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Verizon's Accidental Mea Culpa

Posted by Soulskill on from the information-wants-to-be-hamstrung dept.

Barryke writes: Verizon has blamed Netflix for the streaming slowdowns their customers have been seeing. It seems the Verizon blog post defending this accusation has backfired in a spectacular way: The chief has clearly admitted that Verizon has capacity to spare, and is deliberately constraining throughput from network providers. Level3, a major ISP that interconnects with Verizon's networks, responded by showing a diagram that visualizes the underpowered interconnect problem and explaining why Verizon's own post indicates how it restricts data flow. Level3 also offered to pay for the necessary upgrades to Verizon hardware: "... these cards are very cheap, a few thousand dollars for each 10 Gbps card which could support 5,000 streams or more. If that's the case, we'll buy one for them. Maybe they can't afford the small piece of cable between our two ports. If that's the case, we'll provide it. Heck, we'll even install it." I'm curious to see Verizon's response to this straightforward accusation of throttling paying users (which tech-savvy readers were quick to confirm).

11 of 390 comments (clear)

  1. In Verizon's defense by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Funny

    Netflix has *yet* to pull up a dump-truck full of money to Verizon HQ.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re:In Verizon's defense by jythie · · Score: 4, Funny

      I wonder how many pennies would fit in a dumptruck....

    2. Re:In Verizon's defense by Taeolas · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually, they did. Verizon has just yet to deliver. Apparently they don't expect to deliver until the end of the year in any case.

      Which this article seems to implies it takes Verizon a year to send a technician to 7 cities to connect up a few cables between routers. (And / or maybe install a couple of cards). Maybe Verizon should stop having their techs travel by horseback, they might get it done faster.

    3. Re:In Verizon's defense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe Verizon should stop having their techs travel by horseback, they might get it done faster.

      Gotta support those buggy whip manufacturers.... ;-)

    4. Re:In Verizon's defense by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 3, Funny

      I prefer my whips to be debugged.

  2. Re:Connect with a VPN by jythie · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder if Netflix themselves could provide such a service, maybe even run it through Comcast? Now there would be a fun bit of PR... "yes, your netflix connection runs better if we route from your Verizon DSL through Comcast, imagine how much better it would be if you just switched to Comcast?"

  3. Verizon's Response by CanadianRealist · · Score: 5, Funny

    Level3 also offered to pay for the necessary upgrades to Verizon hardware: "... these cards are very cheap, a few thousand dollars for each 10 Gbps card which could support 5,000 streams or more

    Verizon's response was "Ok, but these cards tend to wear out pretty quickly so we'll need you to pay that amount each month. 5,000 streams may sound like a lot, but they don't last very long. A person watches a few movies a week, maybe a couple of youtube videos per day, that's like 20 streams in one week, and that's only one customer. Before you know it, you've used up all 5,000 of those streams and the card needs to be replaced."

    "Oh yeah, and if it's coming from Netflix then we're using twice as many streams. We use one stream from Netflix to us, then another stream from us to our customers. Maybe you should really pay us that amount every week."

    1. Re:Verizon's Response by idontgno · · Score: 5, Funny

      If this scenario made sense, you'd see Cisco routers with magazine-fed 10gb cards. Automatically eject a spent card and load the next.

      That may be a rare example of an expendable with a higher per-unit and per-use price than HP inkjet cartridges.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
  4. Salesmen vs Engineers by minstrelmike · · Score: 4, Funny

    What happened was a bunch of salesmen and marketers at Verizon asked how they could explain the network throttling.
    They obviously didn't understand the presentation so they assumed no one else would either.

  5. Re:Connect with a VPN by nine-times · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nothing is better when you switch to Comcast.

  6. Re:But scarcity! by EvilSS · · Score: 5, Funny

    It looks like the Level 3 post has been pulled. It goes to their 404 page which has a link to recent posts which lists the very post linked in the article.....and the recent post link ALSO takes you to a 404.

    Strange, the link works fine for me. Your ISP isn't Verizon by chance is it?

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    I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.