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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

#341

Post by RKearney »

gergles wrote: post #142
santosha wrote: post #103

Not entirely sure why this is such a big deal. Peering agreements happen all the time. Lots of large services peer directly with consumer ISPs because it's cheaper and more efficient than using intermediary transit. This has nothing to do with net neutrality. Comcast is not throttling or discriminating traffic in any way (at least not publicly). This is a peering dispute settlement. Does this affect competitors to Ne…

Comcast is a residential ISP. What possible traffic could there be to flow out of their network, other than requests for other data? By that logic, everyone has to pay to peer with Comcast because "Ha ha, we have all the customers. Darn, it sure is a shame that our customers don't have any data to send to you. Darn it, we really wish we could do free peering, but we just can't, aw, darn it. [cue South Park cable comp…

Previously Comcast argued that, I believe it was Level 3, was "pushing 5 times more data onto their network than Comcast was pushing onto theirs"

This made me laugh seeing as every one of Comcast's customer ISP packages have 5 times higher download speeds than upload speeds.

It's almost as if Comcast is forcibly causing an imbalance of traffic so they can extort more money out of Tier 1 providers.

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

#342

Post by delucain »

presidentender wrote: post #340
macspoofing wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because maybe ISP2 wants more money, or Netflix can't afford to pay everyone off.

ISP2 will see their netflix-using customers leaving for ISP1 in droves if that's the case.

What if ISP2's customers don't have access to ISP1? Given the state of our broadband infrastructure that's MORE than likely.

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

#343

Post by c0ur7n3y »

res0nat0r wrote: post #298
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true if you have some antiquated definition of broadband that includes a competitor offering "up to" 896kbps while Comcast offers everything from 1 to 20+ mbps, but false for everybody else.

Question: If Comcast is such a monopoly that everyone here keeps repeating ad nauseam, why hasn't it been broken up ATT style yet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

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

#344

Post by byrgvt »

ghshephard wrote: post #322
cdash wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have, and guess what? The same shit happened. Its almost like everywhere they go Comcast ends up doing this, kind of like they are specifically targeting Netflix.

"They have, and guess what? The same shit happened." What are you referring to? Comcast and Netflix just started peering a few days ago.

Excuse me if I'm wrong but I think the parent might be referring to a 2010 dispute between Comcast and Level 3 regarding settlement free peering (a lot of the direct Level 3 or Comcast links seem dead now but some summary articles I can find are [1] and [2]). From these summary articles, the dispute happened after Level 3 agreed to become a CDN for Netflix.

One tangent that I don't know where else to ask is: why would an ISP agree to peer with Netflix, if Netflix weren't paying them. Reading about openconnect makes it seem that Netflix wants free peering.

My understanding of the situation is as follows. 1) Settlement free peering agreement are equivalent to free peering agreements. 2) Companies agree to these if they send roughly the same amount of traffic in both directions. So I'll agree to peer with you if I want to send ~N GB of traffic through your network and you want to send ~N GB through mine. 3) (and this is where I'm really unsure what I'm talking about) Anyone who peers with Netflix deals with handling traffic from Netflix to it's customers. But what traffic goes the other way? What traffic would an ISP send through Netflix network to make the relationship mutually beneficial?

Isn't it just the normal way of things that content producers pay ISP to send traffic through their networks?

Thanks for any clarifications!

[1]http://www.telecompetitor.com/level-3comcast-dispute-revives... and

[2]http://www.telecompetitor.com/behind-the-level-3-comcast-pee...

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

#346

Post by ghshephard »

byrgvt wrote: post #344
ghshephard wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They have, and guess what? The same shit happened." What are you referring to? Comcast and Netflix just started peering a few days ago.

Excuse me if I'm wrong but I think the parent might be referring to a 2010 dispute between Comcast and Level 3 regarding settlement free peering (a lot of the direct Level 3 or Comcast links seem dead now but some summary articles I can find are [1] and [2]). From these summary articles, the dispute happened after Level 3 agreed to become a CDN for Netflix. One tangent that I don't know where else to ask is: why woul…

No ISP would agree settlement free peering with Netflix - it has always been the case that Netflix has to pay people. They chose to go with the cheapest provider, Cogent, and Cogent did not have the capacity to provide the services that Netflix required. So Netflix started looking elsewhere, and presumably the next cheapest deal they could get was by peering directly with Comcast.

Your understanding is absolutely correct - this is not a Net Neutrality issue, but a Peering Dispute, plain and simple.

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

#347

Post by byrgvt »

ghshephard wrote: post #346
byrgvt wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me if I'm wrong but I think the parent might be referring to a 2010 dispute between Comcast and Level 3 regarding settlement free peering (a lot of the direct Level 3 or Comcast links seem dead now but some summary articles I can find are [1] and [2]). From these summary articles, the dispute happened after Level 3 agreed to become a CDN for Netflix. One tangent that I don't know where else to ask is: why woul…

No ISP would agree settlement free peering with Netflix - it has always been the case that Netflix has to pay people. They chose to go with the cheapest provider, Cogent, and Cogent did not have the capacity to provide the services that Netflix required. So Netflix started looking elsewhere, and presumably the next cheapest deal they could get was by peering directly with Comcast. Your understanding is absolutely cor…

So if that is the case, when I read the Netflix openconnect page at [1], the list of ISPs there do NOT engage in free peering? I was assuming they were because of the second sentence on that page: "ISPs can do this either by free peering...".

Also, another tangent: I'm wondering what happens when Netflix installs one of their cache servers at an ISP data center. If 10 customers want to stream House of Cards and that's 10GB of data, I'm assuming Netflix has to end up paying somewhere for 10GB of upload bandwidth.

But if the Netflix cache server was in a nearby ISP data center, would Netflix only pay for 1GB of bandwidth (to upload to their servers), and not pay for 10GB of bandwidth as the customers hit the cache server? I'm assuming that the ISP makes some of it back by charging Netflix to place their servers locally, but it's still cheaper then paying to stream all the bandwidth.

If an ISP were completely focused on maximizing it's profit and not on what Netflix quality was to it's customer, does the ISP have any incentive to install Netflix cache server?

Thanks again for clearing up these questions!

[1]https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect

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

#348

Post by res0nat0r »

c0ur7n3y wrote: post #343
res0nat0r wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: If Comcast is such a monopoly that everyone here keeps repeating ad nauseam, why hasn't it been broken up ATT style yet?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

That doesn't discount the fact that laying cable costs lots of money is a natural monopoly.

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

#349

Post by fancyketchup »

res0nat0r wrote: post #348
c0ur7n3y wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

That doesn't discount the fact that laying cable costs lots of money is a natural monopoly.

Wait, so in one post, you challenge HN's readership to prove that Comcast is a monopoly, and then two posts later you assert that cable is a natural monopoly. I'm confused what point you're trying to make.

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

#350

Post by res0nat0r »

fancyketchup wrote: post #349
res0nat0r wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't discount the fact that laying cable costs lots of money is a natural monopoly.

Wait, so in one post, you challenge HN's readership to prove that Comcast is a monopoly, and then two posts later you assert that cable is a natural monopoly. I'm confused what point you're trying to make.

Comcast is a natural monopoly, and there isn't anything wrong with that. Competitors are free right now to lay cabling to areas where Comcast already serves, they just choose not to because it isn't a smart financial decision.
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