Without an accompanying graph showing % of dropped packets on each of the 3 10Gb links listed, everything said is just speculation. This is ONE router (in NY, apparently) with 30Gb of traffic going through it. I doubt this is the ONLY connection to TATA that Comcast has. For all we know, these links are perfectly optimized to be as close to 100% utilized at peak times and routes are managed in a way to move traffic around to other peer links.
If L3 depeers Comcast, it has no knowledge of how to get to Comcast. So it asks its peers (AT&T). AT&T routers would then announce their known route to Comcast and L3 would pass the traffic.
You have no idea how BGP or peering works.
Both networks are moving the same amount of data between both points.
NO, you're paying for Comcast to transmit your packets to Level 3 and Level 3 is paying Comcast to transmit their packets to you.
The whole point of a Tier 1 is that you don't have to transit another network. If Level 3 depeered with Comcast, they'd HAVE to transit another network in order to get to Comcast.
You think they're just going to dump the traffic off to AT&T and say "handle this"? AT&T's peering policy says "No transit or third party routes are to be announced; all routes exchanged must be peer's and peer’s customers' routes"[1], so Level 3 isn't even getting Comcast's routes from AT&T. Qwest and Verizon's policies say something similar. So who is level 3 going to dump the traffic off to without arranging for transit?
Each of those peering agreements also mention a 1.5:1 or 1.8:1 or at most a 2:1 traffic ratio must be maintained and exceeding the ratio will require compensation.
Level 3 paid because they knew they were exceeding the ratio and it would cost more to buy transit.
You can ask, but your ISP has every right to say no, just as Level 3 could have said no. Level 3 knows they are offering a service that's only useful if you can connect to other network's customers, though, so they paid. If they didn't, they'd either lose all of Comcast's customers or have to pay another network transit fees to go through their network in order to get to Comcast.
You need to become an equal at a large enough amount of traffic before you have any bargaining power, though. Run FlixNet off your network where your ISP's customer are pulling GBs of traffic from your network and your customers/users are pulling an equal amount of GBs from the ISPs content offerings and you've got some bargaining power to try and become a peer. You'll still pay for traffic that transits the ISPs network to get to the rest of the Internet, though, just as Comcast and Level 3 do.
You're paying for the telco to deliver that 5GB/mo to the correct peer so that you can reach your service. Level 3 is paying so that their content can reach the end user. Pay to transmit.
As an end-user, you pay a set amount for the right to transmit up to your limit (whether you use it or not). Level 3 likely pays per GB that's over the amount of data/content that Comcast is sending to them.
If the two organizations/peers transmit equally to each other, it's a zero sum game, so neither one pays the other.
If Comcast was charging per GB downloaded AND charging Level 3 or whoever for the transmission across the network, then I'd agree that it was double-dipping.
The FCC was told that the authority they cited was not good enough, not that they have NO authority in this area. Whatever is voted on at the next meeting will likely have a different authority cited. It will be litigated and may not hold up either, but that's yet to be seen.
Comcast is charging anyone that wants to send traffic over its network. Just like every other provider. You pay to send traffic. If the traffic is equal, they'll just end up paying each other the same amount, so instead they agree on a settlement-free exchange. Now the traffic is no longer equal. Comcast is sending X and Level 3 is sending 5X. End result is that Level 3 ends up paying for that additional 4X of unequal traffic.
lol... so you're trying to say that Level 3's traffic stayed the same, but Comcast's return traffic dropped by 5? Sure, in THAT reality, Comcast or whatever the ISP is would end up paying.
What Comcast would like to do is get paid from their customers and from Level 3 for the same data. That, my friend, is called double dipping.
No, it's not. Comcast and Level 3 agreed to exchange traffic directly at a set ratio. If they didn't agree to this, they would have had to use a Transit network to exchange traffic and that would cost them. This way the exchange is free, so long as it stays at whatever ratio was agreed on in the peering agreement. Now the ratio agreed to has been violated and Level 3 has to pay for the extra traffic they're sending. This is a pure traffic issue and it's irrelevant whether the traffic is coming from Netflix or another Level 3 customer.
It doesn't matter that Comcast customers are requesting it. They're only requesting the service because Level 3 is offering it. You can't expect to just start up any service you want and shit high volumes of traffic to other networks for free.
Network upgrades need to be paid somehow. Either Comcast increases rates to customers or it gets money from the network sending unequal amounts of traffic to Comcast. It isn''t double dipping, Comcast and Level 3 are customers of each other.
In reality, the Internet was conceived with one of it's principals as equal access- meaning that if you stick a leg on to the network, your run whatever traffic in an unimpeded fashion
I don't know what reality that is, but it's not ours. If you want to connect to someone else's network, you either pay or agree to a ratio of traffic. Once that deal is made, THEN, yes, you can send any kind of content you want.
Comcast owns content, also, that is of interest to Level 3's customers. This must have been the case at some point in order for them to form a peering agreement (non-pay) in the first place.
Exactly. Great write-up. Overall traffic is increasing, so either (2) gets paid for or (3) gets increased. Comcast is actually protecting consumers a little by asking money to slide from (1) to (2) instead of increasing rates for (3).
Why should Level 3 have to pay Comcast to send content to their customers?
This is a peering issue, not a Netflix issue. Level 3 is sending 5 times more data onto Comcast's network than Comcast is ending back. If you can't exchange traffic equally, you pay for the disparity. That's how the entire Internet works.
Some channels are constantly broadcast over cable whether anyone is watching them or not. So they use a fixed amount of bandwidth regardless of how many people are watching. This is "basic cable" for boxes that can not request a channel (no upstream transmissions).
Seldom watched channels can be "requested" by some cable boxes when you tune into it. They use on-demand channels. So you can offer 100 channels yet only reserve 16 channels of bandwidth, based on the probability of how often those channels are watched.
This plays into Internet service because data is sent over unused channels. The more channels you can free up from dedicated video, the more data/on-demand services you can offer.
Level 3 is sending 5 times more traffic to Comcast that Comcast is sending back. The peering agreement has failed and Comcast is asking for compensation because of the traffic disparity. Level 3 would ask for the same thing if some business just wanted to dump 5 times the amount of traffic on their network.
Perhaps L3 is sending Comcast a lot more traffic than their agreement allows?
That's EXACTLY what it is. Comcast peered with Level 3 and agreed they'd send near-equal amounts of traffic back and forth. Now Level 3 is sending 5 times more than Comcast is sending. So Comcast says the non-paying peering agreement is not working and Level 3 should pay for the unequal traffic.
I suspect Level 3 brought Video and Network Neutrality into this issue to play politics and get on the public's side. It's really just a peering issue.
If there was a "mass-government coverup" you wouldn't have known about the civilian deaths until the cables were released. Or is the disagreement on numbers all your concerned about? One is too many.
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Without an accompanying graph showing % of dropped packets on each of the 3 10Gb links listed, everything said is just speculation. This is ONE router (in NY, apparently) with 30Gb of traffic going through it. I doubt this is the ONLY connection to TATA that Comcast has. For all we know, these links are perfectly optimized to be as close to 100% utilized at peak times and routes are managed in a way to move traffic around to other peer links.
You have no idea how BGP or peering works.
NO, you're paying for Comcast to transmit your packets to Level 3 and Level 3 is paying Comcast to transmit their packets to you.
The whole point of a Tier 1 is that you don't have to transit another network. If Level 3 depeered with Comcast, they'd HAVE to transit another network in order to get to Comcast.
You think they're just going to dump the traffic off to AT&T and say "handle this"? AT&T's peering policy says "No transit or third party routes are to be announced; all routes exchanged must be peer's and peer’s customers' routes"[1], so Level 3 isn't even getting Comcast's routes from AT&T. Qwest and Verizon's policies say something similar. So who is level 3 going to dump the traffic off to without arranging for transit?
Each of those peering agreements also mention a 1.5:1 or 1.8:1 or at most a 2:1 traffic ratio must be maintained and exceeding the ratio will require compensation.
Level 3 paid because they knew they were exceeding the ratio and it would cost more to buy transit.
[1] http://www.corp.att.com/peering/
You can ask, but your ISP has every right to say no, just as Level 3 could have said no. Level 3 knows they are offering a service that's only useful if you can connect to other network's customers, though, so they paid. If they didn't, they'd either lose all of Comcast's customers or have to pay another network transit fees to go through their network in order to get to Comcast.
You need to become an equal at a large enough amount of traffic before you have any bargaining power, though. Run FlixNet off your network where your ISP's customer are pulling GBs of traffic from your network and your customers/users are pulling an equal amount of GBs from the ISPs content offerings and you've got some bargaining power to try and become a peer. You'll still pay for traffic that transits the ISPs network to get to the rest of the Internet, though, just as Comcast and Level 3 do.
You're paying for the telco to deliver that 5GB/mo to the correct peer so that you can reach your service. Level 3 is paying so that their content can reach the end user. Pay to transmit.
As an end-user, you pay a set amount for the right to transmit up to your limit (whether you use it or not). Level 3 likely pays per GB that's over the amount of data/content that Comcast is sending to them.
If the two organizations/peers transmit equally to each other, it's a zero sum game, so neither one pays the other.
If Comcast was charging per GB downloaded AND charging Level 3 or whoever for the transmission across the network, then I'd agree that it was double-dipping.
The FCC was told that the authority they cited was not good enough, not that they have NO authority in this area. Whatever is voted on at the next meeting will likely have a different authority cited. It will be litigated and may not hold up either, but that's yet to be seen.
No, that's a transit agreement and you pay for sending the traffic.
Peering agreements are set up so that you don't have to use transit networks.
Technically, they're probably both peering agreements, but one you certainly pay for the other you pay less or even nothing.
Comcast is charging anyone that wants to send traffic over its network. Just like every other provider. You pay to send traffic. If the traffic is equal, they'll just end up paying each other the same amount, so instead they agree on a settlement-free exchange. Now the traffic is no longer equal. Comcast is sending X and Level 3 is sending 5X. End result is that Level 3 ends up paying for that additional 4X of unequal traffic.
lol... so you're trying to say that Level 3's traffic stayed the same, but Comcast's return traffic dropped by 5? Sure, in THAT reality, Comcast or whatever the ISP is would end up paying.
In our reality, that's not what happened, though.
No, it's not. Comcast and Level 3 agreed to exchange traffic directly at a set ratio. If they didn't agree to this, they would have had to use a Transit network to exchange traffic and that would cost them. This way the exchange is free, so long as it stays at whatever ratio was agreed on in the peering agreement. Now the ratio agreed to has been violated and Level 3 has to pay for the extra traffic they're sending. This is a pure traffic issue and it's irrelevant whether the traffic is coming from Netflix or another Level 3 customer.
It doesn't matter that Comcast customers are requesting it. They're only requesting the service because Level 3 is offering it. You can't expect to just start up any service you want and shit high volumes of traffic to other networks for free.
Network upgrades need to be paid somehow. Either Comcast increases rates to customers or it gets money from the network sending unequal amounts of traffic to Comcast. It isn''t double dipping, Comcast and Level 3 are customers of each other.
I don't know what reality that is, but it's not ours. If you want to connect to someone else's network, you either pay or agree to a ratio of traffic. Once that deal is made, THEN, yes, you can send any kind of content you want.
It also ignores the fact that I drive a red car and lots of other facts.
Comcast owns content, also, that is of interest to Level 3's customers. This must have been the case at some point in order for them to form a peering agreement (non-pay) in the first place.
So it was balanced at one time, but is not now.
Comcast owns content, also. Obviously they send enough traffic to Level 3 to work a peering arrangement in the past.
Exactly. Great write-up. Overall traffic is increasing, so either (2) gets paid for or (3) gets increased. Comcast is actually protecting consumers a little by asking money to slide from (1) to (2) instead of increasing rates for (3).
Exactly, someone has to pay. Comcast can charge more or get compensation from Level 3. They chose option 2 for now.
This is a peering issue, not a Netflix issue. Level 3 is sending 5 times more data onto Comcast's network than Comcast is ending back. If you can't exchange traffic equally, you pay for the disparity. That's how the entire Internet works.
Some channels are constantly broadcast over cable whether anyone is watching them or not. So they use a fixed amount of bandwidth regardless of how many people are watching. This is "basic cable" for boxes that can not request a channel (no upstream transmissions).
Seldom watched channels can be "requested" by some cable boxes when you tune into it. They use on-demand channels. So you can offer 100 channels yet only reserve 16 channels of bandwidth, based on the probability of how often those channels are watched.
This plays into Internet service because data is sent over unused channels. The more channels you can free up from dedicated video, the more data/on-demand services you can offer.
Level 3 is sending 5 times more traffic to Comcast that Comcast is sending back. The peering agreement has failed and Comcast is asking for compensation because of the traffic disparity. Level 3 would ask for the same thing if some business just wanted to dump 5 times the amount of traffic on their network.
http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html
That's EXACTLY what it is. Comcast peered with Level 3 and agreed they'd send near-equal amounts of traffic back and forth. Now Level 3 is sending 5 times more than Comcast is sending. So Comcast says the non-paying peering agreement is not working and Level 3 should pay for the unequal traffic.
I suspect Level 3 brought Video and Network Neutrality into this issue to play politics and get on the public's side. It's really just a peering issue.
Sounds just like "we must pass this health care bill so we can see what's in it", to me. Is that you, Pelosi?
If those documents exist, then they should have been the only ones released. I would have supported WL then.
Yep. 3 year old is loving Tux Paint right now. Just loaded up Edubuntu and Qimo and made it easy for her to find programs. She's happy. :)
Here's a news article published two days after the attack on the 17th.
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9231/
If there was a "mass-government coverup" you wouldn't have known about the civilian deaths until the cables were released. Or is the disagreement on numbers all your concerned about? One is too many.
Which cables show that? Please provide links.