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Comcast: Destroying What Makes a Competitive Internet Possible
An anonymous reader writes "Vox has another in-depth report on the perilous state of net neutrality regulation, and how Comcast is attempting to undermine it. Quoting: 'In the bill-and-keep internet, companies at each "end" of a connection bill their own customers — whether that customer is a big web company like Google, or a an average household. Neither end pays the other for interconnection. ... ISP's typically do this by hiring a third party to provide "transit," the service of carrying data from one network to another. Transit providers often swap traffic with one another without money changing hands. ... The terminating monopoly problem occurs when a company at the end of a network not only charges its own customers for their connection, but charges companies in the middle of the network an extra premium to be able to reach its customers. In a bill-and-keep regime, the money always flows in the other direction — from customers to ISPs to transit companies. ... But when an ISP's market share gets large enough, the calculus changes. Comcast has 80 times as many subscribers as Vermont has households. So when Comcast demands payment to deliver content to its own customers, Netflix and its transit suppliers can't afford to laugh it off. The potential costs to Netflix's bottom line are too large.'"
First they came for Netflix, and I did not speak up because I did not use Netflix.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
... need google fibre. Its the opposite extreme when it comes to performance and openness...
Peter.
I live in a rural Virginia area. Comcast is my only choice. They don't care.
You all clamored for a tightly-corperate-coupled government to control the internet.
Then it happened, the FCC decided it could do what it wanted.
So now instead of back-end interconnects being negotiated between an ISP and a content provider as had been the case, the government by fiat has declared the "winner" - the ISP.
What has happened is what was inevitable. If you don't like it, think more next time before you ask a government controlled by the highest bidder to control whatever you are wishing was more free.
Or just in general don't expect things that are more controlled to be more free, because obvious.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is disapointing in a big way and scary as well, i can only imagine its a matter of time before the same idea spreads to the UK, thats of course if we are not fully censored by brother by then.
These concepts were part of the commercial Internet circa the early 1990s
and were part of the reason CIX was so successful. Then PAIX then others.
In time, Internet exchanges were themselves bogged down and companies
did private peering. Those who connected to like-quantity produders of
content did so for free (settlement-free peering). Those who were unequal
paid for transiting the network (paid transit).
That hasn't changed in 32 years. All that's changed is the up and down of
who provides more traffic where. The dominant player in each interconnection
point ALWAYS demanded transit, and often did so with the "wherever our
two networks meet" even if elsewhere it was not the dominant player.
Comcast could be made to behave, but Netflix blinked and paid them money.
Now others will as well.
This CAN BE FIXED BY REGULATION but not the kind people are thinking
of. No, not net neutrality. Rather the elimination of the cable-company
monopolies on entire swaths of subscribers. Eliminate the government-granted
access to rights-of-way, towers, utility poles, and infrastructure. Let them not
have a "sole franchise" but rather be one of many competing in the market.
Remove Comcast and their ilk from their high post as the monopolistic "owner"
of all these households by fiat, and having to compete to keep them, and instead
of throttling their peerings to make Netflix users (THEIR OWN CUSTOMERS)
suffer... they'll get peering with netflix.
More government regulation doesn't solve a market-driven problem. Removing the
government regulation harming free competition is the key.
E
What would constitute a smoking gun for regulatory investigation?
We simply need to forget the FCC and make this an antitrust issue. If an ISP is so big that they charge companies for the privilege of reaching their customers, then it is anticompetitive. If they start charging backbone providers, well... then the backbone providers will go out of business since their revenue stream will become an expense. I'm not sure how that would ever work.
Netflix even said Comcast is charging them very little for the connections and its not material to earnings.
i've seen estimates of $.30 to $.50 per megabit per second which is A LOT less than standard transit prices and an estimate that the netflix will pay $18 million per year for this. out of almost $5 billion in revenues this year and a current tech budget which includes transit of over $100 million
this is another blogger crisis. they scream for better internet speeds and when a deal to enable this finally happens they scream fraud and extortion
Unfortunately, that's really what the current fight over "net neutrality" really is.
I used quotes for a reason - no one in the industry really wants true net neutrality. What we're seeing now is a pissing contest between ISPs and content providers over how to split the revenue from the citizenry.
True net neutrality is a pipe dream because of regulatory capture.
In short, our government is NOT a disinterested party with no skin in the fight between various powerful factions. And since the powerful factions such as Google, AT&T, Netflix, Comcast, etc. have organized lobbying efforts and can do things like hire ex-goverment workers to lucrative sinecures, we have a fundamentally corrupt government that is NOT going to be solving the problems of We The People.
God help us when that government gets its hands deeply into healthcare.
Netflix also has a motive here -- to create a barrier to entry to keep other smaller businesses out of streaming movies and TV shows for profit.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
You can still change this!
Start with filing your comment NOW at the FCC:
https://www.fcc.gov/comments
Click on 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet
Here is a sample to give you some inspiration:
"It has become time to classify Internet Service Providers as Title II Common Carriers. The possibilities for abuse are just too great otherwise. Failure to do so will cripple the future economic well being of the United States, stifle innovation, and limit the freedom of consumers to choose the content they desire."
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Comcast must be thrilled Netflix has emerged as the proxy case for Net Neutrality. Netflix, a company that commands a large double-digit percentage of all US traffic, with plans to aggressively push 4K streaming later this year. It's so easy to paint such a Goliath as needing accommodations, as a company singly adding bandwidth stress on its own.
I can only hope that the government replies to Comcast's attempt to corner the isp system is: FUCK COMCAST!!!
I don't think there are a lot of people who don't use Netflix. At least, I don't know any.
A little too late for that sentiment.
Money also flows one way for cell service in most of the world, except ... in the USA where both ends pay, so that's not unique to what Comcast is trying to do with internet service.
Remember landline service? One didn't have to pay to receive calls (not even from the telemarketers).
Lets say you did use Netflix.
Why would you speak up? Netflix just arranged a deal with Comcast and from the user perspective, it got faster. So from external observation most Netflix users would think the situation had improved.
There's simply no way to explain to non-technical people why what is happening is bad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That will do absolutely nothing, I refuse to waste the electrons.
You handed the FCC the keys to the internet. They get to drive it now.
They have no reason to listen to you any longer. Indeed you can't even vote against what they are doing, not really, because a government entity persists across any administration...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Removing regulation, rather than writing proper regulation, would do nothing more than set all of us in the claws of Comcast-Warner
Totally wrong, the fastest internet I had was a decade ago when a small company called Wide Open West was allowed to run fiber to the curb.
Comcast put a stop to that soon enough, they are gone as is that faster access.
I've already seen a looser regulation having a positive effect, and yearn to return to that state where someone COULD offer service to me besides Comcast.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Repeatedly sending big, high def movie files over the internet backbone seems so wasteful. Netflix should have a bunch of local cache sites, and avoid sending most stuff over the internet backbone. Maybe Comcast recognizes this, and Netflix pays for a direct connection, for only a small fee.
On the other hand, "Every day I have someone come up to me and say 'Comcast came up to us asking for money,'" does not inspire confidence.
You can do all kinds of things which are not "huge data" and you won't have a problem.
Netflix pushed things very hard and changed the foundation of the "all the bandwidth you want" model.
Because previously the average customer downloaded a fraction of what they downloaded after netflix.
ISP's have the option of charging their customers more (maybe a lot more) or charging Netflix (and amazon prime and hulu) which can then pass that cost on to its customers.
Comcast are not nice dudes- but it's not all on one side.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
having lobbyists in government regulatory bodies HAS to stop
sign this and share it: http://wh.gov/lwhr8
Tom Wheeler and his ilk have empowered too much Telco/Cableco monopoly control and done nothing to help regular people
Because I can see further than the next financial quarter
So what? My point is few of the MANY USERS of Netflix can understand the long-term implications.
It doesn't matter if a handful of people know better, because to actually change things would take a majority of Netflix or Comcast subscribers. And that cannot happen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This whole thing doesn't make sense to me. If Comcast is intentionally degrading (or failing to upgrade, causing degradation) NetFlix stream, why doesn't NetFlix just let them? Put a message over the buffering stating that the buffering is caused by Comcast and asking the customer to contact them in order to fix it. Maybe put a short pre-roll PSA video, explaining the situation to all Comcast NetFlix users. I'm (luckily) not a Comcast subscriber, but if I was, and I couldn't do whatever I wanted with the net connection I bought from them, I'd be screaming bloody murder, and I'd sure want to know who was to blame.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
If the Executive administration wasn't such a bunch of spineless cowards they'd be pursuing RICO charges against Comcast for extorting Netflix and then miraculously eliminating their throughput problem less than a month later.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Can someone explain something to me, because I don't get it. If I want content, and netflix has the content, and I have a subscription to Netflix and an ISP, assuming neither has a monopoly, why does it matter if netflix or the ISP pays for the transmission of data? One of the two of them has to pay for it for my consumption. I understand this all changes if there's a monopoly by either netflix or the ISP, but without the monopoly, why does capitalism not drive this to cost+ a reasonable cost of doing buisness/profit margin? And if it does, why do I really care if I pay this money to either the ISP or netflix, I have to pay it to someone. Now obviously, this goes out the window if one or both has a monopoly. Also, please, I'm looking for a real answer as to why I should care, not "zomg, ISP greeeeed"
I'm sorry, I don't have your faith in "the people".
Case in point- US consumers have been paying through their nose for broadband access for years.
I don't see this rising tide of angry consumers you speak of. Most of them will shrug their shoulders and keep on paying. With Netflix cut off, they will just switch to cable.
Since the same people (I'm tempted to use an ad hominem for them, but won't distract) that own Comcast own all of the Mass Media
This wouldn't involve an acronym for "music and film industry associations", would it?
Oh, for the want of the missing 0... :-)
Great counterpoint to a terrible typo.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This will just get worse and worse. I expect to have to pay about $50 an hour for Internet in my lifetime.
Say the FCC actually does what should be done which is to call these services public utilities. It does nothing to break Concast's monopoly over preventing competitors from coming into a city and giving people a choice. That is another problem that no one is solving, they did pass a supposed competition bill in my state, but it has loopholes, and Concast has given huge incentives to city officials to ignore any other competitor. Simply the city can dictate who they want [which is no one] to come in and offer the same service at far lower prices. The city officials and employees are getting free, internet, phones, TV services, ect... While everyone else is paying out the ass..
What's pathetic about this country and its 'free market' one would assume as a company gains more customers the prices would go down, but Concast is completely opposite. The reason I dumped their TV service is because of their out of control pricing. I would dump their bullshit internet service as well, but there's no one else the city will allow in to offer cheaper and better internet access.
- "Unlimited" plans with traffic limits
- Net-neutrality issues: deep packet inspection low-prioritizing torrent and SSL traffic
- Asking for money from 3rd parties to allow customers to reach them
All these "problems" are non-existent in countries with decent Internet connection. American ISPs provide crappy connections at high prices and they struggle to find new ways of scamming the poor customer, instead of upgrading their extremely old tech.
In my country you can pay 15 bucs a month for an external 1 Gbps line, and the provider will not say anything even if you do 500 TB of traffic each month.
The solution is easy, and it was in front of your eyes starring at you for more than 20 years: proper regulation of monopolies.
Traffic ratio considerations, while sometimes reasonable in the backbone, should stop once you get to the end ISP.
Comcast claims it's not fair for a single content provider to consume 30% of the network without paying Comcast for access to it's customers.
Even though these customer feel they have already paid Comcast to transport this content.
What might be fair is for Comcast to manage their network so that each customer gets a fair share of each Comcast resource he needs at each instant in time.
This is way different than monthly B/w caps.
This would eliminate the need to consider 'traffic ratio' at the point where Comcast accepts traffic from the 'Internet'.
This would get us back to 'bill and keep'.
The result would likely provide better QOS.
If this is true and we had competition in access, then we should alredy have it.
I wonder if this happens in other parts of the world with such competition?
In case anyone missed it, Rand Paul just came out in favor of the comcast merger. The guy really blew it, along with lindsay graham they both missed the fact that the merger would give comcast a defacto monopoly on access to customers for internet businesses. Graham even said, "There's no competition between Time Warner and Comcast in a cable market, so you're not creating a monopoly,"
http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/monopoly-Comcast-Time-Warner-merger/2014/05/01/id/569010/
Given that the majority of this Supreme Court just ruled that government-backed and sanctioned prayer in public meetings is fine provided they are Christian prayers, you really think an FCC ruling on Title II would have any scintilla of hope?
Democracy is dead, but most of us either haven't realized it or come to accept it yet.
The alternative is to send movies on optical discs. Never underestimate the bandwidth of a USPS truck carrying BDs in envelopes.
according to Level3, which is seeing congestion and ISPs asking for upgrade money. Cringely wrote about it yesterday. Goldarnit, The Connected Internet is supposed to be free in the middle, or it all falls apart! /coot
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Any company can join the union.
The union appoints independent observers to assess whether ISPs are acting in accordance with principles of net neutrality.
If the ISP is not net neutral, then the union has a series of escalating sanctions which are deployed in a pre-announced schedule
Sanctions might be
-provide slow service to users of ISP
-cut off service to users of ISP for one hour per week
-cut off service to users of ISP for one day per week
(etc)
Union members are required to implement the sanctions, or they are expelled from the union.
The message here is simple; The ISP claims that their customers (users) haven't paid to access the web, and that the ISP must charge internet companies(businesses) to send content to the users.
So - let's see how that plays out when the businesses stop providing service to the users. Are the users still happy to pay the ISP?
I wish Netflix had had the balls to say 'ok, we're not renewing any new comcast customers, and stopping any new signups with a big red 'comcast sucks' warning'.
It's easier to be ballsy if google, facebook, yahoo, netflix, bing all act together.
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
The Internet seems to be heading to a new phase where the whole 'inter' thing will just die out. It will be a collection of disconnected or barely interconnected very wide intranets. It was fun while it lasted!
There were in fact 7.5 million readers last time I checked.
Roll the clock forward to the 2000's. People have traded-in their 56k modems for digital subscriber lines (DSL) and cable/fiber for the "last mile." Now big bandwidth is ubiquitous, opening the market up for companies to deliver on-demand digital content to a ginormous audience of 10's of millions of people (read: we are past the early-adopter phase and well into momentum). But, sadly, the guys who "paved the digital roads with fiber on the last mile."
The cost of carrying this bandwidth has gone way-way-way down, comparatively. And it became a commodity. And noooooooow, the ISP's want a taste of the action. That's the bottom line. The race to install fiber "outside plant" to convey big bandwidth has left a lot of player broke or DOSOR (dead on side of road). At this point, they are turning to "mafia-style" tactics and the appointee's at the FCC (whom all want patronage jobs at these various carriers, when the new administration gets elected) is all too happy to oblige them.
Take the blinders off, we are getting screwed by our government, AGAIN.