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Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

publicpolicy.verizon.com

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Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#91

Post by yaur »

techwizrd wrote: post #37
LandoCalrissian wrote: post #15

Long story short, Level 3 won't pay us for peering agreements so it's their fault.

The most incredible part is that the facts and anecdotes presented so far don't agree with Verizon's tale, so instead of Verizon decided to respond with a fluffy PR piece instead of fixing the problem or countering with facts. Verizon seems completely unwilling to take any blame in this and does not seem to have their customer's best interest at heart. There are no new facts in this article other than a useless infog…

The only new fact I see here is that link between L3 and Verizon is not symmetric. That's not surprising really, but it means that there is already traffic asymmetry baked into whatever peering agreement they have today.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#92

Post by cujo »

MrVitaliy wrote: post #85
cs702 wrote: post #51

Verizon is blaming Netflix for sending "an unprecedented amount of traffic" and "not taking steps to ensure that there is adequate capacity for their traffic to enter" Verizon's network. The thing is, Netflix is NOT pushing any of that traffic to Verizon. It is Verizon's customers who are pulling that traffic from NetFlix -- and they are paying Verizon to deliver it !!! More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

Not to be devils advocate, but if I have 75mbps pipe at home and some internet server is on 1mbps, I'll still be buffering because of the server connection not mine. Right?

If they're pushing more than 1mbps to all connections, yes.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#93

Post by jpgvm »

ITT: People that don't understand that settlement free peering needs to be mutually beneficial.

When you pay Verizon you pay for access to their network. Not access to Netflix's network. Verizon will has transit agreements with some people to use it's network and settlement free peering with other ISPs of similar size.

When I go to by transit from Verizon to host my website do I expect to get settlement free peering? Well, probably not because I am probably serving much more content than I am consuming, as such my link is unbalanced.

If instead I was another ISP and I was sending roughly as much data to Verizon as I am consuming it suddenly becomes mutually beneficial for us to agree to send traffic for free as then we don't each have to pay transit costs for this traffic.

Not understanding this is why HN and other tech news outlets are in outrage. This is just how peering arrangements work. Unless your traffic is balanced you need to pay the cost of transit, simple as that.

Now, the reason Netflix is bitching is they -are- paying for transit.. they just aren't paying enough to the right people. Their problem is that their transit providers don't have sufficiently large links to Verizons network.

Because of the massive asymetical nature of having Netflix on your network Verizon is not agreeing to settlement free peering to Layer 3 et al. Which is completely fair and how things work, unless it's mutually beneficial you have to pay up.

Now, why does a witch hunt against those ISPs make no sense? Well simply put they are not running their network at 1:1 contention and probably charge prices that reflect that. If you went and bought carrier grade transit from more respectable providers chances are you would be getting 1:1 contention and these issues would never occur, but you probably pay more than 10x what Netflix is charging per mbit.

TLDR: Netflix doesn't understand how telecom works and needs to pay for better transit.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#95

Post by groby_b »

diminoten wrote: post #87
cs702 wrote: post #51

Verizon is blaming Netflix for sending "an unprecedented amount of traffic" and "not taking steps to ensure that there is adequate capacity for their traffic to enter" Verizon's network. The thing is, Netflix is NOT pushing any of that traffic to Verizon. It is Verizon's customers who are pulling that traffic from NetFlix -- and they are paying Verizon to deliver it !!! More here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

Well, Netflix is pushing traffic to Verizon. Saying they're not is factually incorrect. They're just doing so in response to requests coming out of Verizon networks. Still though, Verizon customers are running Netflix apps, which are making the requests, so it's not like customers are doing the requesting "in the raw", or as "informed" consumers. They're just clicking "play" on Netflix video devices. Also, Verizon cu…

That's silly word twisting. Following that logic, my bartender is pushing drinks on me, just by my request.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#96

Post by NotAtWork »

jpgvm wrote: post #93

ITT: People that don't understand that settlement free peering needs to be mutually beneficial. When you pay Verizon you pay for access to their network. Not access to Netflix's network. Verizon will has transit agreements with some people to use it's network and settlement free peering with other ISPs of similar size. When I go to by transit from Verizon to host my website do I expect to get settlement free peering?…

Except that I want to pay someone to deliver the traffic I request from third parties (up to a specific rate that I pay for), and just make that work.

Not for the privilege to have traffic delivered to me if the sender pays enough money to the government mandated monopoly that owns my area.

The value that Verizon gets for accepting that traffic is that I continue to pay them money; no need for the person fulfilling my request to pay Verizon for Verizon to accept things on my behalf (which is what they agreed to do). Verizon (and other ISPs) bill their service as accepting any package on my behalf, and tell me that I can have a certain rate of packages accepted and routed to me.

They're simply not upgrading their package receiving centers to reasonably reflect what their customers are ordering because they know that their customers can't do anything about it, and they don't have to provide the service they promised.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#97

Post by ctdonath »

msandford wrote: post #54

From the article: "Netflix sends out an unprecedented amount of traffic." YES! Yes they do! But Netflix doesn't send that traffic for fun and giggles, just to swamp your network and clog up the port. They do it because YOUR CUSTOMERS HAVE ASKED THEM TO and you, Verizon, you duplicitous shitbag, have SOLD THAT CAPABILITY to your customers. They have LITERALLY PAID you to successfully receive up to 75Mbps worth of traf…

They have LITERALLY PAID you to successfully receive up to 75Mbps worth of traffic from ANYONE

Aye, there's the rub: "up to". Nothing says (and perhaps deep in the EULA there's the opposite) you'll get that, or even a substantial fraction of unused shared bandwidth, commensurate to your needs.

Customers should push the meme that "up to X Mbps" really means "you won't get more than X Mbps, and likely much less".

Customers should be writing Verizon et al complaining "you CAN send that data faster but you aren't, and we have proof you're choosing to practically renege on our contract."

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#98

Post by jpgvm »

maxsilver wrote: post #32
joeframbach wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the Netflix-to-Verizon transit something that we already pay Verizon to maintain?

Yes, but Verizon also wants Netflix to pay them for that same transit. That's what the whole blog article is about. Verizon trying to invent valid reasons for why they want Netflix to pay them.

They are not inventing reasons. Netflix is serving the content, Netflix pays for it to move. Simple as that. The issue is Layer 3 is not buying enough transit from Verizon to match the disparity in the traffic it wants to send beyond what is covered by settlement free peering.

If you look at the diagram on the Verizon post you can see the link is saturated in one direction and only at 30% utilization in the other direction.

This is the DEFINITION of transit. The fact Netflix is even blaming Verizon for this is ridiculous.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#99

Post by BCM43 »

trothamel wrote: post #48

It's always kind of strange to me that Verizon only wants to provide settlement-free peering "where the relative traffic flows between an IP network provider and us remain roughly equal". If you were to take that at face value, it means that Verizon would happy to provide free peering if only Netflix modified its client so it uploaded a number of random bytes equal to the size of the stream it was downloading. But th…

But the connections consumers have are non-symmetrical. Almost none are able to upload at HD-quality speeds.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#100

Post by sparkman55 »

pcl wrote: post #57
cordite wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only more had that option.

In SF, WebPass (and MonkeyBrains, from what I hear) are great alternative ISPs. Both do point-to-point wireless. My building shares a symmetric 100Mbps connection to WebPass, and I pretty reliably see 30-40Mbps on my wired network. And I pay significantly less than I had previously paid Comcast. (However, I never used the TV component of my Comcast offer, so the cost structure is presumably different for people who d…

Point-to-Point (Fixed) Wireless is actually also an attractive solution in rural / semi-rural settings as well.

If the distances are moderate (with line-of-sight) but demand is too sparse to warrant the cost of running coaxial / fiber (and distances are too far for DSL), a common alternative on the high end is fixed microwave, and on the low end Verizon LTE.

A good example is the Ames, Iowa area, where an ISP has set up a tower with good line of sight, and a bunch of directional antennas both on the tower and at customers locations. This setup provides great service out to ~15 miles or so, enough to cover the outskirts of this small town.

Some issues with this setup: storms cause 'rain fade' which blocks the signal, and the wireless spectrum does not scale to too many users. Also, there's a finicky antenna on the roof that can become misaligned in storms.

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