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Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

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Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#111

Post by fragsworth »

lhnz wrote: post #47
jaggederest wrote: post #4

Wow, Netflix has decided to negotiate with the terrorists? I'm pretty disappointed. Edit: Having read more of the non-paywalled version, I have to say I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, even if Comcast was offering a better price than Cogent. It sets a terrible precedent, and gives Comcast the leverage to bump the price extortionately at the end of the deal.

You don't understand. This is the creation of an economic moat (a term coined by Warren Buffet.) The gatekeeper creates a toll and the tradesman agrees to pay the toll. This is an entry cost to new market players and therefore reduces competition. This toll may be increased as the biggest player (Netflix) grows in size and this benefits them, as eventually new startups have $1+ million startup costs and nobody is wil…

This is an interesting perspective but I think a bit too startup-centric. Startup costs for a Netflix-like company are already in the tens of millions to negotiate license deals. Netflix is probably far more concerned with Amazon (and maybe Google) taking their business away.

Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#112

Post by toretore »

__pThrow wrote: post #90
k-mcgrady wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "Many areas only have Comcast service!" Do a lot of people in the US only have access to one or two ISP's?? If so why? I'm in a not particularly urban part of Ireland and I can choose between at least 5 ISP's, decent speeds, and a good variety of prices.

The last mile. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile ) Most places are wired with one phone line, and one cable line. That phone line is generally owned by one specific phone company, and that cable line is generally owned by one specific cable provider. So those are the choices of ISP: you can choose cable service or dsl. For a few years the last mile over phone had to be shared with other IP providers, so you co…

It is common in Europe that owners of the phone lines must give other ISPs access to it (for a - regulated - price). This in turn stems from the fact that the owners of the phone lines are (or used to be) owned by the state.

Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#113

Post by georgemcbay »

steveplace wrote: post #75
erichurkman wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What competitors? In many areas, they are the only broadband provider. The next-closest providers are typically DSL. Consumers are going to get screwed on the front & back end of this.

run a search at broadbandnow.com, see what you get

broadbandnow.com isn't fine-grained enough to be trusted.

For my zip code they list AT&T UVerse, AT&T DSL, Cox and Time Warner. The reality of my actual address is that my only options are Time Warner and AT&T DSL (old school fully copper DSL, not UVerse). I'm positive these are my only wired options because I have researched this extensively (including actually calling the companies, not just relying on bad Internet data) due to being unhappy with my two options, and I continue to look into it about once every 6 months but nothing ever changes. Both AT&T UVerse and Verizon FiOS seem to have gone into deep slumber mode when it comes to service expansion.

The really sad part is that I've been using AT&T DSL for the past two years because while it is significantly slower than Time Warner cable in the bandwidth department, it has been far more reliable. Cost-wise both are a complete rip-off already, and if the government doesn't step in on the ISPs soon, I expect that the cost issue is going to get a lot worse, not better.

Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#114

Post by TranceMan »

justincormack wrote: post #43
res0nat0r wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually they are natural monopolies.

The cabling is a natural monopoly. Who is allowed to service you over it is not. Thats why many countries have some degree of unbundling of service and provision of wires, eg I can get many providers of ADSL here over the same phone lines that are owned by a monopoly provider. Alas not for fibre though yet (UK).

I only became aware that you can get Fibre from other providers this week:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7271128

Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#115

Post by null_ptr »

ffk wrote: post #97
scelerat wrote: post #20

And so the precedent is set. This is the direction I see things going: For $70 a month from Comcast you can get Amazon, Google, and Facebook. For only $10 more a month you can add Netflix and Spotify. Want Pandora? Sorry, you'll have to switch to AT&T for that. The broadband providers are used to this type of packaged service given their history as cable television providers. It's how they make their money beyond pro…

The deal was a paid-peering deal, which would likely drive down Netflix costs. We don't have any information on whether net neutrality was harmed. Hopefully netflix will provide information on this. Peering is a practice where two sides agree to maintain their side of the infrastructure and not charge for metered bandwidth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering

Is it really peering in this case between Comcast and Netflix? How would Comcast leverage Netflix's infrastructure?

Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#117

Post by tylermac1 »

philwelch wrote: post #73
scelerat wrote: post #20

And so the precedent is set. This is the direction I see things going: For $70 a month from Comcast you can get Amazon, Google, and Facebook. For only $10 more a month you can add Netflix and Spotify. Want Pandora? Sorry, you'll have to switch to AT&T for that. The broadband providers are used to this type of packaged service given their history as cable television providers. It's how they make their money beyond pro…

That's already the case if you want websites like ESPN3 or NBC Sports Live Extra.

You don't have to pay extra for those services though. They come with your cable subscription.

Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#118

Post by lhnz »

fragsworth wrote: post #111
lhnz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't understand. This is the creation of an economic moat (a term coined by Warren Buffet.) The gatekeeper creates a toll and the tradesman agrees to pay the toll. This is an entry cost to new market players and therefore reduces competition. This toll may be increased as the biggest player (Netflix) grows in size and this benefits them, as eventually new startups have $1+ million startup costs and nobody is wil…

This is an interesting perspective but I think a bit too startup-centric. Startup costs for a Netflix-like company are already in the tens of millions to negotiate license deals. Netflix is probably far more concerned with Amazon (and maybe Google) taking their business away.

True.

But I framed it too specifically. My perspective holds true at the level of large organisations wanting to take punts towards similarly large markets. Signing the money off is going to become more and more difficult when the access cost is so high, and barely anybody will want to take the reputational cost of failure to enter the market.

Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#119

Post by claviola »

raldi wrote: post #51
cwisecarver wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://bit.ly/NoS35l Just google the headline, they allow access to requests with google referrers.

Not working. Does this only work on non-mobile devices?

it works for me. are you sure you are not filtering out your referer header somehow?

Re: Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam

#120

Post by danielrhodes »

For those of you not famaliar with how peering agreements work, usually somebody will get one of the backbone providers to give them bandwidth in exchange for connecting the backbone provider to other peers. It's ideal when there is an equal exchange here and no money is involved. Netflix wants something different: they want to peer directly with Comcast/TWC/Verizon but not provide any network in exchange. For such an arrangement, it is fair that a network would charge them for this access.
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