Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Level 3 is ONLY sending the traffic to Comcast that Comcast is requesting; it is THEIR customers who are creating this demand for Level 3's customer's content." This still misses the mark. Netflix creates a service on Level3 that Comcast customers want. So Netflix/Level3 are responsible for making a product that people want to use, and Comcast customers are responsible for wanting to use that product and increasing…
Yet neither seem to accept their share in the cost. It seems like Level3 is ready and willing to go. Comcast is just leveraging their monopoly to get out of standard peering practices. They know that by causing a fuss the lookie loos will show up and say "oh my, a controversy, lets split the difference!" Bonus points if you can work in the phrases "right balance" and "fair share." If it's because it's hard for Level3…
To go where? Not to their checkbook.
First they mention in the article how "usually" networks agree to upgrade parts of their network to handle additional interconnects, and don't pay service fees to each other.
Then they mention saturated ports, not giving any indication as to whether they have even attempted to expand capacity on their side.
We are also left to believe that this nonspecific, non-detailed post is not only completely genuine, but that it leaves out no details. Giving Level3 the benefit of the doubt, and not going based on my own enterprise peering experiences where Level3 consistently showed the worst reliability and performance, it's clear they're only showing you a small slice of the work involved to agree on peering and put in place the upgrades necessary, on both sides.
> An open letter after giving into their demands?
An open letter after actually spending their share of what they need to invest in the upgrade. Which, it appears, they have not.
> Did you just tell me to go fuck myself?
No... Where did you read that?
> If they do it after giving into Comcast the lookie loos will be all the more ready and willing to pull "compromises" out of their ass that don't solve anything but making them happy with themselves.
....You really don't know the meaning of the word compromise? One of them has to meet the other half way. Ideally both of them would do this at the same time, but in the bizarre reality of this business, both of them are being children, neither wanting to move first, it would seem from this writing. Too bad this is just one tiny public PR stunt and probably not the whole story.
Also, what it would solve is the issue at hand, and it would make everyone - both providers, consumers and customers - happy. If you can't see that, perhaps you have the same narrow-minded political pessimism that's causing this mess to begin with.
This whole letter is thinly-veiled fodder for consumers to bitch at their ISPs with. Even the comparisons, like the ones at the end about industry satisfaction, are just meant to feed into the stereotype of the evil broadband provider. The comparison is ridiculous, because broadband providers are held accountable for every network and server fuckup on the entire internet, as well as the general faults of an aging physical network that spans a giant continent.