ISP Fights Causing Netflix Packet Drops

An anonymous reader writes "We've been hearing more and more reports of ISPs throttling Netflix and other high-bandwidth services lately. The ISPs have denied it, and even Netflix itself seems to believe them. If that's the case, what's going on? Well, according to this article, the blame still lies with the ISPs. While they may not be explicitly throttling connection speeds, they're refusing to upgrade network connections as they demand more money from content distributors. For example, Netflix pays Cogent to distribute their internet traffic. Cogent has an agreement with Verizon to exchange traffic — which works fine until the massive amount of traffic from Netflix makes it a lopsided arrangement. Verizon wants more money from Cogent, and one of their negotiating tactics is simply to stop upgrading their infrastructure so that service degrades. 'There are about 11 Cogent/Verizon peering connections in major cities around the country. When peering partners aren't fighting, they typically upgrade the connections (or "ports") when they're about 50 percent full, Cogent says. ... With Cogent and Verizon fighting, the upgrades are happening at a glacial pace, according to Schaeffer. "Once a port hits about 85 percent throughput, you're going to begin to start to drop packets," he said. "Clearly when a port is at 120 or 130 percent [as the Cogent/Verizon ones are] the packet loss is material."'"

Comments

Network vs Content providers

[future assassin]

If companies provide network access they should not be be allowed to be a content provider. Too much conflict of interest and they can concentrate on properly managing and not OVERselling their network.

Re:Network vs Content providers

[Lawrence_Bird]

That isn't even the real point, though I understand where you are going with it. The real issue here is that Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision, etc all have agreed to provide their customers with X/Y data connections for a hefty monthly fee. They are refusing to do what it takes for those customers to be able to use what they have paid for. In effect, we are back to the early internet days of ISPs oversubscribing dialup lines except now it is oversubscribing routing equipment during peak hours.

Netflix should know better

[Spazmania]

Cogent has a long history of instigating peering disputes with other networks. Normally I'd complain about Verizon's behavior but this is Cogent we're talking about. They have -zero- credibility.

Re:sell is the key word. Cogent not paying Verizon

[msauve]

Customers PAY for those connections. Verizon's customers are paying to receive traffic from the Internet. Whether that's slashdot or Netflix doesn't matter, it behooves Verizon to deliver the service their customers are PAYING for.

Re:Can confirm

[schnell]

It has been a while since I was in the peering game - that was back when UUNet meant something and please get off my lawn - but here's the general idea:

To provide access to the Internet - either as a content host or a content consumer - you need a full view of routes to get to all other ISPs where your sources or destinations are. To get the routes, you need "peering" with the other ISPs or you need to buy "transit" from some other ISP that gets their routes via peering or transit.

Some ISPs are, frankly, more important than others because they provide access to more subscribers or more content than others - they used to be called "Tier 1" ISPs. Peering is valuable because it's traffic you're exchanging for free that you could otherwise be charging a lot of money for. Tier 1 ISPs generally agree to peer with each other because they all need each other, and it makes economic sense for them to say they're all on an equal footing - they were "peers." The economic rationale was because Tier 1 ISPs had to pay for large national or global networks, while Tier 2 or 3 ISPs had small or regional networks and that the Tier 1 ISP was bearing most of the cost of delivery. Traffic ratios were preferred to be equal (content vs. users) for peering, because if you're a content host with one datacenter and some outbound circuits, your cost is far less than having a big national network to serve end users - so web hosting/colo provider ISPs had a harder time getting peering with the big consumer/business access providers. The Tier 2 or Tier 3 ISPs would peer with each other freely because they had equivalent footprints, etc., but the big guys knew that access to their network was extremely valuable and it would be foolish to give it away for free.

So if you're a smaller ISP, and *you* need the Tier 1 more than *they* need you, don't expect to get peering. The ISP will tell you to buy transit from them, or at least buy transit from someone else who does (and the fewer "hops" to get from you to them, the better for your customers). Cogent may host much of Netflix, but they are by no means a Tier 1. This may no longer be the case - like I said, I have been out of the Tier 1 ISP world for years - but at least historically Cogent was known as a bottom feeder of the industry. They charged dirt-cheap rates but ran a crappy network and skimped on their upstream connections to cut costs.

So what's happening here most likely is that Cogent has either bought transit from Verizon and doesn't want to buy more and says "peer with us, we won't buy more." Or Cogent does have peering with Verizon but VZ has said, in effect, "you are not our 'peer'" and beyond a certain amount of peering bandwidth, you should start buying." Cogent is using Netflix to try to argue that "our content is more important to Verizon customers than the other way around," and Verizon is saying, "Um, nope." I won't say who I think is right or wrong here, but this is not the first time Cogent has had peering fights with other large ISPs and I think you can see a pattern here.