Slashdot Mirror
Comcast Kisses-Up To Obama, Publicly Agrees On Net Neutrality
MojoKid writes Comcast is one of two companies to have earned Consumerist's "Worst Company in America" title on more than one occasion and it looks like they're lobbying for a third title. That is, unless there's another explanation as to how the cable giant can claim (with straight face) that it's in agreement with President Barack Obama for a free and open Internet. Comcast issued a statement of its own saying they back the exact same things, it just doesn't want to go the utility route. Comcast went on to list specific bullet points that they're supposedly in wholehearted agreement with, such as: Free and open Internet. We agree — and that is our practice. No blocking. We agree — and that is our practice. No throttling. We agree — and that is our practice. Increased transparency. We agree — and that is our practice. No paid prioritization. We agree — and that is our practice. Really? Comcast conveniently fails to address the giant elephant in the room whose name is Netflix. Earlier this year, Netflix begrudgingly inked a multi-year deal with Comcast in which the streaming service agreed to pay a toll to ensure faster delivery into the homes of Comcast subscribers, who prior to the deal had been complaining of frequent buffering and video degradation when watching content on Netflix. Comcast would undoubtedly argue that it's not a paid fast lane, but it's hard to see the deal as anything other than that.
will now come from Comcast.
This is just Comcast trying to get some good PR before they force their agenda through. There is no purpose in companies kissing up to President Barack "Lawnchair" Obama, as he has consistently caved to the demands of conservatives and big businesses every time it was important to do otherwise during his administration.
Every. Single. Time.
Remember how he said he was going to stand up to insurance companies, and offer a single-payer option for health care? Remember how that was going to be his crowning achievement as president? Did we get any of that? No.
Remember how he said he was going to help the middle class instead of helping wall street fat cats? Remember how that worked out?
Comcast is just waiting for the attention to blow over. Eventually public attention will wane and then Comcast will kill off the net neutrality proposals and get their way.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Comcast throttled me. Fuck them.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
...Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network....
The problem with Netflix was not whether or not Netflix gets special priority once on Comcast's network.
.
The problem with Netflix was Comcast allowing its edge router to saturate, thus effectively throttling Netflix traffic until Netflix started paying Comcast for a private link.
The term "net neutrality" is bounced around over and over and now even our technically challenged president is for it. But what exactly is "net neutrality?" What does it prevent from happening. What is required to happen?
I'll bet that three different people will have five different definitions.
You miss the fucking elephant in the room. Comcast has failed to upgrade their peering points so video traffic suffers as a result forcing VOD sites to pay Cuntcast for a direct link. You know better so...Fuck you.
But rather the packets aren't getting bogged down by people using Tor or Bittorrent or Silk Road or some other network service known for trafficking in illicit content? For those of you who have had the experience of driving on an L.A. freeway during rush hour (which means pretty much any time of the day), you have no doubt seen the effects of a motorcycle squeezing between the lanes. People driving in cars end up slowing down out of fear of hitting one of those. Technically, the motorcycles' activity is legal but only for outdated, no-longer-necessary reasons. But they do slow down the flow of traffic. What if Netflix wants to be sure that some motorcycle packets aren't giving them trouble on a network that was designed for traffic that plays by the rules?
Comcast, Time-Warner, ATT, etc. should embrace the regulated utility model.
By splitting their businesses into two companies, a regulated "bit pipe" company and an unregulated "content provider" company, they all but guarantee that the regulated company will have modest profits and more importantly they guarantee that the "content provider" part of their company will have access to every DSL and cable customer nationwide on the same terms as all other "content provider" companies. This means that Time-Warner's and Comcast's content arms can both compete for my eyeballs.
The only "gotcha" here is "always on for everyone" (i.e. non-switched) TV channels over cable. Because of the nature of those channels, only one company, presumably the local "bit pipe company", will have a say in what those channels are. But as the industry moves to switched-channels that are only "on" when a customer is watching them (sort of like UVerse TV), this will become unimportant. I envision a day when less than 10% of the available bandwidth on a typical customer's "bit pipe" is used for "always on for everyone" TV channels.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Not to mention it was affecting other, non-Neflix users as reported
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/10/30/1821257/first-detailed-data-analysis-shows-exactly-how-comcast-jammed-netflix
To "bypass the naturally occurring bottlenecks that occur at internet peering points" with a private link is getting a paid priority in that you have paid to bypass the those bottlenecks.
I suspect that those bottlenecks weren't natural since someone, maybe a network ops engineer, is supposed to be managing them to prevent bottlenecks.
In the case of Comcast, Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network. The direct links simply lets them bypass the naturally occurring bottlenecks that occur at internet peering points.
In case you are truly sincere and just not intelligent enough to find the flaw in that reasoning, let me help you.
It's at "Naturally occurring". Analyse that part of the equation.
Comcast throttled me. Fuck them.
Looks like you got off easy. When some ISPs fsck their customers, they don't throttle, they go full-bore with the giant corn-cob, all the way, to make sure the customer feels the pain.
Or so I've been told.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Thank you for having the guts to come here and say that. On behalf of the Slashdot community, I apologize for the rude tone of some of the replies.
Having said that, the replies above are essentially correct: It is part of Comcast's job to make sure its peering points don't get saturated under routine use. They owe that much to their customers (and of course they can pass that cost on to their customers).
Now, if the problem is at an upstream peering point that Comcast does not participate in, then I can understand that Comcast is not to blame. However, a company as big as Comcast should participate in peering points around the country, Comcast owes its customers that much. Every major network provider - including Netflix's provider - should be peering directly with Comcast* in the regions in which they and Comcast have a significant amount of traffic to exchange and in which both companies have a significant physical presence.
The same goes for ATT, Time-Warner, and the other major ISPs and network providers.
*If the peering at the peering point isn't, technically-speaking, direct, it should have the characteristics of a direct link from a customer-satisfaction point of view. That is, the connection is good enough that if you turned it into a direct-peering connection there wouldn't be much improvement.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
We agree — and that is our practice. No blocking. We agree — and that is our practice. No throttling. We agree — and that is our practice. Increased transparency. We agree — and that is our practice. No paid prioritization. We agree — and that is our practice. Really? Comcast conveniently fails to address the giant elephant in the room whose name is Netflix.
Anyone who believes that buying private links into a providers network is the same as your traffic getting paid priority knows jack shit about network ops.
ever hear of TE (traffic engineering)? I call bullshit on your statement. even inside large isp networks they will give qos to some data more than others. it can be by traffic type or endpoint identity or a combination of many things. my day job is at a major router company and I can (or can't, uhm, ...) tell you many things about how you can prioritize traffic with modern core and edge routers and switches.
to say that traffic is not engineered is to lie to us.
we are not stupid, you know....
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
The BitTorrent debacle wasn't so much a network neutrality issue as it was a possible* violation-of-contract/false-advertising issue with its affected customers and potentially* a "tortuous interference" issue with respect to any contract between its customers and the company attempting to deliver data to them using BitTorrent.
* I am not a lawyer. A lawyer could tell you if there was an actual violation of contract or an actual "tortuous interference" issue.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
There's more than one way to prioritize traffic and I suspect you know it.
For example, you can consistently ignore an overloaded peering point that just happens to carry the traffic of a 3rd party you want to pressure into buying a private connection. Then you can refuse every reasonable offer of a cache server that would eliminate that overload even though it would result in a cost savings and greatly improve service to your own customers.
It amounts to the same as applying a policer to the port.
In network operations, priority is a very specific concept.
So you admit that you are arguing over semantics.
Most of us don't care which concept or method is used. We only care what the end result is. And the end result is they paid, and now their traffic gets there faster than the people who didn't pay.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
The Fallacy of Equivocation.
You've substituted the more specific network-jargon "priority" for the usage of "priority".
Once Netflix PAID Comcast then Comcast gave Netflix PRIORITY access to the Comcast network. The PRIORITY access means bypassing the choke point that Netflix was previously restricted to.
No one is saying that Comcast changed the QoS or priority of individual Netflix packets. But that is what you are denying.
Again, you are substituting a more specific network-jargon usage of "priority" that no one other than you is using.
And you are denying something that no one else is claiming.
That is the Fallacy of Equivocation.
Which is what everyone, except you, is saying.
Once Netflix paid Comcast, Comcast users could suddenly get better access to Netflix.
But Comcast refused to do anything to address that congestion UNTIL NETFLIX PAID THEM.
Could the honesty and accuracy of Comcast's public statements be a by-product of letting their support channel formulate the answers?
Full Disclosure: I am a network ops engineer for Comcast.
Anyone who believes that buying private links into a providers network is the same as your traffic getting paid priority knows jack shit about network ops. In the case of Comcast, Netflix traffic gets no special priority once it's on the internal network. The direct links simply lets them bypass the naturally occurring bottlenecks that occur at internet peering points.
Now I'm sure a bunch of people (who are not network engineers) are going to argue over the wording and philosophy as to whether or not buying paid links into a providers network constitutes priority or not. It's not. In network operations, priority is a very specific concept. It means that you treat one class of traffic better than others, usually to the detriment of other classes of traffic. As an example, e911 voice traffic has the *highest* priority on the Comcast network.
Comcast does not treat Netflix traffic any better than anyone else's traffic. Nor is it treated any worse. It is forwarded as Best Effort within the Comcast network.
The only difference that buying direct links in meant was that they got to skip the congestion in the peering points. Comcast has alot more bandwidth internally and once traffic makes it into the network, congestion is not usually a problem (things do break, redundant links become saturated, etc. It's a big network, but in normal operation mode, congestion doesn't exist). What little prioritization we do has alot more to do with latency than with congestion (ie, your phone call is more important than your massive porn transfer, since voice is alot more sensitive to delay than bulk data transfer).
All of what you say is normal and reasonable, although I assume you don't honor QoS tags from VOIP traffic that originates outside your network. Which isn't a criticism, no one does. As for the paid links, that's not an issue, IMHO. I would point out that Comcast did refuse to install netflix CDN/caching servers, which would likely have resolved the issue much more cleanly for everyone. But the cable TV and content divisions must be "protected."
What's an issue for me (NB, I'm *not* a Comcast customer, you guys aren't even near me) is the surreptitious throttling of P2P and VPN traffic (and then lying about it), blocking port 25 and abusive (no servers, outrageous prices for static IPs if you guys even give those out at all on consumer links, I'm sure I could come up with a few more if I was a customer.) terms of service, not to mention the "retention" and upselling tortures your customer service reps put consumer-grade customers through.
At my previous employer we had a (not by choice -- we needed a redundant provider and you were it) Comcast Business link and, while the link was fairly stable and we got the speeds we paid for, anytime there was a problem (which wasn't often, in your defense) the tech support guys were worthless.
With the scripts and no (at least not exposed to me) ticketing reference numbers, no status updates and no follow up, it was awful.
Compared with the nine or ten other ISPs I dealt with globally, you guys were marginally better than Deutsche Telekom and that ain't saying much.
Sorry to dump all that on you, but if you want to talk about your organization, we should get it all out into the open. I didn't touch on the lobbying, the partnering with ALEC to block municipal broadband and the lawyers and the FUD from the front office and lobbyists. And don't even get me started on the huge subsidies provided to upgrade/build infrastructure that somehow never made it to very many truck rolls. So let's just let all that lie.
The truth is that, yes your networks are big and complex. Yes, there are areas where I can understand why you guys see some of the TOS as necessary to stop abuse, and yes I know that most folks (even here) are completely clueless about what it takes to run a large, heterogeneous, mu
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
A president who leans socialist and Comcast are trying to sell the American public on something, telling us that it will result in "a free and open internet". We better take a real close look at this, because it reminds me of a certain group who presented another with a large wooden horse.
That's just it. Comcast didn't need to buy a direct link. Netflix offers a CDN and caching hardware for free to ISPs to help alleviate the peering congestion you're describing. Comcast (and Verizon, TW, etc) refused to accept Netflix's free offer. Instead they had the gall to charge Netflix money before they'd accept it.
The problem comes in when they deliberately neglect specific peering points to make them act as throttles for extortion purposes.
Let's see here, I peer with A,B,C,D. C carries funkyflix traffic which is very popular with my customers. I sure wish Funkyflix would give me a big ol' pile of cash.
So, I peer using a 10Gbps port with A,B, and D. C gets a 10Mbps port.
but that doesn't mean they have it wrong. I don't agree with this whole "Open Internet" concept. It's like everyone (and every business) paying a flat rate for highway access. It becomes simple to understand: you and I will be paying for maintaining roads that we hardly use (compared to truckers, taxis, commuters and the like).
Or water: flat rate for every city or town water user? I don't think so: the jerk next door with the sprinklers running 24 hours a day, the car wash up the street, paying the same as me? "There's plenty of water. And the town can just add more wells and water processing plants." Right .. and who pays for that?
Or a flat rate for a telephone number. I use it maybe 4-5 times a week. My wife, a dozen times a day. A teenager a hundred times a day. A commercial phone advertiser continuously. The phone companies apparently have figured out how to do this efficiently with land lines; the cell companies are still juggling the numbers. But I'm not subscribing to a cell company who offers family rates, multiple phones, unlimited texting and data transfers, for the same price they charge me! Just wouldn't be prudent: I KNOW I'm paying for someone else's excessive usage.
If everyone pays according to their usage, it makes a LOT more sense, is a lot fairer, etc. Why should I pay my ISP (and everyone else involved in carrying Internet traffic) so that Netflix and any other high-rate broadband user can make money from their extraordinarily higher usage? Instead, let Netflix pay more for that traffic (along with everyone else), and let Netflix pass on the additional costs to their users.
You cannot convince me that enough investment in Internet links, throwing in more comm links, etc. will magically solve all the problems. I know damned well there will NEVER be enough bandwidth: look how land line phones (and even cell phones) are switching over to Skype and equivalent VOIP services. And who's paying for that? Yeah .. me and thee.
So Comcast is pulling some scummy tricks, no question there. They lie: surprise, surprise. Doesn't change the basic economics.
Because everything is already coming through your Internet or is about to come through your Internet provider shortly, Netflix, phone calls, music streaming, youtube, home security, etc.
And then, they will apply datacaps.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Nor forget that Obama appointed Tom Wheeler to head of the FCC.
The future of the Internet is already decided.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
If, through one means or another, Comcast becomes the de-facto Internet in the U.S., it won't matter what they 'agree to publicly', they will be able at that point to do whatever the hell they want with it, and it'll take an 'act of God'-level effort to dislodge them.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
works out.
Comcast / AT&T / etc absolutely do not want this. Being classified as common carriers is about the worst business move they could forced into. Why? Because Title II equates to a lot of regulations - that's what Title II is. Title II is why phones are heavily regulated by taxes, where they must be laid, and other regulations that have been in place since 1934 (and updated in 1993). If Comcast / AT&T / Verizon / etc get lumped into Title II, then it'll cost them millions of dollars in employee costs, plus any additional costs from possible additional regulations that may be imposed now or down the road.
Bzzt! wrong. I don't believe you are who you say you are. If you were, you'd know that up until 2002, cable internet services were classified as "common carriers" under Title II. The same was true for DSL providers until 2005.
As I recall those guys did just fine. the regulations aren't as onerous as you're making them out to be and the FCC has wide latitude (which it has used repeatedly) to waive portions of Title II for specific reasons.
Also, the update that you mention was the "Telecommunications Act of 1996," and was not passed three years earlier. Yes, there will be more regulation than there is now, but that regulation, made for more competition, more innovation and better service. That's what the FCC is *supposed* to do.
There IS still the debate on whether Comcast is genuine on wanting net neutrality. I've been told that there's more to the Netflix story than is being told (and that Comcast was only looking to be paid for the bandwidth consumed), but I don't have enough evidence to substantiate this either way. We currently mostly have net neutrality now, without regulation, due to market forces.
That ship sailed, friend. Comcast Is already paid for that bandwidth -- by it's own customers. That data was requested over links that were paid for by Comcast's customers as a pipe to bring them data from the Internet. Netflix tried to deliver the data requested to Comcast's customers Comcast was either unwilling or unable to do so. Comcast sold services and then claimed it couldn't deliver those services unless it was paid more.
I'll be the first to admit that Comcast is perhaps one of the most vile companies that currently exist in the US. However, what we have now mostly works *without* additional regulation. I'm fearful what additional regulation may do to this - our government doesn't have a great history of making things better with more regulation.
Just be sure you look through the politics and look at the actual arguments. This isn't about Net Neutrality. Rather, Obama is using Net Neutrality as a keyword to push for Title II. And *that* won't end well.
You are correct. Title II reclassification by itself is not "network neutrality." Network Neutrality is dumb pipes providing unrestricted IP (v4 and v6) connectivity. Full stop. Title II reclassification is just a small part of that. Much more needs to be done to effect and ensure real network neutrality. It does not exist on Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and most of the other big ISPs. I know, because I actually have (at least as far as I can tell) an ISP that gives me a "dumb pipe providing unrestricted IP (v4 but not v6 yet) connectivity. Full stop."
The issues of surreptitious throttling, abusive terms of service and lobbyists (probably guys just like you) taking to the statehouses to cripple or outright ban competition for the big ISPs is a much bigger part of the problem. If there was real competition, Comcast wouldn't be able to protect their content distribution arms or compete effectively in the ISP market.
The more I read your apologist tripe, the more I'm certain that you're a shill (paid or not -- for your sake I hope you're paid for this) and not who and what you claim to be. You're here to attempt to sow FUD. Unfortunately for you, there are still a bunch (dwindling, but st
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
...It's at "Naturally occurring". ...
Correct, "naturally occurring" because of Comcast's passive-aggressive neglect of the peering points.
And if that works, we just permanently stop upgrading all links that don't have someone handing us piles of cash from the other end.
We get to claim that we don't throttle any connections, and at the same time, we get to extort money from anyone trying to send our customers more than a ping reply.
Comcast is claiming that not upgrading does not equal throttling, but that's exactly what it is. Their customers are paying for access to the internet, if they don't provide adequate bandwidth on their peering points to support that, it's them that are in the wrong.
This whole thing is really just an attempt to stop government regulation though "you don't need to regulate us, we're already doing what you want!" which really just shows that they're scared because they AREN'T already doing what they fear would be in the rules.
In my opinion, any monopoly that has the balls to pull this type of disingenuous bullshit with the POTUS has demonstrated itself to have gone completely rogue. It's time for the Department of Justice to reign them in. It's up to the big ISPs paid lackeys who wants credit for splitting up the nation's most hated company during a lame duck session. Hating the fuck out of Comcast should be something that can bring this country together for Christmas. Remember, as long as they're fighting for their right to have unnatural market power(blackmailing Netflix), they aren't trying to corrupt our government with Regulatory Capture. Also: kudos to the FCC for trying to spin being a bunch of bought and paid for crooks as being pragmatism. I wonder if it's the same PR firm responsible for this press release who managed that psyops campaign?
There. FTFY.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Please tell me why (a few years ago), Comcast decided to block my VPN ESP packets. Yes, the VPN established a connection, but the payload was never delivered.
What network reason was there for this? Other people noticed it at the time and I can still see reports of this going on.
Clearly, your claim to transport all packets equally has not always been true and may not be true now.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
It's at "Naturally occurring". Analyse that part of the equation.
You seem to think that you understand the politics of Internet peering, but I don't think you actually do. Not trying to be a jerk, but if you haven't worked on this stuff at a large ISP this whole question seems far more black and white than it actually is.
The question of settlement-free peering vs. transit is almost as old as the Internet. Network A is bigger, and Network B is smaller (or Network A has significant in/out flows of traffic while Network B has largely unidirectional traffic). There are not many Network As out there and lots of Network Bs. Network A should not need to spend the money to put in direct links of whatever size to all the Network Bs out there. It makes sense to do so with other networks the size of Network A but not for private connections of whatever size Network B wants. So Network A says to Network B, "No free soup for you. Buy bandwidth from someone who does peer with me (or pays me to peer), or you can pay me to connect directly." If Network B is buying bandwidth from someone who doesn't have big enough connections to Network A (or doesn't want to pay for bigger connections) then there can be congestion.
This is not new. It is not unique to Netflix. It is very common, in fact, with anyone using Netflix's traditional cheap-ass bandwidth provider, Cogent. (I use cheap-ass not as a compliment to Cogent's low rates but as a descriptor of the quality of their peering and transit links.) You can make a reasonable argument that Netflix is unique and should be given a pass on paying for transit because of customers of the ISP wanting that data. But from the ISP's perspective that creates a slippery slope (because everybody's traffic is important to someone) and all the smaller networks will want the same exception... maybe even to the point of being willing to sue over it or stage a damaging publicity war over it like Netflix did. For the big ISPs, they feel the need to hold firm on this question to avoid that slippery slope.
It sucks that peering is inherently political, and besides that nobody likes Comcast. But please stop trying to make the Netflix peering thing sound like something more nefarious than it actually is.
"95% of all Slashdot
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Obama is a center-right politician as are most Democrats serving in national office in the US. Dennis Kucinich was about as far left (well, since Bella Abzug left Congress) as it got in recent times. There are a few still in congress who are center-left, but most Democrats in office today would have been considered moderate Republicans even twenty-five years ago.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
It seems to work for the GOP.
Umm...How about the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Thee Voting Rights Act of 1965? The "Great Society" (that's our modern welfare state as well as Medicare and Medicaid, BTW) programs, The Clean Air Act? Medicare Part B coverage? All progressive legislation, all much more significant in terms of impact on the US than the ACA. There's more, but I'm not your history teacher.
Learn a little history, friend.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
I've noticed over time that you like using the word equivocation. Let me suggest that since you like word, you might be interested in looking it up to see EXACTLY what it means, then maybe using Google to see how other people use it.
I believe the derivation is equi (equal) and voca (as in vocal), meaning to say two things equally, to avoid taking either side.
When asked who was most qualified to be chief, the president said that Ms. Smith had 15 years of related experience, and Mr. Jones had 10 years working as the assistant chief.
Comcast not being a tier 1 is free to drop peering and then pay for the transit. They failed to upgrade the peering and failed to pick the traffic up via paid transit. So yes they are at fault they stopped delivering the traffic to the people that pay them to do so. And yes I am a network engineer in the public internet space. Hell they could have split the difference and threw some netflix vod servers into there network, this was a pure play to reach our customers eyeballs we do not care that they want your content.
This guy drank the koolaid.
No sir I dont like it.
with anyone using Netflix's traditional cheap-ass bandwidth provider, Cogent. You can make a reasonable argument that Netflix is unique and should be given a pass on paying for transit because of customers of the ISP wanting that data But from the ISP's perspective ...
So, apparently, your complaint is that because NetFlix doesn't pay enough initially, by using Cogent, they should have to pay more to someone else? How much should NetFlix pay to Cogent to avoid having to pay a toll to Comcast/Verizon/etc... for fair access to those networks over and above the peering agreement and fees Cogent has with those other networks? How much money / profit *should* the last-mile ISPs be guaranteed, over and above the fees it collects from those last-mile users?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Interesting, indeed. And a positive outcome, karma at work.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
If Network A and B were of the same tier you have a point. Comcast thus be definition needs to increase the capacity of there peering or move the traffic to paid transit. They took option 3 use monopoly status to force netflix to pay, this is the broken part that needs to be stopped.
No sir I dont like it.
What would Obama have to offer? Antitrust maybe?
"There IS still the debate on whether Comcast is genuine on wanting net neutrality."
Uh.. no there isn't. They don't want net neutrality. They are NOT genuine on wanting it. There is no debate.
I also think you're a shill.... The internet WAS title II regulated, and started going downhill when we removed that regulation. Title II is simple, and not onerous, and we had a boom time in network upgrades and rollouts under it, because it forced the big guys to lease lines to the little guys at a fair price.
You sir, are a liar.
I am not an Obama apologist; however, politics is not a simple game. A great many deals are made behind the scenes. His about face appointment of FCC wasn't unusual. The horrible and obviously corrupt looking choice of somebody who publicly appears to contradict him looks to experienced eye looks like a DEAL. He made a deal with somebody or some group to appoint their man to the position despite the political costs to himself... which means they had something quite valuable to trade. but what? Could be anything from an NSA blackmail (who was tapping him before he was a senator) to a huge "donation."
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
A VPN that had been working, suddenly quit "due to NAT"? No, there was no NAT involved at either end.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
To be fair, I think Comcast's interpretation of that offer was "please give us free rack space, free electricity, and free connection to your internal network."
The question then becomes, is there any validity to that interpretation? That is, is it cheaper for Comcast to peer adequately, or to host Netflix's CDN? I'm guessing it's the second one, since it would require online equipment to do either, but the CDN server will reduce traffic while the other option increases it. They get the option of placing the CDN box wherever they want it, so they can put it very "close" to the subscribers.
Whether it's Comcast paying to upgrade their link to Cogent, or Comcast providing free room and board to Netflix CDN, in either case Comcast sees this as "Comcast pays" and the only people who benefit are Comcast subscribers.
Yeah, I keep hearing from capitalists about how this is supposed to encourage them to do these things so that they will retain those subscribers. Too bad about the lack of competition.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Many of these things are, in fact, progressive policies - but we must ensure that we're talking about the same progressivism. In American politics, a progressive is someone who believes in a large, power government that has a strong control over the economy and societal norms under the guise of "reform" and "progress."
An example of historical progressive policy would be Prohibition. But don't take my word for it; Last Call is a fantastic book that covers some of this material. If you're the anti-book type, Wikipedia mentions it as well.
So:
Largest corporate handout in history? Progressive.
Expansion of the military-industrial complex? Progressive.
More laws at the state and federal level? Progressive.
Raising taxes on people? The concept of an income tax is a progressive policy.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by clout in STEM work, so I'm not sure how to place it, but many of the things you listed are, in fact, big government progressive ideals. These are the things that FDR, Teddy, Wilson, and others loved. You know what the worst part is? This is a little secret the politicians won't tell you...
The (R) and the (D) are both progressive. The (R) are less progressive, but they're still progressive. They, too, enjoy increased spending, government handouts, boondoggles, choosing winners and losers in the marketplace, and using the law to enforce their own personal moral viewpoints. So remember, when you vote for that (R) or the (D), you're ultimately getting the same thing.
Love sees no species.
Privately, they do everything they can to raise rates, stifle innovation, and milk 20 year old cable technology for everything its worth.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan
This is something that has worried me more and more as we dig deeper into the net neutrality discussion. How are we going to force Comcast's hand when the two people at the negotiating table are going out for a round of golf afterwards? It's a major conflict of interest and one I am surprised that more media outlets have not picked up on.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan
This. Because your post is reasonable and informative, it will be seen by the hive-mind as corporate shilling bullshit and down-modded into oblivion. That's a shame. I'm no fan of Comcast - they could have just let Netflix install caching servers in their data centers like Netflix has done at other ISPs, but you've pointed out one of the issues with the push for government-regulated "network neutrality", and that there are issues that the end-point consumers just don't understand and won't even listen to.
There are a LOT more issues at stake, here, and we should not let the debate be controlled by a bunch of Internet users that are angry because they're Netflix is buffering during their Califonication-watching marathon.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
The problem is that Comcast is deliberately refusing to upgrade its links to big backbone providers like Level 3 in order to force providers like Netflix and others to pay Comcast for private links.
If Comcast would invest some of the money they get from subscribers on actually upgrading the links at their peering points, there wouldn't be an issue and those peering points wouldn't be so congested.
Actually, Netflix introducing their own link into Comcast's network helps the others get better speeds too. Let's say the peering link sans netflix is @ 80% load. With netflix added, it pushes the load to over 100%, which for a bandwidth-intensive operation like netflix causes buffering (buffer drops at the peering routers). With netflix paying to have a dedicated link, that peering link is now back to 80%. Win - win - except for netflix, who is paying for it.
Karnal
Right - and to the bigger point here; for most people who only have one "high speed" access for internet, there's no capitalism going on since the customer CAN'T switch.... rock and a hard place. This is why people are seeing internet as a utility to be a good thing; they're hoping that it will iron out any business selfishness that currently is in place.
There's always two sides to every coin though.
Karnal
Know what to kiss and when.
It's morons like you that are going to lead to another Bush as President with a GOP House & Senate.
No, its morons like you that will. You try pushing us around, and we stick up to you. We tell you what we feel, and what we want, and you ridicule us, and sell us out to corporate intrests.
When it comes time to vote, you tell us, who we should vote for, and make all kinds fo threats, and we simply fold our arms, and then you blame us for not voting for canidates that ignore us, call us names, and otherwise think of us as shitbags.
If someone wants our votes, they need to earn it.
sssshhh, don't mention that. You see, these political partisans have "Facts" that only last one election cycle. So they use terms like "in history", when they only mean "in my party written political narrative that was especially made for the election cycle where all of history doesn't include anything older than 4 years ago"
>Largest corporate handout in history? Progressive. not exactly, generally true proggressives give handouts in ways to help the lower class, or at least from a very moralist perspective. A "proggressive" handout to a corporation would generally come with a mandate on how its spent. proggresivie is the prototype for third position economics, and we haven't seen true proggressives in quite some time.
Full Disclosure: I am a network ops engineer for Comcast.
so you obviously missed that little graphic detailing netflix's speed fall off until netflix agreed to pay money. It looks more like a "protection plan" than anything else.
If that was the case, why did Comcast and Verizon fight putting the OpenConnect Netflix system directly on their network avoiding the peering entirely?
It would of gotten rid of any of the peering issues and allowed faster service for everyone. Netflix offered to pay for the entire install and support as well so it would of cost Comcast and Verizon nothing, other than the right to shake down Netflix and the other peering services.
Also L3 offered to pay for the peering upgrades as needed, but both of them would rather try to shake down Netflix then you know actually solve the problem.
THANK YOU! Far too many people avoid or know nothing about peering and how a content provider can cause serious problems for the partners of their transit providers.
Why should Comcast have to pay to upgrade so that even more traffic from a paying customer of another ISP can traverse their network?
Of course it would, if the link is saturated, all traffic would be affected. The alternative would be throttling a specfic set of sources, and we know how upset that would have made everyone here.
Maybe they were tired of dealing with an unreasonable company and didn't want to extend special treatment to them.
They're also free to throttle traffic that causes the peering connection to become imbalanced and/or just watch as their peer irresponsibly saturates the link.
How do you propose they manage those bottlenecks? Throttling?
Yes, it's Comcast's fault that their peer was sending massive amounts of traffic in their direction in what is usually viewed as an abuse of unpaid peering links.
Why should all customers of an ISP pay so that some users can have a better experience?
If Netflix (and other content providers) wants this kind of access to an ISPs customers, they can do the responsible thing and pay for transit directly from them.
Netflix can't get away with the modern day "babe in the woods" game. They knew exactly what they were doing when they selected their transit provider.
Why should ISP/last mile providers have to absorb or pass along the costs of upgrading their networks to satisfy the demands of the paying customer of another ISP?
Essentially all customers at ISPs must subsidize the desires of the customers who like to access streaming providers.
Netflix and others who operate like this are the bad guys and they full well know it.
If they moved the traffic to paid transit, we'd hear the same things about toll roads and priority and everything else.
Perhaps Netflix wore out their welcome and Comcast no longer wanted to give them special treatment or allow anything beyond paid transit or eating the bottlenecks.
No, it's called one side abusing it's peer link.
If I were TW, I'd refuse too. Why do I have to allocate space in my datacenters for free for someone who is not a customer of mine?
I'm assuming Netflix doesn't buy transit from TW based on this:
http://bgp.he.net/AS2906
Now that Level 3 owns TW, this might change.
Actually Netflix benefits by passing the costs to ALL Comcast customers and not just the ones who use their service.
I agree, the companies providing transit to Netflix and other streaming providers should pay for the bandwidth being used by their customers.
Were the peering points congested in both directions, or just ingress to Comcast's network?
If I were a network operator and traffic from one of my peers from one specific source was saturating my connection, I would deprioritize that traffic.
Perhaps we both should look up the word. While we're at it, let's look up Obama's preferred policy, "single payer". Wouldn't it be interesting if the two terms were synonymous.
When we look up socialism, I suspect we'll find it has something to do with the government's role in the economy. Let's look up the change in the extent of the government's role in the economy over the last six years.
When we look up socialism, I suspect we'll find it has something to do with the government's role in the economy. Let's look up the change in the extent of the government's role in the economy over the last six years.
Perhaps we both should look up the word. While we're at it, let's look up Obama's preferred policy, "single payer". Wouldn't it be interesting if the two terms were synonymous.
Most of those are progressive, but were passed because of (or with stronger support than the Democrat) Republican support. Everything except the Great Society which has been an abysmal failure, that is... Perhaps the GOP really is the party of the individual, and the Democrats are the party of Big Business and Money. Shhh - don't tell anyone - but that is, in fact, the case...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
by paying for the roads to be available for everyone, we derive benefit even when we're not using them, for example when we purchase goods brought to the store by truck.
A user fee libertarian might argue that if trucks wear the road more, the road's owner (state DOT or a private toll road) should charge higher road use fees (plates, tolls, etc.) for such vehicles. (The rule of thumb is the fourth power of axle weight.) This would be passed on to trucking companies, to retailers who receive goods by truck, and ultimately to shoppers who benefit from the goods' having been brought by truck.
Putting Netflix's cache box in the ISP's data center occupies rack real estate that could have been used for other paying colo customers' boxes.
There might not have been so much "abuse", there might have been more balanced traffic, if the terms of service for residential Internet connections didn't ban home servers and if the speeds were symmetric instead of uploading far slower than they download. Recall that once Verizon was called out on allowing its links to congest, it upgraded its FiOS customers to symmetric speeds.
they could have just let Netflix install caching servers in their data centers like Netflix has done at other ISPs
If Comcast gives out free colo to Netflix, won't its paying colo customers grow envious?
People can switch by renting an apartment in a different ISP's territory.
Because Comcast's OWN paying customers were the ones demanding the video data.
Excuse me, but how do you define "progressive"? I think you've drunk too much conservative whiskey or injected too much Tea Party heroin. In my book, "progressive" means "promoting individual rights and general welfare". Obama has been abysmal on this front, by following the conservative's policy ("fuck you, I got mine").
Uhm, no. Fascism is definitely NOT a socialism. Socialism as an economic model means centrally planned economy. Fascists were über-corporationists, to a such degree that business officially became a part of the government. So it's a far right ideology.
And it's easy to check - just take a redneck from some South Carolina shithole and substitute "liberals" with "communists" and "black people" with "Jews". You won't be able to distinguish this redneck from a Nazi soldier.
Doesn't common carrier forces ISPs to unbundle their services, like ADSL was in the beginning ? I recall having Bellsouth phone line and ADSL from earthline through the same copper wire.
Perhaps that's the real issue. Comcast is terrified of all common carrier obligations.
Another possibility is preventing Obama from doing anything until he gets replaced. Perhaps they think that even if a democrat win, that new president will be more business friendly.
... it just doesn't want to go the utility route...
I'm sorry Comcast, but no. You can be like Atmos, that's about it. A good percentage of people don't have any other service such as phone or maybe even access to their homes without the Internet, we even check the time through the Internet. I sincerely hope POTUS doesn't succumb to this sly public Comcast facade.
Fascism as well is an economic model with a centrally planned economy. It uses hatred of other races/nations rather than class envy as its means of mobilizing the masses, however. Fascists love to nationalize industries (much like socialists dream to do), look at what Mussolini, Allende, Hitler, and a bevy of other fascists did.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
My Comcast cable connection is fucking fast and regularly gets faster. I noticed 100Mbps downstream a couple of days ago - good thing I purchased a router with gig-e - when I'd tested it a few months earlier I was clamped at 60Mbps which was still in the "doesn't-suck" category. With that kind of performance (and excellent reliability) I just can't hate them.
[FrLz]
Comcast's customers pay to connect to the internet not to Comcast. If they advertise a certain amount of bandwidth to connect to the Internet then Comcast should deliver what they are selling nothing less.
What special treatment? Are you now claiming it is somehow going the extra mile for an ISP to actually do the bare minimum they already promised to do?
Yes, because if each user paid for each connection from his computer to another computer, it would be far more expensive than pooling resources and wiring everyone up and routing traffic. It's the same reason I don't have a road only I own and use to go to work, another to go to the store, etc. Roads are pooled and funded differently than a private ISP but the concept is similar.
What about all of the customers not downloading that data, should they also pay for these upgrades?
Indeed they should.
But, there's nothing stopping an ISP from divying up the cost according to usage. In Australia, we have different data caps + plan speeds for exactly this purpose. I pay more for my internet with it's 500Gb download limit than my parents with their 70Gb download limit.
The problem with what's gone on with Netflix is that Comcast seems to be ignoring the fact that they were *already* paid (by their customers) to be able to stream Netflix at the promised speeds. Comcast is not delivering on that promise, and is now trying to deflect blame by asserting that it's not their fault Netflix traffic is flooding some crucial uplinks.
If Comcast couldn't support the advertised download rates *on average* for it's customers, they shouldn't have sold it to so many people...
More of Cogent potentially having issues with the other tier 1's if this pushed them to be to asymmetric.
No sir I dont like it.
Not throttling is part of the point of net neutrality. Requiring ISP's to build the capacity that's required to deliver what they paid for and requested by there users, not what they want them to offer. Sure sell 1mbps internet 1gbps comcast junk service but you better deliver that 1mbps of whatever your customers want and true in advertising better mean the 1mbps number is the big shiny one not the all you can eat comcast stuff.
Good ISP's are proactive and increase capacity using forward trending, it's not cheap but it's really not that expansive either. Most correct the issue quickly under 90 days. The bad leave connections saturated daily hoping it will go away and refusing to put anything into their product. Need to make the bad practices illegal for monopoly holders and the various corp constructs to separate monopoly and long haul carriers.
No sir I dont like it.
What about all of the customers not downloading that data, should they also pay for these upgrades?
Those customers who will use more data as a result of NetFlix being a more usable service should pay more, those who do not use NetFlix or whose usage doesn't change as a result of the improvements should not.
However, whether they will or not depends on Comcast's pricing model: If Comcast were to sell marginal-metered service ($X flat fee for low-use users + $Y GB in $0.01 increments for everything above the low-user allowance, where $Y is no more than than $X/allowance), they would. If Comcast were to sell tiered service in a way that approximated metered service ($X for A GB, $Y for B GB, etc. with reasonable increments and reasonable incremental pricing), they would but only with respect to customers who upgraded to the next tier.
As far as I know, Comcast does have a tiered pricing model but it's not as reasonable as it needs to be to entice most customers to upgrade "to the next level" just so they can use more NetFlix. Yes, the NetFlix upgrade may encourage a few customers who were already considering upgrading to do so, but it won't have the broad effect on Comcast's bottom line that a more reasonable incremental pricing structure or a marginal-per-GB fee would have.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
as their peer irresponsibly saturates the link.
Um, tell me if I'm wrong, but I assume that Netflix only sends traffic to Comcast if someone on Comcast's network asks for it.
If Comcast wants to deter its customers from asking for non-Comcast traffic to be sent to them, perhaps it should raise its incremental per-GB prices and/or encourage those customers to use DSL instead.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm not Anonymous Coward, but I will answer your question:
How do you propose they manage those bottlenecks? Throttling?
I a case of unexpected surges in demand, yes, throttle and prioritize based on common sense (e.g. give VoIP priority over ftp, etc.).
However, if you as a network manager find yourself in this situation more than occasionally or in response to events that no reasonable person would plan for, then you are doing it wrong.
Network management is also about capacity planning. It's using what you know and what you can reasonably predict about the future to make sure your equipment can handle the predicted load with a margin for unexpected traffic, unexpected equipment failure, etc.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Essentially all customers at ISPs must subsidize the desires of the customers who like to access streaming providers.
If your goal is to to prevent this kind of "one customer subsidizes another," it sounds like you are arguing for a pay-by-the-byte pricing model, with possible adjustments for quality-of-service or time-of-day (e.g. discount pricing for off-peak hours or traffic that can tolerate jitter/delay/dropped packets/etc.).
In such a model, Comcast would be happy to let everyone peer for free, knowing it would be paid for every byte sent and received by its customers.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
it looks like it wasn't saturating the connection until comcast wanted it to, thats what the charts show, because as soon as netflix payed the ransom, they mysterioulsy got unclogged.