Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
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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?
#2This wouldn't happen if those ISPs didn't have local monopolies. Networks should be opened by selling traffic wholesale to other companies so that they can compete for subscribers on those networks. The network owners would have more than enough money for upgrades and if they don't, downlevel ISPs will sue them.
Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
#3Somebody has to pay the money to upgrade the equipment and bandwidth available at these exchange points. The very reasonable argument in this article is that the ISPs should pay that cost, which seems reasonable given that their customers are demanding it. It sounds like the ISPs are playing a game of chicken, trying to see if their peers like Level3 will throw money in to pay for the ISP to upgrade its equipment and bandwidth. That's certainly something the ISPs can try to do; on the other hand, what are their customers going to do, not use Netflix and YouTube? If a pile of customers of one ISP start reporting that they're all having a poor experience with high-bandwidth video, and there are a pile of well-publicized press releases blaming the ISP, customers will start complaining to the ISP, and they'll have to upgrade their infrastructure eventually. (And in areas where they have competition, there's an incentive to upgrade before the competitors, to avoid losing customers; while there isn't such competition in every locale, there are enough locales with more than one ISP choice to make those customers painful to lose.)
But what does any of that have to do with mandated peering requirements at the NSFnet exchanges? Who would enforce that, and why, when any two major networks can set up peering at any number of meet-me rooms? Requiring that an ISP peer as much traffic as is available or not peer any at all seems ridiculous; some ISPs will suck more than others, but that's the problem of them and their customers, not a problem for the entire Internet.
Meanwhile, I'm surprised there aren't more startups and VCs looking to bet that "new ISP that doesn't suck" is a viable business model. People are chomping at the bit for Google Fiber, which seems unlikely to grow to a national level without developing competitors. This is a space with very few competitors, and there hasn't been serious competition in that space since DSL stopped being a viable option.
Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
#4I like the article overall but I don't understand the author's proposed solution. The issue as it stands is apparently a lack of peering, in that big ISPs are using transit to reach large content providers rather than directly peering to those networks. So how would "kicking them out" for a maxed out connection work? If I buy transit from Level3 and my connection maxes out, I'm no longer allowed to be a customer of Level3?
Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
#5Godaddy, Rackspace, Google, Amazon, etc. have skin in this game. With multiple redundant network connections they could, for a day or a week, defend neutrality by shaping their traffic to the lowest common denominator or routing their traffic to avoid the peer's punitive bottlenecks. Today its Level 3 and Netflix, but tomorrow it could easily be them.
Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
#6If a customer is paying for an internet connection, they are paying for access the full internet, to the best of their ISP's abilities. This is the net neutrality law we need: ISPs should be compelled to upgrade their backbone links as they become congested, to satisfy their customer's demand. Congestion can be easily monitored and often these peerings are "free". (Yes there is a non-zero cost to increase switch and router capacity and to have someone plug the cables in, but it's not like Level3 is charging for the bits exchanged.) But the point is, since most ISPs are de-facto monopolies in this country, we need rules telling them they have to upgrade their capacity to meet their customers demand, if they are promising broadband speeds.
Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
#7[deleted]
Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
#8Somebody has to pay the money to upgrade the equipment and bandwidth available at these exchange points. The very reasonable argument in this article is that the ISPs should pay that cost, which seems reasonable given that their customers are demanding it. It sounds like the ISPs are playing a game of chicken, trying to see if their peers like Level3 will throw money in to pay for the ISP to upgrade its equipment and…
Google's ability to print money in conjunction with its generally high PR ratings give it the cache to take on a project like fiber. I can't imagine it's cheap or easy to lay fiber if you don't have substantial financial backing as well as a political goal you're trying to achieve.
That said, I've used both Sonic.net and MonkeyBrains here in San Francisco. Never had to rely on a major ISP in this town, and I like it that way.
Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
#9Somebody has to pay the money to upgrade the equipment and bandwidth available at these exchange points. The very reasonable argument in this article is that the ISPs should pay that cost, which seems reasonable given that their customers are demanding it. It sounds like the ISPs are playing a game of chicken, trying to see if their peers like Level3 will throw money in to pay for the ISP to upgrade its equipment and…
The ISPs aren't dropping the packets, Level3 is. From the article linked to in the blog: "A port that is on average utilised at 90 percent will be saturated, dropping packets, for several hours a day. We have congested ports saturated to those levels with 12 of our 51 peers." "We"in the quote is Level3. They're dropping the packets.
Why do the ISPs have to pay for Level3's dropping of packets? Shouldn't the ISPs replace Level3 if they keep dropping packets?
Also, dropped packets isn't the end of the world. In TCP at least, the packets just get resent.
The language that gets used in all of these talks ("deliberately harming", "American business", "It's insulting") just makes me want to tune out entirely. I don't have time for chicken littles.
Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?
#10Somebody has to pay the money to upgrade the equipment and bandwidth available at these exchange points. The very reasonable argument in this article is that the ISPs should pay that cost, which seems reasonable given that their customers are demanding it. It sounds like the ISPs are playing a game of chicken, trying to see if their peers like Level3 will throw money in to pay for the ISP to upgrade its equipment and…
The ISPs aren't dropping the packets, Level3 is. From the article linked to in the blog: "A port that is on average utilised at 90 percent will be saturated, dropping packets, for several hours a day. We have congested ports saturated to those levels with 12 of our 51 peers." "We"in the quote is Level3. They're dropping the packets. Why do the ISPs have to pay for Level3's dropping of packets? Shouldn't the ISPs repl…
Dropping packets makes load problems worse, because failing users start to send even more traffic.