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Level 3 Wants To Make Peering a Net Neutrality Issue

Posted by Soulskill on from the first-among-peers dept.

New submitter thule writes "A story at Gigaom talks about how Level 3 is trying to pull peering into the net neutrality issue. Regulating peering could hamper how the Internet is interconnected, potentially turning it into a bureaucratic mess. Should peering be regulated?" Reader raque points out that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is banging the net neutrality drum, too: "Some major ISPs, like Cablevision, already practice strong net neutrality and for their broadband subscribers, the quality of Netflix and other streaming services is outstanding. But on other big ISPs, due to a lack of sufficient interconnectivity, Netflix performance has been constrained, subjecting consumers who pay a lot of money for high-speed Internet to high buffering rates, long wait times and poor video quality. ... Once Netflix agrees to pay the ISP interconnection fees, however, sufficient capacity is made available and high quality service for consumers is restored. If this kind of leverage is effective against Netflix, which is pretty large, imagine the plight of smaller services today and in the future. Roughly the same arbitrary tax is demanded from the intermediaries such as Cogent and Level 3, who supply millions of websites with connectivity, leading to a poor consumer experience."

2 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The issue is... by brtech · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, you are paying for it, and they should deliver it to you.

    But both ends pay. Netflix, or whomever, pays their ISP, you pay your ISP. Netflix doesn't get a free ride.

    When people talk about net neutrality, they worry that Neflix has to pay twice, once to their ISP, and once to your ISP. We don't want that.

    But Level(3), one of Netflix's ISPs, may have to pay Comcast if Level(3) sends more traffic to Comcast than Comcast sends to Level(3).

    Then again, Comcast better handle that traffic equally well, and better have the capacity to exchange the traffic fairly.

  2. Re:The Slippery Slope by organgtool · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remember how many people tried to tell you Network Neutrality was the road to a heavily regulated internet... Well here you go. If you regulate any aspect, eventually all aspects will fall under a web of regulations.

    WTF are you talking about? Level 3 is complaining because they are now being extorted by ISPs who are trying to double-dip and charge them hefty fees for peering agreements. This was not a problem when net neutrality regulations were in place, but after Verizon won their case over net neutrality, it took Comcast only five weeks to go on a rampage and start extorting fees from other providers. So this is exactly what you get when you DON'T have net neutrality and you DON'T have regulation.

    It's great for companies like Level 3

    It's not great for companies like Level 3 because they are the ones being extorted. The current lack of regulation is great for companies like Comcast who are threatening to throttle connections of their own users if content providers don't pay Comcast an extortion fee. Again, it only took five weeks of the regulations being removed before Comcast started pulling this shit. It may be time for you to admit that moderate and sensible regulation is not a bad thing.