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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?

#231

Post by Alphasite_ »

jamescun wrote: post #212
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…

This is similar to what we have in the UK. The organisation responsible for last mile connections is Openreach, and for all its failings, we in the UK are served rather well by the setup. I have the option of six ISPs, 4 national and 2 local. The issue with Openreach is the odd situation it has found itself in after several government reshuffles and countless legislation; leaving it under BT Group's umbrella but acco…

I'd hardly say it's difficult to upgrade, they've been rolling out network upgrades for the last decade, starting with the 21cn network, then fttc and persumably ftth as an eventual goal.

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

#232

Post by ryanhuff »

exelius wrote: post #227
ChuckMcM wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points, allow me to share with you a bit of my strategy. There is a case to be made that much of the tearing up of the streets is a function of people laying down multiple communication infrastructures along side each other. We looked though the permits for the last 12 months and compared that activity to a on-going repaving and road maintenance work. There are several interesting variables at play in that, cost…

This is all well and good if you're talking about relatively wealthy cities like Sunnyvale with a good tax base, but many cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are literally crumbling. They operate much more in a "try to keep the lights on" capacity because they just don't have the money to do anything else. The roads are constantly torn up from traffic and just never get fixed, water and sewer don't alway…

You have to start somewhere. Sometimes an incremental approach is the easiest to get rolling. Framing it as a national issue likely makes it more complex, however.

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

#233

Post by Avenger42 »

nostrademons wrote: post #226
unexpected wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of this is not true. I live in Texas, and electricity is not a disaster. You can choose from a variety of rates and providers (you can visit powertochoose.org to see the site), but the local electric utility provider (the company that used to have the monopoly) is the guy you call when electricity goes out. In the D/FW area, that's Oncor (and is for most of Texas).

Interesting. I'm reporting on my sister's complaints, for providers in the Houston area. Edit: Hmm, interesting. Perhaps they just picked an unlucky initial provider and then got gobbled up successively.

I'm in the Houston area and haven't had these issues.

- You get small new companies popping up all the time and dying through mergers and acquisitions: to some extent this can be mitigated through your choice of provider. I haven't gone through one merger/acquisition, and I've used 3-5 different providers in ~10 years.

- If there's a problem theres's nobody to call and nobody whose responsibility is fixing it: I don't remember how it was at my apartments, but since I've moved into my house, I call Centerpoint to fix all power problems, regardless of whose service I'm actually using.

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

#234

Post by ryanhuff »

eldavido wrote: post #200
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.

This would be an unmitigated disaster. Everyone would call Comcast, Comcast would tell the story their way, and things would be even worse than they are now. They'd probably get on national nightly news talking about how their "partners" "unfairly" "cut them off from the Internet". It would be pretty interesting to watch the spin machine in action, though. 100% pure PR spin.

That's why you throttle Comcast customers. Can't it go both ways?

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

#235

Post by ryanhuff »

JTon wrote: post #55
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.

Too risky, no? If Comcast said the problem was not with their network, but with bit CDNs. Customers would shift their rage towards them instead. The whole thing would turn into a PR pissing match

Comcast's customers have no idea what a CDN is. All they know is that the internet is slow, and Comcast is the internet to them.

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

#236

Post by diminoten »

_ikke_ wrote: post #207
diminoten wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But they're not asking for L3, they're asking for Netflix. So maybe Netflix should hire a CDN that can play ball with Comcast, instead of L3, who is apparently being shut out.

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

#238

Post by diminoten »

thedufer wrote: post #114
diminoten wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't that the point? Level3 is capable of handling more traffic but the ISPs are not. So what? It sounds like Level3 wants to enter into bigger-money contracts with the ISPs but the ISPs don't want to, so Level3 is appealing to the masses to help them rake in extra cash (to justify the expenses they've incurred upgrading their equipment). Why does Level3 get the benefit of being David here? IT just seems like th…

> It sounds like Level3 wants to enter into bigger-money contracts with the ISPs As the article points out, peering rarely involves money (and shouldn't ever; as the word peer implies, its a largely symmetric relationship). The ISPs' customers are paying the ISPs for bandwidth and then requesting traffic. Level3 is providing said traffic and then the ISP drops it because they don't have enough bandwidth. How can a re…

If Level3 can't give Netflix what it promised Netflix it would deliver, maybe Netflix should use a different CDN.

Other CDNs aren't having this problem, because they're willing to work with the ISPs.

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

#239

Post by diminoten »

Jtsummers wrote: post #213
diminoten wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

L3 is not the provider, Netflix is the provider. Netflix has chosen to contract with L3 so that their customers can receive the content. L3 is also an ISP and so has peering agreements with other ISPs. Netflix has customers who aren't using L3 as an ISP so L3 and these ISPs make use of their peering setup to transmit Netflix's content to the ISPs' customers. L3 is not pushing, the customers are pulling. The ISPs serv…

L3 is pushing to maintain its contract with Netflix. L3 is pushing, because L3 isn't the only CDN responsible for Netflix traffic. "Comcast" (it may not actually be Comcast and in fact I doubt it is given Netflix's recent agreement with Comcast) can just use Netflix's other CDNs, and traffic will continue to flow normally.

L3 is not necessary here, and everyone who's actually involved knows it, including L3.

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

#240

Post by yebyen »

JTon wrote: post #169
rhizome wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it would go that way, their customers would more often say, "what's a CDN?"

They don't have to say CDN explicitly. They can simply say Netflix or Hulu. For example, "Dear valued customer. The recent slow down of your Netflix service is the result of an issue with Netflix servers. ISP_X service is fully functional. Please contact Netflix customer support for further assistance"

I'm pretty sure Netflix just paid Comcast, and maybe I'm not keeping up with the issues as they arise and I'm really uninformed about the current state of things, but if Level3 is still having a dispute with Comcast, and Comcast blames Level3's actions on Netflix just because they need to blame someone who their customers will recognize...

Forget about the gigundous case for libel Netflix would have against Comcast on millions of counts... those Netflix payments that Comcast just earned are going to stop, and their first high-profile experiment with double-dipping payments will have failed abruptly.

I assure you Comcast does not want that.

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