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Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

cringely.com

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Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#61

Post by rblatz »

dtech wrote: post #14
diminoten wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ISPs aren't dropping the packets, Level3 is. From the article linked to in the blog: "A port that is on average utilised at 90 percent will be saturated, dropping packets, for several hours a day. We have congested ports saturated to those levels with 12 of our 51 peers." "We"in the quote is Level3. They're dropping the packets. Why do the ISPs have to pay for Level3's dropping of packets? Shouldn't the ISPs repl…

I'm not very familiar with networks at this level, but it seems logical: Level3 wants to push more traffic through the ISP's pipe than the ISP's pipe can handle (because the ISP's customers want those packets). The only solution for Level3 is dropping or queueing packets, and I'm assuming queueing is not feasible.

The ISP is pulling the packets from Level 3, Level 3 is not pushing it. Also Level 3 claims they can get the packets all the way to the cross connect between their network and the ISP's and they have extra capacity at the cross connect, but the ISP's refuse to upgrade their side of the cross connect (IE the part that turns them from a network provider to an Internet provider.)

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#62

Post by zanny »

api wrote: post #25

While I agree with the general thrust of the article, there is one fallacious argument here. Cringely argues that cable breaks even and money is made on the net, but that's an artificial distinction. What if cable disappeared? Would they still make money if they had to pay for the upkeep of the network with only Internet fees? The desperation and risk of this game of chicken convinces me that the answer might be "not…

The problem with your later analogy is that there was minimal gating to opening a gas station if the local tack vendor started trying to extort the local populace to maintain a dying business model.

That is why, usually, capitalism works in these situations - if the status quo is exploiting its customers, you can create a competitor because there is profit between the extortion and the break even.

With ISPs, or any general infrastructure, it is a hugely inefficient usage of resources to duplicate the work - good analogies would be how dumb it would be to have multiple sewer systems, with only one attached to the house at a time, or multiple voltages of electric lines where only your choice electric company is hooked up.

Fundamentally, it is that all and any future goods that require transport to the home over infrastructure need to be public services, and the maintainers be common carriers. Because creating the pipes (the water, the subway, the electric, the networking) are all prohibitively expensive to try to compete in, require deep intervention of states (which rarely doesn't result in market dilution) and are naturally a common good because unused bandwidth - in roads, in power line voltage, in pipe flow - are wasted potential, and duplicating the effort and having all the lost potential as a result can be, and is devastating to economies.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#63

Post by SoftwareMaven »

Nacraile wrote: post #24
jfoutz wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropping packets makes load problems worse, because failing users start to send even more traffic.

This is not true. TCP will retransmit, yes, but TCP congestion control will also reduce the transmit rate in response to lost packets. Overall, proper TCP implementations will back off to approximately their fair share of a contended bottleneck. The application layer sees reduced throughput, not message loss. New TCP connections start with very conservative transmit rates, so an application which is overly aggressive…

Except between buffer bloat[1] and users spamming the reload button, TCP's congestion control is not going to solve the problem.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bufferbloat

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#64

Post by diminoten »

crashandburn4 wrote: post #34
diminoten wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ISPs aren't dropping the packets, Level3 is. From the article linked to in the blog: "A port that is on average utilised at 90 percent will be saturated, dropping packets, for several hours a day. We have congested ports saturated to those levels with 12 of our 51 peers." "We"in the quote is Level3. They're dropping the packets. Why do the ISPs have to pay for Level3's dropping of packets? Shouldn't the ISPs repl…

I don't really think your comment makes sense, if you and I are juggling balls and suddenly you throw up your hands and shout "I can't take any more balls" do you think I should pick up more balls and throw them at your face or should I leave them on the ground (which in this analogy would be level 3 dropping the packets)

What do you mean when you say, "Throwing their hands up"? Are you saying the ISPs are refusing to route any traffic after a certain threshold? Does Level3 get cut off entirely if it exceeds its bandwidth limit?

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#65

Post by kasey_junk »

opendais wrote: post #45
kasey_junk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That describes almost precisely how the US system works.

[text removed since it seem to have confused the person who replied] http://news.cnet.com/FCC-changes-DSL-classification/2100-103... "The ruling puts phone companies on the same regulatory footing as cable companies, which are exempt from having to offer access on their infrastructure to competing Internet service providers."

I'm not an expert, but I'm reasonably certain that Cable providers in the UK are also not required to provide ISP access via their networks.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#66

Post by 7952 »

rlpb wrote: post #31
kasey_junk wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making a claim about the veracity of the counter argument to this, but it is easy to state. If network providers had to sell traffic wholesale to other companies, they would have less incentive to upgrade them as those networks then become pure commodities. Right now the local monopolies can use their networks to sell high margin services (cable) bundled with low margin services (internet traffic). If they ha…

> they would have less incentive to upgrade them as those networks then become pure commodities Pit DSL against cable, as has happened in the UK. The POTS network is owned by one company (BT) and the cable network by others. Retail customers generally have a choice of connecting to the Internet by either. BT (POTS network owner) are required to sell traffic wholesale to competitor ISPs (who then buy their own transit…

TV is also a huge factor in the UK. Both BT and Sky need high broadband speeds to be able to offer video on demand that can compete with virgin.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#67

Post by yuliyp »

[deleted] wrote: post #49
spankalee wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not, because the other side also paid for it to their ISP, CDN, or the build-out and operation of their own CDN. What Comcast and friends are asking for is a _third_ payment, just because. And don't be mistaken, if they win this battle they will start looking for the fourth payment, which is from their customers for faster service to "premium" sites like Netflix, HBO, iTunes, etc.

[deleted]

Talking about symmetric links only makes sense when you think about backbone providers. When you're talking about residential ISPs, their traffic is by default asymmetric (residential customers consume bits and request much smaller numbers of bits), but that doesn't mean the value is gained only by the person sending the bits, it's also gained by the person receiving the bits.

This doesn't actually make any sense. Let's say everyone decided "No, we're not going to peer with Comcast because it's not in our interest to do so". What would happen? Do you think someone would step up to the plate and say "Hi Comcast! We're going to pay you for the privilege of being your transit provider!" And yet if the asymmetry story is to be believed, it's Comcast that should be paid by a transit provider, right?

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#68

Post by bigdubs »

droopybuns wrote: post #50

So on the one side is the fat-cat ISP who doesn't want to make expensive capital investments ih their transport. And on the other side is the fat-cat vc funded video content providers, who don't want to pay for the their mp4-based saturation of all the pipes. This is a negotiation. There are two active media campaigns that are trying to gin up our anger against The Other Guy (tm) as part of their negotiations. I just…

My read from the post was different; the peering agreements are in place, but one side (the isp's) aren't matching the investment level3 is making into it's infrastructure to handle all that streaming. They are instead asking for $$ in addition to the $$ they collect from their customers, essentially double dipping.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#69

Post by yk »

brokenparser wrote: post #2

This wouldn't happen if those ISPs didn't have local monopolies. Networks should be opened by selling traffic wholesale to other companies so that they can compete for subscribers on those networks. The network owners would have more than enough money for upgrades and if they don't, downlevel ISPs will sue them.

We have essentially such a system in Germany, does not work well. Thing is, that the owner of the network has then to compete with the resellers, but the resellers need to play nice with the owner. The result is a total mess of regulation to force the network owner ( T-Systems) to play nice.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#70

Post by Pwntastic »

[deleted] wrote: post #54
mhandley wrote: post #39

Would be very interesting to see what happened if the big CDN providers just depeered Comcast for 24 hours. Would certainly cost Comcast a fair amount in customer support calls, bad publicity, and properly bring the debate to the general public.

[deleted]

Perhaps, but something has to give. Maybe directly pissing off 4 million customers is what's needed to get these monopolies broken?
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