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Why Your Netflix Traffic Is Slow and Why the FCC Won’t Necessarily Make It Fast

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Re: Why Your Netflix Traffic Is Slow and Why the FCC Won’t Necessarily Make It Fast

#111

Post by ikeboy »

msandford wrote: post #110
ikeboy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Under the consumer ISPs model of "receiver pays" it would be entirely reasonable for Cogent or Level3 to charge extra, wouldn't it? Right now, they want to send to the ISP more than the ISP wants the data. So they have to pay. If they wanted to charge, the ISPs would say "sorry". And you sort of ignored my question. You claimed above that paid peering for asymmetrical connections was not standard practice. I want yo…

> That's why it's better to let everyone bargain it out amongst themselves. ... In a free market, the resources should flow to whoever needs them most. If I had the opportunity to ditch my ISP who wants to throttle Netflix through underhanded, shady tactics I WOULD ABSOLUTELY DO SO! But the various entities were granted regional monopolies on certain wire plants like coax and utp and those huge, huge, huge advantages…

I'm not talking about the market between you and your ISP, which I agree is not very free. I'm talking about the market between the ISP and the other ISP, or between an ISP and a CDN. I think every participant should be allowed to make their own decision whether to pay, and the other side shouldn't be forced to carry traffic it isn't paid for from that side.

I've argued elsewhere that throttling based on content shouldn't be allowed for reasons similar to what you're saying, but I don't want to extend that to paid peering or prioritization.

Re: Why Your Netflix Traffic Is Slow and Why the FCC Won’t Necessarily Make It Fast

#112

Post by msandford »

ikeboy wrote: post #111
msandford wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's why it's better to let everyone bargain it out amongst themselves. ... In a free market, the resources should flow to whoever needs them most. If I had the opportunity to ditch my ISP who wants to throttle Netflix through underhanded, shady tactics I WOULD ABSOLUTELY DO SO! But the various entities were granted regional monopolies on certain wire plants like coax and utp and those huge, huge, huge advantages…

I'm not talking about the market between you and your ISP, which I agree is not very free. I'm talking about the market between the ISP and the other ISP, or between an ISP and a CDN. I think every participant should be allowed to make their own decision whether to pay, and the other side shouldn't be forced to carry traffic it isn't paid for from that side. I've argued elsewhere that throttling based on content shou…

> I'm not talking about the market between you and your ISP, which I agree is not very free.

Right, but those two issues are for me, inseparable. If I don't have the freedom to choose my ISP and my ISP doesn't take my opinion into account when making business decisions, then I have no recourse.

If there were other ISPs for me to choose from, then I'm all for absolutely ZERO laws about net neutrality because then actual market forces can actually go to work.

Market forces on the consumer side of consumer ISPs can directly influence the happenings on the peering side of consumer ISPs.

> I think every participant should be allowed to make their own decision whether to pay, and the other side shouldn't be forced to carry traffic it isn't paid for from that side.

Sure, so now Cogent and Level3 can demand $100/Mbps/mo from Comcast right? Because without buying global transit, it's not really INTERNET, it's just Comcast. What if all the transit providers decided that those were the new rules? Would Comcast have any alternative?

What if these transit providers all got together and agreed that none of them would offer Comcast global transit for less than $100/Mbps/mo? Would that be OK? I mean, Comcast has highly asymmetric flows right? They should be allowed to do this, shouldn't they?

Because as it stands right now, I've got a million Comcasts I can choose from, but they've all agreed with one another that the pricing is the same no matter which one I pick. If Comcast can hold me hostage, why can't the transit providers all agree to hold Comcast hostage?

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