their customers.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Okay, that answers my question. You have no clue at all about how peering / transit agreements work between any of the networks that comprise the Internet. Take ten minutes to educate yourself, and then come back to the discussion.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
content users pay for their bandwidth (isp) and content providers pay for their bandwidth (hosting). a little oversimplified, sure, but what is the problem?
...
I'm sorry, but you've been consistently wrong the entire time in this thread. Level 3 is a Tier 1, they do not pay other ISP's for the connections. This is part of the conditions of being a Tier 1. Level 3 in fact sells connections to Verizon (who happens to pay them a monthly fee for their customers to access the internet) as does Time warner, AT&T, Sprint and nearly every single other US ISP except other Tier 1's (Comcast is NOT a tier 1 nor have they ever been)
The fact is Comcast pays Level 3 a monthly fee for their interconnects, and rents over 70% of their fiber from Level 3 (who owns the majority of the fiber in the US, thanks to the DOD)
Now Comcast is trying to cut their bill, by pulling a media circus on the netflix deal, when it's traffic that is destined to end on Comcast's network. Traffic that's being sent to the last mile ISP is never to be considered as a "peer" agreement, as it's purchased bandwith. This is where Comcast is in the wrong, and has been the entire time. People defending Comcast in this case proves how little they know about how the internet truly works, and it's my hope that Level 3 tells Comcast to fuck off and depeers them as Comcast is in violation of the peering agreement by trying to shift last ISP traffic to it and then collect for traffic they have already charged their customers for. This is known as double dipping, and Comcast is guilty of trying to do it in this case, just as they have been in the past.
I don't need to ask - i spelled it out in the original comment.
"It's cheaper to buy legislation mandating your business model than to compete."
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
All Netflix has to do is, in their video player, when it stutters, put up a screen saying, "The reason you cannot see this smoothly without waiting for it to mostly download is because Comcast is throttling your bandwidth. Here's the Comcast phone number you can call to let them know your displeasure."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Because Comcast pays Level 3 a monthly fee for those links and to rent the fiber for its backbone?
So Comcast is selling customers access to nothing is that what you are trying to say? LOL you must have a business degree! That is what comcast is supposed to pay it's provider for. Comcast does not exist in a vacuum.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
This is hardly my area of expertise, but I think this is where the common sense notion of how it ought to work and how it works in practice start to conflict.
Apparently, the history of peering agreements is that they don't pay attention to the ultimate destination of the data, just volume. So in that sense, Comcast is absolutely right that the ratio is changing dramatically and that settlement free peering is no longer appropriate. Some percentage of data is transit across the network, some is delivered directly to the network, but that seems not to have factored in to the pricing.
The common sense view is that the traffic is being delivered to Comcast's network at the request of Comcast's customers, so therefore Comcast should be paying L3 to deliver the traffic, not the other way around.
Who is in the right depends which set of assumptions you want to use.
Yes because Comcast's users have requested data from Netflix, a Level 3 customerl; so the traffic was routed via Level 3. Comcast users have paid for Netflix's data and thus Level 3's transmission of that data to them. Remember Comcast's customers are not paying solely for upstream bandwidth but bidirectional bandwidth.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Agree completely - you are correct.
I simplified and substituted Netflix for the real players. The real issue is that those players don't want to change their business to respond to changes in the technology and the overall ecosystem they operate in and it's a big fat lose-lose situation for the consumers because of that ecosystem is fubar.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
If Comcast cut all connections to Level3, comcast customers would still be able to reach Netflix just fine... Not only does Netflix not rely exclusively on Level3, but Comcast would be able to use other routes to Level3.
As I understand it, Akamai also operates slightly differently (and less costly from Comcast's perspective): they colocate some of their CDN nodes with ISPs so external bandwidth isn't used when content hosted there is requested.
People defending Comcast in this case proves how little they know about how the internet truly works
Hmm...
Level 3 in fact sells connections to Verizon (who happens to pay them a monthly fee for their customers to access the internet) as does Time warner, AT&T, Sprint and nearly every single other US ISP except other Tier 1's
You don't seem to know as much as you think you do. Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint are three of the eleven tier 1 networks. They don't pay Level3 a dime.
Seven of the eleven tier 1 networks are based in the US. Four of those seven (the three you mentioned, plus Qwest) also operate major consumer ISPs.
That is a terrible analogy. Netflix is paying their direct bandwidth provider for bandwidth. You can't form an analogy that doesn't involve a peering agreement between two networks, because that is the entire issue at hand, not bandwidth usage at either endpoint.
Yes, we are. Comcast is being compensated by me to provide me with last-mile bandwidth. If I use more than whatever the cap is, then I have to compensate them some more. I never get near that amount, though.
What do I expect from Comcast in return? A big, fast, dumb, *neutral* pipe that carries any traffic I want. If they are going to prioritize some classes of traffic (VoIP, for instance), that may be OK so long as they prioritize everyone's VoIP equally. However, I'd rather have a last-mile pipe so big that QoS is superfluous.
If they need to do QoS, that should be across their core or distribution layers, and again, prioritized traffic should be neutral. Charging L3 extra for what I'm already paying Comcast to do is B.S.
Thought experiment: I want to transfer data with you. I have Cable, you have fios and they have a peering agreement. We transfer roughly same amount and things work great. Then one day our business relationship changes and we both want me to transfer 10x as much data. My cable plan allows it and has enough bandwidth to handle it. Your fios plan also allows it and has enough bandwidth. However the interlink between cable and fios networks can't handle the new surge of traffic.
Who should pay for the new interlinks?
That's what this issue is about. This isn't about net neutrality because comcast isn't targeting netflix. It's a problem of raw amount of traffic and who pays for it. Traditionally it's been the sender (not the requester, these are big backbone networks and don't have the capability to track state of billions of connections). This is because it's cheaper to add bandwidth to servers then clients. A server can be colocated, clients can't.
Net neutrality definition is heavily debated but I define it as discriminating how you handle traffic based on:
1. Source and/or destination
2. Protocol or Type of service
3. Content
Which Comcast is not doing in this case. Comcast is an evil evil company, but I'm afraid they're right in this case.
"I don't know what reality that is, but it's not ours. If you want to connect to someone else's network, you either pay or agree to a ratio of traffic."
But I, as a Comcast customer, already paid them to deliver said Netflix data to me. How do they figure they can charge Netflix for the SAME THING when I already paid for it?
Comcast lives in a world of double-dips, triple-dips and outright shenanigans.
Remember when cable was supposed to be user-supported Television (as opposed to ad-supported)? Now you have the ads back AND they are charging the content providers as well.
I've long suspected Comcast of injecting reset packets into my datastream as it pertains to my use of a Samsung set-top device I use to watch Netflix on my television--the service is seriously degraded on that device, but not others such as this PC I am using. I wrote an email to Netflix explaining my suspicions and was pleased to see a firmware update to my device within two weeks that seemed to fix the problem. It lasted about two months before the degradation started again.
Interestingly, if I run a Netflix movie on my PC (I just turn off the monitor) at the same time I am watching on the Samsung, the data to my Samsung unit is not degraded. It appears that specific device types are targeted--the ones that carry all of the Comcast advertising streams. Degrading the service on my PC wouldn't make sense--they would be degrading their own product. I just see this as further proof that my suspicions are correct.
As a customer, I am caught in a crossfire, but is plain to see who is wearing the black hat here and it ain't Netflix.
If Comcast cut all connections to Level3, comcast customers would still be able to reach Netflix just fine...
Would they? I thought they were moving their content servers to Level 3 exclusively?
Comcast would be able to use other routes to Level3.
Potentially, assuming Level 3 didn't decide to drop all packets originating from Comcast IPs.
Regardless, the point remains that Level 3 provides access to content providers, Comcast provides access to content consumers, and each gets to charge its customers. That's a pretty equitable arrangement by most standards.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Level 3 is not SENDING anything. Comcast ('s customers) are REQUESTING data FROM Level 3 (Netflix).
Network providers don't get metaphysical about the reason the data transfer exists, about who requested what or why. Packets come in, money or packets go out.
Right. Comcast is REQUESING more data from Level 3's network, therefore they must pay for that data imbalance. Unless you are suggesting that Level 3 should pay for sending data that Comcast requests?
On top of that the REAL issue is that the data doesn't go "through" Comcast to anybody except THEIR customers, who are paying for "internet" access. This is why we have the breakdown. Nobody is running large internet services over "retail" providers because those ISPs have long structured themselves to be "leechers-only". The ENTIRE POINT of that decision 15 years ago was to create the stuffed pipes we have now. One set of companies own the cross-country "highway" but another set of companies own the "last mile".
it's not really a "peering" situation at all. It's Comcast trying to charge somebody for "access" to Comcast's internet customers.
In a world with proper "net neutrality" Netflix would be able to host their data where it was closest to the customers, but the current network layouts make ISPs "gatekeepers" for ALL customer traffic, even when folks across the street have ATT vs Comcast the traffic is routed "out" to Chicago then back to Michigan. It's all incredibly wasteful.
This should be modded up but I'm short of mod points. This is the most concise description of the issue I have read.
That brings up the question, are Comcast's customers paying comcast enough to cover all the costs of moving all that data? The old amount, yes; comcast wasn't getting money from Level3 so we must assume that it was paid for by customers. Now that more customers are demanding more data, the flat-rate fees may not be enough anymore, and getting Level3 to chip in (which they would presumably pass on to Netflix et al) keeps them from having to jack up customer prices (obsnark: as much as they would normally)
I believe that there ought to be common carrier status, so that someone runs the wires (or wireless) and service providers rent that infrastructure from the geography (municipality, state, etc.) and offer their services atop that.... just like utilities were supposed to work.
Comcast is trying to save bandwidth to not only cover infrastructure costs, but also to make money from Netflix, one of their greatest competitors. The last mile *ought* to be owned by the local community or region, and Comcast should rent from them. But this is heresy.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Comcast is charging anyone that wants to send traffic over its network. Just like every other provider. You pay to send traffic. If the traffic is equal, they'll just end up paying each other the same amount, so instead they agree on a settlement-free exchange. Now the traffic is no longer equal. Comcast is sending X and Level 3 is sending 5X. End result is that Level 3 ends up paying for that additional 4X of unequal traffic.
By that logic, I shouldn't have to pay much at all since I only send a tiny fraction of the data that is sent to me by others. Unfortunately that's not how my ISP sees it. I'm paying for both upstream and downstream transfers, with limits on both. Apparently they do charge twice for the same data, once to whoever send it, and again to whoever receives it.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Stop parroting the same old argument that Comcast is making. Comcast isn't a peer, it's a large endpoint. One could claim that Comcast isn't carrying *any* traffic for Level3 - it's all to the benefit of Comcast (and their customers). One conclusion is that Comcast should pay Level 3 for the privilege of connecting to Level 3.
(I'm aware there is danger in oversimplification, but come on)
A.
...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
And you dont think that they weren't paying more in colocation fees than lvl3 is going to be paying in bandwidth?
And Comcast customers are getting what they paid for: a connection to the internet. But this goes beyond that and into the realm of a sustained QoS from Netflix. No Comcast customers are paying for that.
If you really think Comcast internet service includes end-to-end QoS then you know even less than your condescending anti-business mentality lets on.
Oh, and my field is mathematics, not business. So go apply your troll somewhere else.
Just out of interest... what counts as "decent latency" in your book? I'm using a regular old DSL line without Fastpath, and the latency is fantastic for everything expect maybe twitch gaming... what exactly are you looking for? LAN-typical latencies within your state/area code?
You have no clue at all about how peering / transit agreements work
I know how peering and transit agreements work.
Comcast is not a peer. Do you understand that? Comcast is not a peer. They are not the backbone. They are not transiting packets from one network to another. They are not a peer.
You have taken the little knowledge you've got and misapplied it.
Lets try this one more time.. Comcast is not a peer. Comcast is a provider.
"His name was James Damore."
I get the impression that Comcast does not want to saturate their bandwidth at the border routers. If the caching servers are -inside- their border routers then all the data flows on their internal (and hopefully much faster) network. Are you thinking that Comcast is is concerned about intranet traffic levels too?
Why would Comcast's border routers be abnormally underpowered compared to its internal routers? Comcast is not generating much traffic, so Comcast-To-Comcast traffic is currently a very minor part of the data its handling for its customers.
"His name was James Damore."
Comcast (trying to buy NBC Universal) and Time-Warner use cable as a low-cost way to distribute content. This is a battle over content, disguised as a dispute over bandwidth. ISPs (network operators) that own content attempt to guide subscribers to a "walled garden" of content that they provide, which is easy to do on the cable television side. The question is whether a Cable Modem (or DSL or WiMax) subscriber's agreement with their cable (network) operator permits that subscriber to use the bandwidth any way the subscriber desires, which would essentially turn cable companies (and other network operators) into "common carriers" that have no control over traffic (no ability to give preference to one type or source of traffic over another). Your wireline telephone is regulated by your state and is a "common carrier" service. Network operators do not want to be common carriers because their service levels, profitability, and services are controlled by Public Service Commission (or whatever your state calls them). As network operators (cable, telco, satellite, wireless) attempt to win you over with bundled services [video, voice, data (bandwidth), and even wireless], the line really blurs between whether subscribers are paying for bandwidth or content and whether operators are subsidizing the ISP portion of their business to attract you to their content. Network owners claim that they make capital investments that pay off for some other firm, like NetFlix. Non-network-owning, third-party content providers (owners), including online gaming, IPTV, Google TV, NetFlix, and many more have a vested interest in seeing an Open Web with features like Network Neutrality. Here is where I plug Open Web initiatives, such as Open ID (http://openid.net), Data Portability (http://www.dataportability.org), etc.
I pay Comcast for bandwidth so I can access various content over the internet. Netflix pays Level 3 for bandwidth so they can provide content to people like me. Now Comcast says they should be receiving payment for allowing the data with which I have elected to use my bandwidth?
Comcast should be paying Netflix for providing the content that brings customers to purchase Comcast's services; they should also be paying Level 3 for dutifully delivering that data down the big pipes until it reaches Comcast's smaller pipes and eventually finds its way into my home.
Netflix, (or Slashdot or any other content on the web) are like the fruit on the tree;
Level 3 are like the people who deliver the fruit to the stores;
Comcast is the store;
and I am the store's customer.
And Comcast thinks this arrangement entitles them to a share of the wholesale fruit profits? When the presence of that fruit in Comcast's store is the only reason I go to that store? I pay Comcast for the fruit. They don't need the delivery companies to pay them as well - the very idea is absurd.
Mod parent up please, excellent analysis.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
And Comcast customers are getting what they paid for: a connection to the internet. But this goes beyond that and into the realm of a sustained QoS from Netflix. No Comcast customers are paying for that.
Comcast customers pay for a connection to the internet, with a specific speed range, and a limit on how much data they can transfer up or down. So, if Comcast is also charging whomever is sending the data down to their customers, then effectively both the customer and the sender are being charged for the same data. Apparently this charging both ends of a connection for the same data is common practice.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I read the linked statements from Comcast and TWC and neither one clearly states why their peering costs are not covered by their clients' subscription fees.
All you people supporting Comcast need to stop. You clearly have no idea how the internet works. While I realize that cable ISP and the physical cable companies are the same entity so it's hard to separate the costs of renting a physical line vs sending/recieve data, let me demonstrate with what I think is a more apt analogy: DSL connections. Here I can rent a DSL line from the telco, and I can pick an ISP that is not the telco. I pay money to both. I understand that I have to pay my telco to rent a line. However, my DSL connection is highly asymmetric. I typically download 200GB/mo and upload maybe 5GB/mo. Should my ISP be paying me? After all, they are sending tons of data onto my internal network. Just like Level3 is doing to Comcast! The key point to note here is that I am an end-point (as viewed from my ISP). There are no other ways of getting data to where it is needed without passing through me. Thus I pay for the privilege to connect to the internet from my ISP. The same thing is true for Comcast. There are no ways of getting data into the customer's hands without going through Comcast. Sure L3 can depeer Comcast, but all that traffic must go through Comcast somehow. If Comcast is content to let their customers deal with subpar video streaming, then either their customers would complain to Comcast (ideally) or Netflix (who can explain that the customers need to complaint to Comcast, because it refuses to peer to get a faster route to their content)
If I had mod points, I'd mod you down. What you just said exactly proved his point. DSL connections CAN be symmetric. Look up SDSL. The reason they are NOT symmetric because consumers WANT more download bandwidth. When ISP X supplies a symmetric connection, and ISP Y supplies an asymmetric connection, who do you think Person A would choose? Thus this is a lost opportunity cost to ISP X. Not technical. Similarly for DOCSIS. While there is small overhead for communication, there's no reason why the effective bandwidth can be made symmetrical if they had engineered the spec that way. Market forces are why we have asymmetrical connections.
You're paying for the telco to deliver that 5GB/mo to the correct peer so that you can reach your service. Level 3 is paying so that their content can reach the end user. Pay to transmit.
As an end-user, you pay a set amount for the right to transmit up to your limit (whether you use it or not). Level 3 likely pays per GB that's over the amount of data/content that Comcast is sending to them.
If the two organizations/peers transmit equally to each other, it's a zero sum game, so neither one pays the other.
If Comcast was charging per GB downloaded AND charging Level 3 or whoever for the transmission across the network, then I'd agree that it was double-dipping.
And why isn't the telco paying me the equivalent of 200 GB to get it from my WAN facing router to my computer? Pay to transmit indeed.
Sorry that should be ISP. I'm already paying my telco for physical usage of the line.
You can ask, but your ISP has every right to say no, just as Level 3 could have said no. Level 3 knows they are offering a service that's only useful if you can connect to other network's customers, though, so they paid. If they didn't, they'd either lose all of Comcast's customers or have to pay another network transit fees to go through their network in order to get to Comcast.
You need to become an equal at a large enough amount of traffic before you have any bargaining power, though. Run FlixNet off your network where your ISP's customer are pulling GBs of traffic from your network and your customers/users are pulling an equal amount of GBs from the ISPs content offerings and you've got some bargaining power to try and become a peer. You'll still pay for traffic that transits the ISPs network to get to the rest of the Internet, though, just as Comcast and Level 3 do.
Correct, my ISP has every right to say no. However, L3 wouldn't have to pay another network's transit fees, because Level3 could just hand off the content to one of its other Tier 1 peers. Those peering connections are orders of magnitude more voluminous than the L3 -> Comcast connection and wouldn't affect their ratio severely enough to warrant a renegotiation. So who pays Comcast for peering then? If every Tier 1 provider stuck to their guns, all the tier 1 providers would depeer Comcast and we would have a fractured internet. This is why L3 paid and sets a DANGEROUS precedent for the rest of the internet. It did not want to be the one who fractured the internet.
The whole point of a Tier 1 is that you don't have to transit another network. If Level 3 depeered with Comcast, they'd HAVE to transit another network in order to get to Comcast.
You think they're just going to dump the traffic off to AT&T and say "handle this"? AT&T's peering policy says "No transit or third party routes are to be announced; all routes exchanged must be peer's and peer’s customers' routes"[1], so Level 3 isn't even getting Comcast's routes from AT&T. Qwest and Verizon's policies say something similar. So who is level 3 going to dump the traffic off to without arranging for transit?
Each of those peering agreements also mention a 1.5:1 or 1.8:1 or at most a 2:1 traffic ratio must be maintained and exceeding the ratio will require compensation.
Level 3 paid because they knew they were exceeding the ratio and it would cost more to buy transit.
[1] http://www.corp.att.com/peering/
You are doing this wrong. AT&T is the one who announces routes to Comcast. If L3 depeers Comcast, it has no knowledge of how to get to Comcast. So it asks its peers (AT&T). AT&T routers would then announce their known route to Comcast and L3 would pass the traffic. Thanks for proving how much you know of the internet. If you are still not convinced. Think about this from the flow of money standpoint.. Netflix is paying L3 so it can move data across their network. Because they are a customer. Comcast subscribers are paying Comcast TO MOVE data across their network because they are a customer of Comcast. Why should L3 have to pay Comcast? Both networks are moving the same amount of data between both points.
1. AOL WAS a content provider. 2. I am not paying Comcast.net to be my content provider. 3. I own an antennea. 4. I own a blu-ray player. 5. I have a cell phone. 6. LIFE CAN GO ON without content provider access. 7. Netflix & Blockbuster still send movies thru the mail. 8. I am not impressed by Xfinity. 9. Taking the cable box and modem back to Comcast is an option. I have used that option previously. 10. If enough COSTomers leave they will be like AOL or they will adjust. 11. NO BUSINESS CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT CUSTOMERS!
You have no idea how BGP or peering works.
NO, you're paying for Comcast to transmit your packets to Level 3 and Level 3 is paying Comcast to transmit their packets to you.
You have no idea how BGP or peering works.
So what you're telling me is that if L3 Comcast link goes down for any reason at all, all Comcast customers would lose access to Netflix because L3 can't pass on their traffic?
Do you really think the internet is that fragile?
NO, you're paying for Comcast to transmit your packets to Level 3 and Level 3 is paying Comcast to transmit their packets to you.
Why isn't Comcast paying me to transmit their packets? After all, they are dumping a lot more traffic into my network than I am into theirs.
I am using exactly their rationale they use to justify charging L3.
It is not transmit. It is delivering. They're not transmitting over Comcast's network to someone else, as in a peer. They are delivering TO Comcast's network. I can ask someone to pay me to send me content, but Comcast can? That's retarded, and so are you.