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Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

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Re: Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

#161
post #59
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By far the most correct observation. These guys are just following a script - they probably don't even know what half of the words mean. Please don't read anything into it or assume the outsourced support is somehow privy to anything at all that goes on inside Verizon other than what the FAQ system he's using tells him on screen.

The netflix data itself points to a gradual lowering of bandwidth to their service. Now here's 2 scenarios : 1) Verizon decided to enter some router configurations that affect the packet forwarding to Netflix (well, most likely FROM netflix, as the internet is not actually symmetrical). What we should see as a result of this is a sudden change in bandwidth. 2) The load on the interfaces in between is changing, either…

This would all be correct, if not for the Netflix Open Connect Appliance. Netflix is moving content closer to the user, so only the last mile feels the affects of the traffic.

See page 10 here: http://ptt.br/pttforum/6/doc/Netflix-Open-Connect-Network-BR...

Re: Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

#162
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you don't mean GB instead of MB? Because 200MB is like one youtube video with some decent quality.

Oh definitely MB. It was miserable having to reset the phone every few minutes.

Phone? You mean your internet connection at home, not mobile data right? 250MB indeed sounds miserable.

Re: Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

#163

How do we, IT savvy people capable of monitoring, testing and verifying this stuff, use our collective skills to monitor each ISP and communicate who is doing the best/worst job? As long as there is at least one ISP provider who is not throttling traffic, we should reward that ISP that does not discriminate on web traffic, and punish the ones that do. You might have to show some differences across different regions a…

As someone who is in DC doing net neutrality advocacy on a daily basis, I love this question. One of our major challenges is that ISPs have data on their networks and we don't. That leaves us in a position to speculate about what is "really" happening and hoping that someone out there happens to have the technical skills to potentially uncover a problem. The HN community's ability to evaluate claims made by ISPs as legitimate or illegitimate based on technical constraints is incredibly valuable.

Re: Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

#164
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people in the US don't have a choice in their ISP.

Interesting. That's news to me. The majority of people in the US really only have one choice?

Somewhat. Most people in the US only have a choice between the specific type of line they use (Cable, DSL, Satellite). There are typically only one provider for either Cable or DSL in an area, and you're not even guaranteed to have an option between either.

Re: Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

#165
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only tangentially related to region. Comcast bring all of Netflix's traffic onboard in NYC and their East Coast routing is handled in New Jersey. Their eastern seaboard routing is about the only area where they're not having massive internal issues. Both their Denver (Midwest) and Oregon (PNW) iBone routing centers are having serious capacity issues that are manifesting as packetloss, giant latency increases and…

Why does Comcast use so few peering locations? Why do they route packets from their network to a university in the same city across half a dozen states?

    Why does Comcast use so few peering locations?
Because its cheaper to build and maintain only a few hubs. It's also cheaper for them to only onboard traffic a specific centers. JFK is the big US routing hub for Cogent and has the benefit(?) for Comcast of being where all the other big US ISPs onboard Cogent traffic. This lets them collectively bully Cogent (and other providers) into paying higher access fees.

    Why do they route packets from their network to a university in the same city across half a dozen states?

I couldn't really say, likely its more related to what that university is paying for. I don't see any unis in Comcast's BGP announcement meaning they're probably going over Comcast's "Business" or "Corporate" network (higher priority traffic, same network). Comcast does not have very fine-grain regional routing, especially in the Midwest, so you'll see connections that cover a short LOS take a long path due to lack of routing

Re: Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

#166

The net neutrality issue is a tragedy of the commons. Say you have a common green area and everyone shares it. People come and picnic and everything's great until a family of giants moves into town and sits on the entire green. Netflix is like that family of giants. The solution is to build a bigger green, but how is that going to be funded. Customers don't want to pay for it and feel they're already being overcharge…

Your analogy seems off to me. It works as long as you admit that the reason the family of giants is there because everyone else wants them to be there. Plus, both the customers and Netflix already pay into the system, it's just that the companies in charge of it want more simply because Netflix is a competitor to some of the services they offer.

Exactly.

It's not like the ISPs and making a profit. They are extremely profitable and just want more.

Makes me wonder how much this discussion is being atrsoturfed.

Re: Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

#167
post #59
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By far the most correct observation. These guys are just following a script - they probably don't even know what half of the words mean. Please don't read anything into it or assume the outsourced support is somehow privy to anything at all that goes on inside Verizon other than what the FAQ system he's using tells him on screen.

The netflix data itself points to a gradual lowering of bandwidth to their service. Now here's 2 scenarios : 1) Verizon decided to enter some router configurations that affect the packet forwarding to Netflix (well, most likely FROM netflix, as the internet is not actually symmetrical). What we should see as a result of this is a sudden change in bandwidth. 2) The load on the interfaces in between is changing, either…

Didn't ISP's in the USA get a whole bunch of money in the past from the government to improve infrastructure but they didn't which now led to the current state of USA not being an internet leader?

Re: Verizon Using Recent Net Neutrality Victory to Wage War Against Netflix?

#168
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The basic problem is that a linear increase in bandwidth for the customer results in an exponential increase in costs for the ISP > N * (N - 1) =~ N^2 (assuming full duplex links, which would be generally correct for the internet) 1) N^2 is not exponential, it's polynomial. 2) Expanding capacity isn't even N^2, it's just linear. If you double each residential customer's bandwidth, you "only" have to double the capa…

The thing is, it's not even close to doubling. I recently exchanged my 30Mbps ADSL to a 100Mbps fiber. In practice this means a jump from 0.8Mbps (yay long copper links!) to 50Mbps, which is most probably limited by the core. Thus, for vast residential areas (this is near the center of a 80k people town in a metro are of about a million), we are talking about multiplying the last mile by a factor of roughly 100x.

Ask yourself whether that ISP allowing speeds to languish for more than a decade such that they provide one ~100x increase instead of six or seven generations of ~2x increases has made their total costs lower or higher. The fact that they've been screwing over their customers to save a buck for a long time is not a thing that should inspire sympathy for their expenditures.
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