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Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

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

#201

Post by aggronn »

nostrademons wrote: post #192
ChuckMcM wrote: post #97

There is an interesting unbalance because Comcast has so much leverage by owning the last mile, they can push around Tier 1 providers. I'd like to fix that, mostly by creating a public policy around municipally owned Layer 1 infrastructure between customers in their cities and a city exchange building. Conceptually it would be no different than the city owning the sewers and outsourcing the water treatment plant to a…

IIUC that's similar to how the electricity grid works in Texas - the last mile is public, but then there are dozens of power companies that contract and subcontract to supply the actual juice. It is, reportedly, a disaster. You get small new companies popping up all the time and dying through mergers and acquisitions. Some own just a single power plant, some own nothing physical at all and are just a reseller to hand…

Local utility companies and cable companies typically have terrible reputations across the board. I'd rather have competition and bad customer service/experience than no competition and bad customer service/experience.

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

#202

Post by mobiplayer »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #97

There is an interesting unbalance because Comcast has so much leverage by owning the last mile, they can push around Tier 1 providers. I'd like to fix that, mostly by creating a public policy around municipally owned Layer 1 infrastructure between customers in their cities and a city exchange building. Conceptually it would be no different than the city owning the sewers and outsourcing the water treatment plant to a…

I think that is exactly what it was done in Viladecans, Barcelona: http://www.diba.cat/web/ri/newsletter_bcn_int_reg/-/butlleti...

But the telcos aren't going to like it: http://www.telecompaper.com/news/telefonica-urges-viladecans...

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

#203

Post by guardiangod »

I don't know why everyone is up in arm over this. Here is reverse thinking and a perfect oppoturnity for everyone.

The current situation is that Comcast doesn't have the equipment/resources to handle extra internet traffic at its peers. Most people want Comcast to buy more stuff to handle it, why don't we think the opposite way- get Comcast to decrease its amount of traffic?

If we can get Comcast to consume less traffic, they wouldn't have to complain to other peers about load asymmetry.

The best way to decrease traffic? Make Comcast has less customers.

Why does Comcast has so many customers, even though their resources cannot handle it? Because they have a government mandated monopoly in the last mile, so they are forced to have more customers than what they can handle.

We can come to a conclusion that last-mile monopoly -> network congestion -> forcing L3 to pay for peer.

If Comcast has to compete with other ISPs for last miles, the traffic load would shift from 1 single entity (Comcast) to 10+ smaller ISPs. In such case the traffic load problem would not exist.

Another solution is to breakup Comcast.

See? This is a perfect opportunity. Comcast can has its multi-tier network, but at the price of the last mile monoploy. After all, if they want to have the right to choose peers, we customers should also have the right to choose ISPs.

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

#204

Post by hardoncollider »

Jtsummers wrote: post #167
jimbokun wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If ABC has a blank channel, but you can still watch CBS and NBC and ESPN just fine, the average consumer will assume the problem is with ABC. If all the channels are blank, the average consumer will blame the cable company. Similarly, if "the Internet is down", from the customer's perspective, they're going to blame the ISP, not Netflix/Hulu/Amazon.

That's if everyone particpates on a Comcast/TWC/Cox/etc. boycott. If my parents can get to Amazon Prime but not Netflix, they'll assume the issue is Netflix. (ok, maybe not my parents, but the idealized tech-unaware parent)

But with such massive depeering as this, practically all of the internet would be affected, given the amount of traffic other peers would have to pick up.

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

#205

Post by apetresc »

tonyarkles wrote: post #194
rhizome wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those customers aren't getting depeered, only Comcast.

I'm not sure of a more eloquent way to say this. Comcast's customers are the CDN's customer's customers.

To play devil's advocate, those CDN customers would also be unable to access content if their power went out. But nobody would think to say the CDN isn't doing their job if Texas had a blackout, because "I'm paying you to deliver my content to Texas, dammit!"

It's a bit of a stretch, but I think that's the analogy they're going for.

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

#206

Post by Karunamon »

spindritf wrote: post #161
tjgq wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no such service. Not only does it not exist, it cannot exist. No ISP can provide that. Any independent network on the Internet can start dropping your packets tomorrow for any reason. Including a lazy admin filtering out your entire country. Or due to a copyright agreement. Happens all the time. The point of net neutrality is that, while ISPs should not be held liable for what other entities in the network…

That's a nice goal but it doesn't answer the crucial question: who pays for the expansion to accommodate traffic generated by Netflix? Netflix? Comcast's subscribers? All of them or only the ones using Netflix? Level3? Comcast's investors? Tax payers? Some combination of the above? And if so, in what proportion? This is completely impervious to "I already paid and I demand..." argument because everyone listed there a…

>who pays for the expansion to accommodate traffic generated by Netflix?

They are already being paid - that is the problem. They are trying to double dip.

A visual aid (not the real arrangement, but good enough for discussion:

    Netflix  Level3  Comcast  Me
Netflix pays money to Level3 for an internet connection.

I pay money to Comcast for an internet connection.

Leve3 and Comcast have an agreement to connect to each other for the purpose of serving their respective customers.

The concept of "an internet connection", this thing that we're both paying for, implies the interconnects working together to deliver, in good faith, what their respective customers have paid for - i.e. access to arbitrary services at best effort speeds.

The players have already been paid everything they deserve at this point. If they feel they are not being paid enough, they should raise their prices.

Comcast, they decide they want to double dip and charge Netflix for something I am already paying for. They are no longer playing in good faith, and I argue not delivering what I pay them to do. Why? Comcast's argument carries the sneaky assertion that they deserve money from Netflix since Netflix consumes such a huge portion of their capacity.

Except that doesn't wash - it is their customers requesting those resources and consuming capacity.

They could throttle their customers instead of Netflix, and this would even be defensible, but it would get them pilloried in the marketplace. But that assumes it's a capacity issue in the first place..

But in the end, it isn't. That is a damn lie perpetrated by the ISPs. It is a politics problem. Note how, when Netflix agreed to the demand for protection money, their capacity problem with Comcast went away literally overnight? Comcast either has an army of the best and fastest network engineers in the entire world (and I invite you to speak to a Comcast user if you think that's true), or already have the gear and configurations in place and just won't switch it on.

There is no cost for expansion here. It's money grubbing, pure and simple. ISPs have always been expected to steadily grow their capacity and speeds over time, and just now Comcast decides they have an issue with it? It's BS. It's a business decision - some suit decided they could charge twice for the same thing and do no extra work.

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

#207

Post by _ikke_ »

diminoten wrote: post #150
CocaKoala wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

L3 is not pushing. I cannot stress that enough. L3 is not pushing. L3 does not push. Pushing is not something L3 does. In the Game of Pushing, L3 is not a player. If you navigate to wikipedia.org/things_which_push, L3 is not on that list. If all the entities of the universe were put into two groups, one labeled "pushers" and one labeled "not pushers", L3 would be in the second group. The ISPs must play ball with L3 b…

Customers are not asking for L3. Customers are asking for content, of which L3 is one of the providers. L3 is pushing L3, even if you say they're not.

Without customers asking for content, L3 wouldn't provide anything to Comcast. It's at the specific request of the customers that L3 relays the replies. The customers initiate the request, and L3 provides the response.

Without the service L3 provides, Comcast wouldn't be able to (as efficiently) provide the service to their customers. In a sense, Comcast should pay L3 for their access to the content.

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

#208

Post by spankalee »

spindritf wrote: post #161
tjgq wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no such service. Not only does it not exist, it cannot exist. No ISP can provide that. Any independent network on the Internet can start dropping your packets tomorrow for any reason. Including a lazy admin filtering out your entire country. Or due to a copyright agreement. Happens all the time. The point of net neutrality is that, while ISPs should not be held liable for what other entities in the network…

That's a nice goal but it doesn't answer the crucial question: who pays for the expansion to accommodate traffic generated by Netflix? Netflix? Comcast's subscribers? All of them or only the ones using Netflix? Level3? Comcast's investors? Tax payers? Some combination of the above? And if so, in what proportion? This is completely impervious to "I already paid and I demand..." argument because everyone listed there a…

Who pays for the expansion to accommodate traffic generated by Comcast customers requesting data from Netflix? Comcast? ...

In a world with ISP competition, an ISP that chose to purposefully neglect its peering connections, or to throttle one of the most popular services on the internet, would lose customers. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world.

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

#209

Post by rlpb »

kasey_junk wrote: post #65
opendais wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[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.

No, they are not. Otherwise I'd be using one.
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