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Observations of an Internet Middleman

blog.level3.com

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Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#111

Post by DrJokepu »

andruby wrote: post #85
cs702 wrote: post #81

In short: if you're in the US, you're paying your ISP for a certain amount of bandwidth, but your ISP is not giving it to you, because its connections to middlemen like Level 3 are maxed out. Level 3 proposes to split the cost of expanding those connections (as is common), but your ISP refuses unless it gets additional payment from Level 3, Netflix, or someone else. Meanwhile, you don't get the bandwidth you've purch…

For once, I am glad to be living in a densely populated European country. We can easily switch ISP's if one decides to pull these kinds of dirty tricks.

Well, except that the local telco (e.g. BT in the UK) almost certainly has monopoly over the last mile of your connection, regardless of who your ISP is (they rent the last mile from e.g. BT Openreach or maybe TalkTalk) and it's not uncommon for them to refuse to fix congestions at their exchanges (or even admit their presence) for extended periods. So, you know, it's not like it's all utopistic here or something.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#112

Post by dfc »

johngalt wrote: post #77

I enjoy seeing those MRTG/RRDtool graphs everywhere. I find it so surreal that $X Billions in infrastructure, that is forwarding $Y Billion of internet traffic. All monitored by a single tool created by one guy from Switzerland. Since this is HN: yes I realize that there has been substantial work subsequently, and that cacti/munin/nagios etc.. are more commonly used.

I am surprised that the hobby project by the funny sounding guy from Finland did not mentally prepare you for this.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#113

Post by rayiner »

nitrogen wrote: post #90
rayiner wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things are built with public money, not private money, which introduces problems of its own. Once you start using public money to build infrastructure, politics determines the level of spending rather than actual demand. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that we have $3.6 trillion in delayed maintenance and underinvestment of our core infrastructure (water, sewers, bridges, power lines, etc): ht…

Meanwhile, I'd bet 95% of people would be perfectly happy with 5 mbps service, while a small minority wants gigabit. Historic and present demand are terrible ways of predicting future demand when it comes to technology. Most people don't know what they want because they're living in yesterday, but wait five years when they see what their early adopter neighbors are doing, then suddenly everybody would be happy with g…

Yet when you subject infrastructure spending to the political process, the best you can hope for is keeping up with present demand. Early adopters get no traction when they're proposing spending public money.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#114

Post by rayiner »

chris_mahan wrote: post #101
rayiner wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things are built with public money, not private money, which introduces problems of its own. Once you start using public money to build infrastructure, politics determines the level of spending rather than actual demand. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that we have $3.6 trillion in delayed maintenance and underinvestment of our core infrastructure (water, sewers, bridges, power lines, etc): ht…

I want enough bandwidth to stream three HD 1080p movies at the same time (there are three people in my house) with enough left over for VOIP Phone and normal internet. I currently pay $80/month for that. ($50 for internet, 28+change for VOIP). I am willing to pay $120/month (that's frankly $4/day, not enough to really matter) for that. Can I buy it? No. Because no competition. Why? Because utility monopoly. Why? Beca…

Cable companies are not utility monopolies. The granting of exclusive franchises has been illegal since 1992. Do they have lawyers and lobbyists? Sure. So do Google and Netflix and Facebook and Yahoo.

Companies don't give you what you want because: 1) its expensive; 2) they can make higher returns with that money elsewhere. You can blame lawyers and lobbyists all you want, but the bare fact is that what Facebook paid for WhatsApp would pay for all the lobbying capacity of the top 10 DC lobbying firms for 60 years. That's a really weak argument to lean on when the interested tech players have so much money and lobbying is so cheap.

Just look at what Google is doing with Google Fiber. They're demanding massive regulatory concessions, and still don't seem to be positioning it as a money-making business. If building fiber was a good use of capital, why would internet companies sit on the sidelines and demand someone else do it?

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#115

Post by danielweber »

nitrogen wrote: post #91
wmf wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't it count?

Because the two have different physical limitations. DSL is strongly limited by distance to a cabinet, and most people can't get any better than 7mbit/s, 20 if you're lucky. Thus, DSL provides no pressure on cable, and the only reasons people use DSL are because they get it bundled with their phone and TV service, or because they got fed up with the cable company and switched to a lesser service out of frustration. I…

Honestly, I've had one connection or the other completely fail, and (aside from the weird issues above) I sometimes haven't noticed for a few days, despite heavy Netflix streaming on 2 devices. Whatever is going on in my local market, to me it seems to be functioning well.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#116

Post by namecast »

nitrogen wrote: post #73
exelius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's no less true for cold-potato routing; the source is just closer to the endpoint. And CDNs doing cold-potato routing happily pay for their transit because the service THEY make money off of is providing CDN services to their customers, who theoretically make money off the content they pay the CDNs to distribute. What it comes down to is Comcast has no incentive to ensure its routes to various Internet transit pro…

Comcast has no incentive to ensure its routes to various Internet transit providers are GOOD if they're not monetizing them. Customers pay Comcast with money to establish those links. If that's not "monetizing", what on earth is?

The original L3 article actually touches on this, sort of, by mentioning markets where ISP port congestion is not an issue (i.e. the UK) due to competition between ISPs.

Comcast will get paid by their customers as long as the routes they pass traffic through are 'good enough'. They have a (near) monopoly on the last mile in many markets, so 'good enough' can mean both 'barely working' and 'better than any other option you've got' at the same time.

So, you're right, but so is the parent: Comcast has no financial incentive to provide any more than just enough bandwidth to keep you from calling the support line to complain or cancelling your contract in frustration.

Where's the rest of customer revenue going, if not towards network upgrades? Well, let's just say the Comcast Center (http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/off...) ain't paying for itself...

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#117

Post by zipwitch »

andruby wrote: post #85
cs702 wrote: post #81

In short: if you're in the US, you're paying your ISP for a certain amount of bandwidth, but your ISP is not giving it to you, because its connections to middlemen like Level 3 are maxed out. Level 3 proposes to split the cost of expanding those connections (as is common), but your ISP refuses unless it gets additional payment from Level 3, Netflix, or someone else. Meanwhile, you don't get the bandwidth you've purch…

For once, I am glad to be living in a densely populated European country. We can easily switch ISP's if one decides to pull these kinds of dirty tricks.

While it's true that the average population density of the US is low compared to much of the rest of the world, that is due to including the US's vast empty spaces, mainly in the West. The vast majority of US citizens live in densely populated areas - just like the rest of the First World, only with crappier internet.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#118

Post by caust1c »

rayiner wrote: post #114
chris_mahan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want enough bandwidth to stream three HD 1080p movies at the same time (there are three people in my house) with enough left over for VOIP Phone and normal internet. I currently pay $80/month for that. ($50 for internet, 28+change for VOIP). I am willing to pay $120/month (that's frankly $4/day, not enough to really matter) for that. Can I buy it? No. Because no competition. Why? Because utility monopoly. Why? Beca…

Cable companies are not utility monopolies. The granting of exclusive franchises has been illegal since 1992. Do they have lawyers and lobbyists? Sure. So do Google and Netflix and Facebook and Yahoo. Companies don't give you what you want because: 1) its expensive; 2) they can make higher returns with that money elsewhere. You can blame lawyers and lobbyists all you want, but the bare fact is that what Facebook paid…

I appreciate your insight, but it really is still a political battle.

The reason why is because companies have to work with local governments to get construction permits to build out the access network. There are huge barriers here that prevent individuals and small companies from actually getting that work done. One of those barriers is the fact that even local governments have problems with bribery and corruption (you don't say!).

Google Fiber is demanding those massive regulatory concessions because they must! They're asking governments to bend over backwards for them because they recognize how hard it is go get through the bureaucracy. That's why they put on this big campaign to get the people to talk to their local representatives and essentially beg to be saved from the monopolies.

Take for example, Google Fiber versus Sonic.net. Sonic's been trying to build out their fiber network for a long time. However, since they're small it's much more difficult for them to work with the local governments and as a result their fiber rollout has been slower despite consumer demands.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#119

Post by rayiner »

caust1c wrote: post #118
rayiner wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cable companies are not utility monopolies. The granting of exclusive franchises has been illegal since 1992. Do they have lawyers and lobbyists? Sure. So do Google and Netflix and Facebook and Yahoo. Companies don't give you what you want because: 1) its expensive; 2) they can make higher returns with that money elsewhere. You can blame lawyers and lobbyists all you want, but the bare fact is that what Facebook paid…

I appreciate your insight, but it really is still a political battle. The reason why is because companies have to work with local governments to get construction permits to build out the access network. There are huge barriers here that prevent individuals and small companies from actually getting that work done. One of those barriers is the fact that even local governments have problems with bribery and corruption (…

Please, show me the bribery and corruption that's creating these political hurdles. Otherwise, that's a strong accusation to be making without proof. If we're talking about good old fashioned lobbying, however, then the fact is that the internet companies have more than enough money to overwhelm the cable companies' lobbying efforts. Lobbyists are up for the highest bidder, after all. Yes, small companies can't afford it, but anyone with the money to realistically build the infrastructure in the first place can. Certainly, the companies with the most at stake (Google, Facebook, Netflix) can. It makes no sense to invoke money and lobbying while ignoring the fact of who has the deepest pockets in this game. Remember, Google is more profitable than Comcast and TWV combined, and has double the profit margin. Facebook's profits are about 2/3 as much as TWC.

The regulatory hurdles that Google is demanding relief from are (largely) not the result of lobbying. They're the result of the dysfunction of municipal politics. Right now, NYC's mayor is attacking Verizon because poor people can't afford FIOS (at $75/month). He's hired a civil rights lawyer to get into the issue. Is it any wonder companies aren't interested in building fiber? Is this the result of lobbying (or corruption and bribes) or predictable political forces?

At bottom, none of the screeds on this subject address the simple fact: the internet companies aren't rushing to build fiber, or lobbying to get permission to build fiber, or publicly demanding deregulation so they can build fiber. They're trying to get Comcast, Verizon, etc, to build fiber. To this day, Google positions Google Fiber as an effort to shame the ISPs, not a worthwhile business venture standing alone. What does that tell you about the monetary incentives at play?

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#120

Post by NDizzle »

zero_intp wrote: post #92
johngalt wrote: post #77

I enjoy seeing those MRTG/RRDtool graphs everywhere. I find it so surreal that $X Billions in infrastructure, that is forwarding $Y Billion of internet traffic. All monitored by a single tool created by one guy from Switzerland. Since this is HN: yes I realize that there has been substantial work subsequently, and that cacti/munin/nagios etc.. are more commonly used.

It's crazy to think that Rancid, MRTG, & RRD are all fundamentally underpinning of all of these major carriers.

It's not so crazy when you consider a huge portion of peering agreements took place over IRC.
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