Observations of an Internet Middleman • Hacker News Board

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#161

Post by sergiosgc » Tue, May 06, 2014, 2:59 PM UTC

DontGiveTwoFlux wrote: post #151

sergiosgc wrote: post #143

If this is a game of chicken, Level 3 and Cogent should play it to the end game. They are powerful enough to get Comcast and the other ISPs to concede. Just null route any interconnect that consistently drops packets and fails to get negotiated for an upgrade. The catch? It must be done by both L3 and Cogent. Comcast is playing the monopoly card against what is an oligopoly of backbone providers. Comcast isn't strate…

Except that it would probably violate their contracts to just stop services at an interconnect. It's not like Level 3 is losing customers or money from the congested interconnects. Their incentive to play hardball just isn't there.

If it violates their contract, doesn't a soft fail violate it also? Or will violate, whenever the rate of dropped packets goes above a given threshold. I view the hard fail as just speeding up the interconnect failure, with the positive effect of prompting action from the last mile ISP.

Whenever their performance drops towards part of the internet, their value proposition gets lower. You can view the value chain as

  (residential customer)  Comcast  Level 3  (hosting customer)

Both Comcast and Level 3 have customers, in opposite ends of the currently centralized internet. The status quo is that each provider charges to the customers on their end. Comcast (and each of the other non-net-neutral ISPs) are eyeing the revenue stream on the other end of the pipeline. This revenue stream has historically not been owned by the last-mile ISP.

Level 3 and equivalents, by cutting off non-performant interconnects will hurt their own customers, of course. However, they are just speeding up the same effect being applied softly over time, by Comcast and equivalents. A softly failing interconnect moves revenue over to last mile ISPs, thus permanently lowering Level 3's value proposition. By failing the interconnect sharply, instead of softly, they actually improve the steady state of the system, in general (good side effect), and in particular (the real objective).

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#162

Post by harryh » Tue, May 06, 2014, 3:20 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #127

rayiner wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 affor…

> 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. Isn't that basically what caust1c said? It looks like the two of you are in violent agreement. :-)

No.

Lobbying is when big companies spend a lot of $ to try to get their way.

The dysfunctional municipal politics rayiner refers to is when politicians pander to various groups of voters to get votes.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#163

Post by aidenn0 » Tue, May 06, 2014, 3:21 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #119

caust1c wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 affor…

It's simple to get AT&T, Verizon, etc. to at least promise to build fiber; start a plan to deploy municipal fiber (if that's even legal in your jurisdiction). Any time that happens fiber is "Just a year or two away, so this network isn't needed!"

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#164

Post by pyvpx » Tue, May 06, 2014, 3:52 PM UTC

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.

yeah, I too thought the EU was the land of (regulation) milk and honey yet in Germany you have Deutsche Telekom and those that resell Deutsche Telekom with non-performance related value adds.

funny how the blau.de "3.5G" connection is wildly faster and less latent than the cable modem connection. actually it's kinda sad: 5GB for €10/month?

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#165

Post by pdonis » Tue, May 06, 2014, 3:53 PM UTC

mixologic wrote: post #158

pdonis wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comcast doesnt have a direct connection to netflix They do now that a deal has been worked out: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/23...

All of their customers will still have to go through middlemen. Thats how the internet functions.

> All of their customers will still have to go through middlemen.

Not if they're watching Netflix. As I read the deal, Comcast and Netflix will be directly connected, so if you're a Comcast customer watching Netflix, your packets only traverse Comcast's and Netflix's networks; no third parties are involved.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#166

Post by pdonis » Tue, May 06, 2014, 3:55 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #140

pdonis wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google is more profitable than Comcast and TWV combined Reference, please? When I look up the financials, Google's quarterly gross profits are running about $9B, and Comcast's about $11B.

> gross profits You said it right there. Look further down the financials. Comcast net income is $1.8B, Google is $3.4B. Time Warner Cable (I assume that's what's meant by TMV, although their ticker is TWC) is $0.4B. Look for net income: https://www.google.com/finance?fstype=ii&q=NASDAQ:GOOG https://www.google.com/finance?fstype=ii&q=NASDAQ:CMCSA https://www.google.com/finance?fstype=ii&q=NYSE:TWC

But net income isn't a good comparison, because things like spending on R&D and infrastructure are subtracted before you get to it; they don't come out of net income, they come out of gross profits. So Google does not have significantly more funds available for those things than Comcast does; it has less.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#167

Post by pyvpx » Tue, May 06, 2014, 3:56 PM UTC

sergiosgc wrote: post #143

If this is a game of chicken, Level 3 and Cogent should play it to the end game. They are powerful enough to get Comcast and the other ISPs to concede. Just null route any interconnect that consistently drops packets and fails to get negotiated for an upgrade. The catch? It must be done by both L3 and Cogent. Comcast is playing the monopoly card against what is an oligopoly of backbone providers. Comcast isn't strate…

I fail to see how you find someone like Level3 or Cogent more powerful than Comcast. I'd like to understand your reasoning behind such a position. Comcast is insanely powerful: somewhat because of the eyeballs they have on their network(s) and mostly because of their regulatory/political leverage and influence.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#168

Post by pdonis » Tue, May 06, 2014, 4:00 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #134

pdonis wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not giving any indication as to whether they have even attempted to expand capacity on their side. I guess you missed this part then: "Six of those 12 have a single congested port, and we are both (Level 3 and our peer) in the process of making upgrades – this is business as usual and happens occasionally as traffic swings around the Internet as customers change providers."

Didn't miss it. And it would seem that has nothing to do with Comcast. Just read the paragraph again. They have 6 peers who are using a single 10 Gigabit Ethernet port and somehow (who'da thunk?) it is congested. So they are upgrading their one port that is degrading traffic for six peers. They're right, it is business as usual, and you do have to change ports as traffic flows change. This has nothing to do with Leve…

> They have 6 peers who are using a single 10 Gigabit Ethernet port

No, they have 6 peers who have a single congested port each. It's a different port for each peer (the article says nothing about multiple peers sharing a single port), and I can't tell from the article if the single port for each peer is the only port they have with those peers. It might be, or it might not. Whether it is or not is irrelevant to the key point, which is that these peers are cooperating with Level 3 to upgrade capacity, which is not true of the 6 peers who have had permanent congestion for over a year.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#169

Post by dublinben » Tue, May 06, 2014, 4:06 PM UTC

hibikir wrote: post #122

zipwitch wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The population density is still radically different even when you cut the vast empty spaces between cities in the west. I live in a midwestern suburb. In the land area that my house uses, you'd have 10-20 families in Madrid. Our idea of dense shopping is a two story mall, not stores under every residential area. And don't get me started with mandated parking spots in strip malls that aren't ever half full. So unless…

Population density is still a red-herring in this discussion though. Internet connections in Manhattan are worse than those in small cities in Romania, yet Manhattan is 3-12 times more dense than Timișoara and Bucharest.

Re: Observations of an Internet Middleman

#170

Post by dublinben » Tue, May 06, 2014, 4:23 PM UTC

nullc wrote: post #109

venomsnake wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torrenting provided a lot of traffic that could bring symmetry to the amounts send/received. And yet it was frowned upon.

Torrenting moves large amounts of traffic into last mile infrastructure which tends to already be congested because its very costly to upgrade. Due to using many distinct flows it also tends to not be very TCP friendly and takes a fairly unequal share of the bandwidth. And while users will give up and do something else when their interactive service becomes slow, a congested torrenting host keeps torrenting.

There doesn't seem to be any congestion on the last mile infrastructure of providers like Comcast. Their problems are all with interconnection to the real internet. It would actually be better for Comcast if their customers were getting more content from eachother over p2p networks than from external providers like Netflix.