Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#221

Post by AnthonyMouse » Fri, Jul 11, 2014, 10:14 PM UTC

jmccree wrote: post #214

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> See this circa 1999 article about peering and settlement on the internet The purpose of the arrangement you're pointing to is so that transit providers (e.g. Level 3 or Cogent) could distinguish other transit providers from transit customers whose traffic was characteristically asymmetric. The reason transit providers care more about upload bandwidth than download bandwidth is that customer ISPs can easily offer we…

Please remember that Verizon is also a Tier 1 transit provider! They own (via Verizon Business) the old MCI/Worldcom/UUnet backbone that was one of the largest transit providers. Level3 and Verizon are both transit providers.

Verizon is not a transit provider in this context. Level 3 is not asking Verizon to take traffic in New York and deliver it to customers in California or Germany. They're giving Verizon traffic destined for local Verizon customers.

Importantly, there is no other way to reach those customers. If you need to get traffic from New York to San Francisco you can use Level 3 or Cogent or Verizon or any of a dozen others. If you need to get traffic to a particular household which is a Verizon subscriber, there is no path other than Verizon.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#222

Post by nextweek2 » Sat, Jul 12, 2014, 7:14 AM UTC

mutagen wrote: post #59

Netflix has an open offer to move CDN servers deep into provider networks [1] to avoid peering congestion. This would put most of the Netflix traffic at the bottom right of Verizon's infographic. Why hasn't Verizon accepted this offer? [1] https://www.netflix.com/openconnect

Your comment is the most pragmatic thing I have read.

The whole thing of ISP's complaining about Netflix to me is wrong, they are complaining about a peering agreement with a transit provider and just using Netflix as a name people will recognise.

The truth is there are technical solutions to these problems but politics is taking over the issue.

Re: Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion Myth

#223

Post by 178 » Sat, Jul 12, 2014, 10:44 AM UTC

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…

Exactly this. I try to explain this to people in layman terms like this: Comcast ist trying to charge the water fountain, saying it "wants" to pump to much water into people's homes.