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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?

#251

Post by runeks »

guelo wrote: post #56

If the peering ports are congested that means that either the ISP needs to add more ports, or they are oversubscribing their capacity. Just make it illegal to sell more capacity than you have and the problem is solved.

> Just make it illegal to sell more capacity than you have and the problem is solved.

No. The result would be that you would pay 100 times more for your Internet connection. Or, alternatively, that you cannot get a guaranteed bandwidth, but you pay per GB.

This article: http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-inte... states that Level3 has 13,600 Gbps of capacity with its peers.

Your solution would mean that Level3's peers can only sell 13.6 million 1 Mbps connections without overselling their bandwidth. Even if Level3's peers have several other Internet wholesale agreements -- let's say they actually have 5 times that capacity (most likely an overstatement) -- all Level3's peers would only be able to sell 68 million 1 Mbps connections. That would be some expensive 1 Mbps connections!

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

#252

Post by freehunter »

dfc wrote: post #197
freehunter wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? It's an off-the-cuff remark to describe a fight that's slowly playing out. It's a pretty common phrase.

Yes, really. I have never seen the free market be offered as "the solution" to a metaphoric asymmetric conflict. It seems like there is an inherent existential crisis that has prevented people (up until now) from suggesting the free market as a solution to asymmetric warfare. Is it really a free market when such large asymmetries exist between market participants? That being said I find the suggestion that the colloq…

First you were arguing that this should not be called warfare. Now it seems you're arguing something completely different. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, sorry.

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

#253

Post by rcthompson »

Nimi wrote: post #250
exelius wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how it should probably be done if we were starting from scratch. A system like the one you describe would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-500 billion; which isn't completely insane as far as national infrastructure projects go. The problem is that we're not starting from scratch. It's a lot harder for the government to justify that expense when there are a number of viable privately-owned alternati…

"How do we craft regulation such that those companies are more profitable when they do what we want them to do?" Sounds like the U.S. already has such regulation - anti-trust regulation. As ChuckMcM noted above, the problem is that Comcast has a monopoly over the last mile. Effective and enforced anti-trust regulations would break up this monopoly into several different competing companies. BTW, here in Israel, the g…

Anti-trust laws are not ideal, though. They effectively act as thresholds or hard lower limits on allowed competition, but they don't directly address the economies of scale and barriers to entry that push the market toward a monopoly state.

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

#254

Post by Todd »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #188
exelius wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how it should probably be done if we were starting from scratch. A system like the one you describe would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-500 billion; which isn't completely insane as far as national infrastructure projects go. The problem is that we're not starting from scratch. It's a lot harder for the government to justify that expense when there are a number of viable privately-owned alternati…

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…

I agree with this approach. This cost does not need to be born by the municipalities alone. Contracting companies will line up to build and maintain the infrastructure. The initial build out could be paid for by bonds which would be repaid by the ISPs who lease access. The ongoing maintenance would be paid out of the same fees. ISP competition would help insure that the whole endeavor would not be too costly.

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

#255

Post by runeks »

wmf wrote: post #249
runeks wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting suggestion. I've often thought about this. What I hear (I'm not very knowledgeable in this field) is that somewhere up the chain, someone has to pay for bandwidth (per GB) (can anyone confirm this?). But consumers prefer to know how much they will pay each month, and so they get that -- a flat rate service. So now we have a situation where a company's expenses are measured in GB of data transferred, and t…

somewhere up the chain, someone has to pay for bandwidth (per GB) (can anyone confirm this?) No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage. So now we have a situation where a company's expenses are measured in GB of data transferred, and their customers pay proportional to their maximum transfer rate. This means the incentives of this company and its cus…

> No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage.

When I went around asking for a price for a shared connection to out apartment complex, I was asked how many tenants we had. And the reason -- I was told -- that they asked for this, was that the more tenants the more traffic consumed.

So it seems to me that somewhere, someone is paying for traffic. Or else I don't understand.

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

#256

Post by jfischer »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #188
exelius wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how it should probably be done if we were starting from scratch. A system like the one you describe would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-500 billion; which isn't completely insane as far as national infrastructure projects go. The problem is that we're not starting from scratch. It's a lot harder for the government to justify that expense when there are a number of viable privately-owned alternati…

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…

Anything that I can do to help move this forward as a Sunnyvale resident and voter? Thanks!

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

#257

Post by Nimi »

rcthompson wrote: post #253
Nimi wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How do we craft regulation such that those companies are more profitable when they do what we want them to do?" Sounds like the U.S. already has such regulation - anti-trust regulation. As ChuckMcM noted above, the problem is that Comcast has a monopoly over the last mile. Effective and enforced anti-trust regulations would break up this monopoly into several different competing companies. BTW, here in Israel, the g…

Anti-trust laws are not ideal, though. They effectively act as thresholds or hard lower limits on allowed competition, but they don't directly address the economies of scale and barriers to entry that push the market toward a monopoly state.

Agreed. I have been looking now for a while for a rigorous treatment of how to deal with monopoly-related problems (hopefully this would be a summary of the current consensus among economists), are you by chance familiar with one?

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

#258

Post by dfc »

freehunter wrote: post #252
dfc wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, really. I have never seen the free market be offered as "the solution" to a metaphoric asymmetric conflict. It seems like there is an inherent existential crisis that has prevented people (up until now) from suggesting the free market as a solution to asymmetric warfare. Is it really a free market when such large asymmetries exist between market participants? That being said I find the suggestion that the colloq…

First you were arguing that this should not be called warfare. Now it seems you're arguing something completely different. I honestly have no idea what you're talking about, sorry.

I never argued that this should not be called warfare. I said that I did not think that this was a good example of asymmetric warfare. To which you responded that "asymmetric warfare" was commonly used to describe a "fight that is slowly playing out." This was also confusing to me. I will restate my queries in order to clear up any confusion:

  1. How is the CDN/ISP conflict an example of "asymmetric warfare"?
  2. Do you think the definition of "asymmetric warfare" is "a fight
     that is slowly playing out"?

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

#259

Post by wmf »

runeks wrote: post #255
wmf wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

somewhere up the chain, someone has to pay for bandwidth (per GB) (can anyone confirm this?) No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage. So now we have a situation where a company's expenses are measured in GB of data transferred, and their customers pay proportional to their maximum transfer rate. This means the incentives of this company and its cus…

> No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage. When I went around asking for a price for a shared connection to out apartment complex, I was asked how many tenants we had. And the reason -- I was told -- that they asked for this, was that the more tenants the more traffic consumed. So it seems to me that somewhere , someone is paying for traffic. Or el…

If you want to buy x Gbps no questions asked, that is definitely a service that exists. It sounds like you were dealing with retail-level sales people and you weren't clear about what you want to buy so they're trying to help you figure it out.

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

#260

Post by JoshTriplett »

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.

> Would be very interesting to see what happened if the big CDN providers just depeered Comcast for 24 hours.

Those providers would very quickly get prosecuted via collusion and antitrust laws, and Comcast would gain a moral high ground to stand on, almost certainly making the situation worse.

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