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Comcast response to Netflix

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Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#31

Post by pedrocr »

srj wrote: post #22

"Internet interconnection has nothing to do with net neutrality; it’s all about Netflix wanting to unfairly shift its costs from its customers to all Internet customers, regardless of whether they subscribe to Netflix or not." Really it's Comcast's customers who are using Netflix and those customers are paying them for an X Mbps connection. I don't see what difference it makes if the data comes from Netflix or some o…

>It sounds like what Comcast really wants are data caps for their users but those don't do well with consumers. Instead they're targeting the largest content suppliers.

This is exactly the issue. The ISPs got themselves into a corner. They created a market of unlimited plans and can't back out from that, so can't charge more to their own heavy users who are the cause of the need for network upgrades. Since a lot of that heavy use is of paid services, they figure they can go after that money pool instead.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#32

Post by dangrossman »

MichaelGG wrote: post #26
click170 wrote: post #4

You lost me at "No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast" I'm sorry Comcast but if you can't fullfil our agreement (Internet access) then you aren't an ISP in my mind. I pay you for an Internet connection, not for the ability to send packets at someone else -- they get to respond to me as well, that's part of our deal.

And is Comcast supposed to wire up every server for free? If I stick up a box and slap on a 1Gbps uplink to some hosting company that only bought 100Mbps from Comcast, should Comcast now give my and my hoster free access because you decided to download a video file from my server?

That's not what's expected. What's expected is that you get what you pay for, whether you're a customer on the hosting end or the residential end. If you're paying your data center for 1Gbps, then they ought to have at least 1Gbps capacity to the major residential ISPs. If you're paying your residential ISP for 15Mbps, then they ought to have at least 15Mbps capacity to their peers. If there are 100 people trying to use 15Mbps at once at peak hours, they need at least 1500Mbps of capacity to provide the level of service they sold.

What Comcast is being chastised for, the thing that forced Netflix to transit with them directly, is being paid by its customers to connect to the internet, then refusing to use that money to buy a pipe large enough to deliver that. It wasn't Netflix that wasn't buying a large enough pipe to send its own bits. If Comcast had resolved its disputes with Cogent and widened the pipe to meet the customer demand it's being paid by those customers to meet, I'm sure Netflix would've been happy to stick with its ISP.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#33

Post by betterunix »

click170 wrote: post #4

You lost me at "No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast" I'm sorry Comcast but if you can't fullfil our agreement (Internet access) then you aren't an ISP in my mind. I pay you for an Internet connection, not for the ability to send packets at someone else -- they get to respond to me as well, that's part of our deal.

Yeah I stopped reading at that point. An ISP with a history of interfering with certain traffic and lobbying against net neutrality is not a supporter of an open Internet at all, let alone the "strongest."

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#34

Post by clavalle »

I am surprised AT&T left the comment section open in their Public Policy Blog that this Comcast response links to: http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-fo...

They get raked over the coals (and rightly so, IMHO), by people pointing out that they already pay for their bandwidth, so why should they pay twice (once through AT&T and once through the costs Netflix would have to pass through to them).

It really seems like AT&T and Comcast are complaining that people are actually starting to demand the full service that they pay for. It is really hard to take that argument seriously.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#35

Post by pedrocr »

MichaelGG wrote: post #26
click170 wrote: post #4

You lost me at "No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast" I'm sorry Comcast but if you can't fullfil our agreement (Internet access) then you aren't an ISP in my mind. I pay you for an Internet connection, not for the ability to send packets at someone else -- they get to respond to me as well, that's part of our deal.

And is Comcast supposed to wire up every server for free? If I stick up a box and slap on a 1Gbps uplink to some hosting company that only bought 100Mbps from Comcast, should Comcast now give my and my hoster free access because you decided to download a video file from my server?

In your example the hosting company is also a Comcast customer, so that hosting company needs to upgrade its link. That isn't the case here. Netflix pays for its own network infrastructure to get the content to a neutral exchange point and is willing to upgrade that infrastructure as needed. Comcast should be willing to upgrade the infrastructure from that point to its customers houses as that's what their customers pay them to do.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#36

Post by lcampbell »

MichaelGG wrote: post #26
click170 wrote: post #4

You lost me at "No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast" I'm sorry Comcast but if you can't fullfil our agreement (Internet access) then you aren't an ISP in my mind. I pay you for an Internet connection, not for the ability to send packets at someone else -- they get to respond to me as well, that's part of our deal.

And is Comcast supposed to wire up every server for free? If I stick up a box and slap on a 1Gbps uplink to some hosting company that only bought 100Mbps from Comcast, should Comcast now give my and my hoster free access because you decided to download a video file from my server?

> should Comcast now give my and my hoster free access

If your hosting company has paid Comcast for 100Mbps transit, then Comcast should honor that agreement with your hosting company. Your uplink to your hosting provider is completely irrelevant as far as Comcast is concerned.

If you're using a different transit provider (e.g., Cogent), then Cogent and Comcast will have a mutual peering agreement that accounts for imbalances in transfer. These details are very complicated, proprietary, and you should never need to care about them. That's the whole point of the internet; you connect to "the internet" and can treat it as a homogeneous network, whereas in reality it is actually a bunch of mutually-peered subnetworks.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#37

Post by djcapelis »

MichaelGG wrote: post #30
srj wrote: post #22

"Internet interconnection has nothing to do with net neutrality; it’s all about Netflix wanting to unfairly shift its costs from its customers to all Internet customers, regardless of whether they subscribe to Netflix or not." Really it's Comcast's customers who are using Netflix and those customers are paying them for an X Mbps connection. I don't see what difference it makes if the data comes from Netflix or some o…

No it's not like that. You're sort of implying that Netflix/Cogent should get free peering with Comcast because subscribers want to access Netflix. With this logic, why should anyone have to pay for hosting bandwidth?

Honestly, maybe they shouldn't. The people hosting services offer the content Comcast's customers pay them to receive.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#39

Post by sbd »

dangrossman wrote: post #32
MichaelGG wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And is Comcast supposed to wire up every server for free? If I stick up a box and slap on a 1Gbps uplink to some hosting company that only bought 100Mbps from Comcast, should Comcast now give my and my hoster free access because you decided to download a video file from my server?

That's not what's expected. What's expected is that you get what you pay for, whether you're a customer on the hosting end or the residential end. If you're paying your data center for 1Gbps, then they ought to have at least 1Gbps capacity to the major residential ISPs. If you're paying your residential ISP for 15Mbps, then they ought to have at least 15Mbps capacity to their peers. If there are 100 people trying to…

Unfortunately you don't buy an always open 15 Mbps pipe, you buy "15 Mbps peak speeds", or at least that's how it is worded for me. Which means at peak usage times you expect to get lower than 15 Mbps.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#40

Post by [deleted] »

rchowe wrote: post #23

I'm not too versed in this argument, so could someone please explain why Netflix's activities aren't covered by the normal peering agreements that make the "internet backbone" work? Doesn't Netflix pay it's ISP appropriately which gets disseminated by the other ISPs the traffic gets routed through?

[deleted]
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