Comcast response to Netflix • Hacker News Board

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#81

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 2:59 AM UTC

pedrocr wrote: post #73

bmadden wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a terrible solution. If you think the situation right now is bad, your solution will only exacerbate the problem. Right now, these exchange points you discuss already exist in the form of IXPs (Internet eXchange Points), which are privately owned and operated. Anyone that wants to peer at an IXP can do so (usually, and assuming you lay your own cable to get there), and whether or not a peering is made is deci…

>Anyone that wants to peer at an IXP can do so (usually, and assuming you lay your own cable to get there), and whether or not a peering is made is decided by the would be peers. Right, and the three rules are about regulating how those decisions get made. >In the world you illustrate, these peering decisions are made by government regulators. No, they're still made by the ISPs, it's just that as long as one of them…

[deleted]

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#82

Post by pdonis » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:04 AM UTC

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?

The Netflix article that's also on the HN front page right now has a good diagram showing how they work with all other ISPs vs. how Comcast insists that they work with Comcast:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7642545

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#83

Post by knodi » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:04 AM UTC

Fuck crapcast.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#84

Post by scrabble » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:14 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #65

scrabble wrote: post #20

So Netflix is wrong, because? I really didn't see a single counterpoint in that response.

The counterpoint is more in the first link than the actual article, but it is that the Comcast/Netflix relationship is not a website-ISP sort of relationship (the one where net neutrality comes into play), but an ISP-ISP peering relationship. In that relationship, ISPs have paid for peering agreements since the dawn of time. Netflix chose to go down the route of basically becoming the backbone but isn't willing to ac…

I could agree with that, but later they say that it's not fair that Comcast customers without Netflix pay for the bandwidth of Netflix users.

I understand that Netflix uses a lot of bandwidth, but what about heavy P2P users that have their traffic subsidized by other customers -- or any other site that is not used by all customers. That's how it works. Everyone pays for access for everyone (except there is tiered access so you are explicitly paying more if you are a heavy user), it's the same way health care works in Canada for the most part.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#85

Post by pedrocr » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:15 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #81

pedrocr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone that wants to peer at an IXP can do so (usually, and assuming you lay your own cable to get there), and whether or not a peering is made is decided by the would be peers. Right, and the three rules are about regulating how those decisions get made. >In the world you illustrate, these peering decisions are made by government regulators. No, they're still made by the ISPs, it's just that as long as one of them…

[deleted]

>So, if I'm Netflix and I operate an AS based in California, I connect to an IXP and every customer facing ISP has to take my traffic.

Every customer facing ISP that operates in the area of that IXP yes.

>So then I send my traffic over AT&T's line to NYC where AT&T connects to an IXP

AT&T has no obligation to provide you with that transit. It just has to accept traffic at your IXP and deliver it inside their network, not to other IXPs. To make it even fairer to large ISPs you could even say that they only have to deliver it to the part of their network covered by the IXP where you inject the traffic.

>and each ISP at that IXP has to pay AT&T for access to AT&T's backbone.

I don't follow. What's forcing them to pay anything? Definitely not my peering rules. If AT&T has decided to transit traffic between IXPs the ISPs are definitely not being forced to pay for it.

Here's a more descriptive version of my proposal. All customer facing links need to be connected with free peering to a regional IXP, making the last mile net neutral. To get actual global routing of traffic you need a route to all IXPs in the world. You can build infrastructure to every IXP in the world yourself or you can pay a transit provider to do that for you, possibly in coordination with other transit providers. This way ISPs can't use their last mile monopoly to extract rents and there's still competition between transit providers to create good backbones.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#86

Post by vxNsr » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:18 AM UTC

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but Netflix said recently that they will be raising their prices... and amazon did the same thing, it's odd that if this really wouldn't be passed on to the consumer as Comcast is claiming that right after netflix signed a deal with them Netflix would suddenly feel the need to raise prices. I know, I know, correlation doesn't mean causation, but c'mon!

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#87

Post by quasque » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:23 AM UTC

waps wrote: post #69

zobzu wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tldr: peering issue, right? google has similar issues with some EU providers in particular in france, for youtube. traditionally the ISP pays to upgrade the pipes for the content that is provided by a third party (ie ISP pays for youtube, netflix traffic). ie the one whos downloading pays for upgrading pipes. thats where some ISPs (comcast too then i guess?) generally cringe: this way of dividing costs was ok 10 year…

It's worse than that. If you look at how much bandwidth is required for any-to-any connectivity you can approximate how much it costs by modelling the internet as a full graph. Of course the cost of a full graph internet is n(n-1), with n the number of customers. The problem is, what happens when you connect a new customer. Well, simple : 1) the income of the ISP increases by some fixed amount 2) the cost of providin…

Approximating the Internet to a complete graph with edges of equal cost is absurd, that's not how it operates at all.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#88

Post by knodi » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:26 AM UTC

massappeal wrote: post #2

its funny to me that two companies that hate each other so much have to do business together

Well if Comcast refused to do business with Netflix it would be a pretty good reason to take them to court over anti-trust.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#89

Post by naviwins » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:40 AM UTC

lern_too_spel wrote: post #60

naviwins wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Microsoft, Twitch, all directly peer with Comcast. They are willing to do this because the transit providers can not handle their traffic efficiently. So why is Netflix complaining?

Netflix isn't complaining about peering directly. That's exactly what they want. They're complaining because according to anybody with common sense, that peering should be settlement-free.

Why would it be settlement free? Its just like any other peering agreement, If the data was symmetrical it would be free, but its not. Netflix is sending way more than its receiving.

If you were an ISP would you provide free transit to everyone? If you did, you would be out of business.

Re: Comcast response to Netflix

#90

Post by conroe64 » Fri, Apr 25, 2014, 3:44 AM UTC

betterunix wrote: post #70

conroe64 wrote: post #57

Comcast's stock is up over 250% over the last few years and has made me a lot of money... so whatever they've been doing has been working and IMO they should keep at it. It's a dirty game and no one is completely clean, so we should all come down from our high horse. Fluid and evolving business strategies are not the devil's spawn that people make them out to be.

"Evolving business strategies" like fighting new technologies to maintain a decades-old business model ? Interesting perspective you have there...

These weird political fights are in the wrong arena. I'm not going to try to argue with you about what it means to fight a new technology and whether a decades old business model is valid or not, because it's just silly. Regardless of how you and I feel whether a company is doing the right thing, it's there and it's surviving, and in this case, thriving, in its niche.

It might feel good to bad mouth giant corporations and swear that you'll never invite them to the next family BBQ because of some negotiation spat they have with each other, but, in reality, all successful big corporations get down in the mud like everyone else. If you don't like what they do, try and get the law changed.

But please stop with this whiny horseshit... it's like crying to your mom over Billy eating your desert from your packed lunch. It's sad and pathetic and no matter how many of you all bleigh the same memes and buzzwords over and over again, it won't have any lasting effect.