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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?

#171

Post by CocaKoala »

diminoten wrote: post #163
CocaKoala wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm confused; in one post you're pointing out that I'm getting a month of 720p video instead of 1080p, but now you're saying that I'm not suffering. If my quality of service is being degraded, is that not suffering in the context of this issue? I'm paying for service and yet not getting it. So clearly there IS an issue, because connections are suffering. Are you telling me that ports between L3 and various IS…

First of all, L3 doesn't actually provide Netflix content, I don't think, so your video stream is unaffected entirely by L3's agreements with any ISP. Second of all, you have no SLA with your ISP, so your quality of service is, "best effort". If you want an SLA, you have to pay, otherwise you're going to get the best that the ISP can give you, which means some degraded performance. That's what you've paid for. If you…

I've read both the blog post and the linked article. Can you provide specific quotes for the claims? Because the only thing that came close which I saw in either the post or the link was a graph of a different connection which isn't fully saturated, but has very little head room, certainly not enough to handle the spillage that L3 is dealing with. There's a mention of capacity upgrades in the works for that connection, but no specific numbers; it's not clear that the upgraded connection will be large enough to take on the lost packets from L3. And I didn't see anything in there about L3 pushing other providers out of the way.

So like I said; can you provide sources for those claims? Because you also thought the bakery analogy was a good idea, so I'd like to read your primary sources instead of trying to explain myself to you further.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#172

Post by freehunter »

dfc wrote: post #112
[deleted] wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> This is asymetrical warfare. When I got to that sentence I thought "Really, a war comparison?". I couldn't figure out where you were going to go with the comparison but I thought I would play along. After reading your comment a couple of times I still can't figure out what the connection is to asymmetric warfare. Who are the belligerents and the casus belli? How is this different from traditional "telecom warfare"?…

Really? It's an off-the-cuff remark to describe a fight that's slowly playing out. It's a pretty common phrase.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#173

Post by msandford »

danielweber wrote: post #119
mattmcknight wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We probably need pricing more directly based on bandwidth consumed, maybe with peak hour pricing, as opposed to just based on "speed" with high bandwidth caps.

Like the water or electric company, users should pay according to usage. As you say, this isn't on total bits pushed through, because the marginal costs of sending bits at 3am is nil. So the "usage" is based on the continued need to build out more equipment. Usage at peak hours, as you say. I'm concerned that the ISPs will simply charge "big users" and pocket the extra fees, with "big users" moving from 1-in-a-thousa…

I'm willing to pay for usage, sure. And I'll pay for the physical plant to my house too. BUT (and this is a big but) I'm only willing to do so at reasonable prices.

You want me to pay for the physical plant? OK I can deal. The phone company can provide me with a pair of wires from my house to their POP for about $15. I might pay $20 since coax is different than UTP, but that's about it.

You want me to pay per bit? Great! Bill me at wholesale network rates. You don't want to do that? Sorry, fuck off. I'm already paying for the last-mile transport with the physical plant charges.

https://josephscott.org/archives/2009/01/how-much-does-one-t...

Here I can buy RETAIL 2TB of bandwidth for $120 WITH A SERVER INCLUDED. I imagine that the wholesale is slightly (or much, much) cheaper than that. But let's just go with it. At that kind of pricing I can get 1TB for $60, 500GB for $30 and 250GB (the caps Comcast is talking about) for $15. If I need another 50GB (their incremental unit of charge for "overage") I should be able to get that for $3, not the $10 that they're charging.

http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-u...

Now I think that a lot of the cost of that server is the actual machine, the building, the air conditioning, etc. So maybe you should cut all those numbers in half again meaning that 50GB should cost me about $1.50 and 1TB costs more like $30. This is of course assuming you're not involved in a PEERING AGREEMENT which as Comcast you are.

What about Comcast's costs for termination equipment I hear you say. Okay let's talk about that. I bought my own cable modem so they're not paying for that. They have to have another one on their side, sure. Assuming that it's the same price as mine (it's almost certainly cheaper) that's $100 or less. Considering that DOCSIS standards are usually a few years apart $100 / 4 years = $2 per month. That's not too bad.

And what about the back-haul from their POP to the peering point? There's a cost associated with that right? Yup, that's what I'm paying for when I buy Internet access from an ISP since they're not paying for the peering agreement.

Adding all this up: $20 (for the plant) + $15 (for the wholesale bandwidth 500GB ) + $2 (for the termination equipment ) = $37 per month with each additional 50GB costing an extra $3

This seems reasonable to me and I would happily pay it, so long as the wholesale price continues track the market. But with Comcast right now I'm paying more like $65 rather than $37.

For reference 500GB/mo (if it's 100% evenly distributed) is about 5Mbps. If you figure it's a bit bursty, say 50% on and 50% off that's 10Mbps. If it's 75/25 then it's 20Mbps. 88/12 brings it up to 40Mbps. So these are reasonable numbers to expect given the service I've signed up for is advertised the way it is.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#174

Post by neeravkumar »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #97

There is an interesting unbalance because Comcast has so much leverage by owning the last mile, they can push around Tier 1 providers. I'd like to fix that, mostly by creating a public policy around municipally owned Layer 1 infrastructure between customers in their cities and a city exchange building. Conceptually it would be no different than the city owning the sewers and outsourcing the water treatment plant to a…

So, like Singapore? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axia_NetMedia#Singapore_-_SingT...

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#175

Post by zokier »

exelius wrote: post #159
ChuckMcM wrote: post #97

There is an interesting unbalance because Comcast has so much leverage by owning the last mile, they can push around Tier 1 providers. I'd like to fix that, mostly by creating a public policy around municipally owned Layer 1 infrastructure between customers in their cities and a city exchange building. Conceptually it would be no different than the city owning the sewers and outsourcing the water treatment plant to a…

This is how it should probably be done if we were starting from scratch. A system like the one you describe would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300-500 billion; which isn't completely insane as far as national infrastructure projects go. The problem is that we're not starting from scratch. It's a lot harder for the government to justify that expense when there are a number of viable privately-owned alternati…

> The problem is that we're not starting from scratch

But actually we did have an opportunity to reboot last-mile networks from scratch, because FTTx is essentially all-new network.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#176

Post by fragsworth »

The proposed solution is at the bottom of the article (which is why everyone seems to have ignored it):

> The solution to this problem is simple: peering at the original NSFnet exchange points should be forever free and if one participant starts to consistently clip data and doesn’t do anything about it, they should be thrown out of the exchange point.

I do have a couple questions though - who is in charge of the original NSFnet exchange points, and do they have this authority?

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#177

Post by diminoten »

burke wrote: post #78
droopybuns wrote: post #50

So on the one side is the fat-cat ISP who doesn't want to make expensive capital investments ih their transport. And on the other side is the fat-cat vc funded video content providers, who don't want to pay for the their mp4-based saturation of all the pipes. This is a negotiation. There are two active media campaigns that are trying to gin up our anger against The Other Guy (tm) as part of their negotiations. I just…

I find it a bit offensive that this can be accurately viewed as a negotiation. This is like demanding the supermarket buy your grocery delivery business a larger van when the toilet paper manufacturer starts selling larger packs. It's arrogant, and violates the proper division of responsibilities. It only might work because of local monopolies. Netflix is already paying for traffic to Level3. ISPs need to upgrade the…

L3 isn't the only content provider, and the 5 UNNAMED ISPs (Comcast isn't necessarily the culprit here) can still provide content to their customers. Netflix is free to hire one of the many CDNs which do play ball with these ISPs.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#178

Post by diminoten »

CocaKoala wrote: post #171
diminoten wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, L3 doesn't actually provide Netflix content, I don't think, so your video stream is unaffected entirely by L3's agreements with any ISP. Second of all, you have no SLA with your ISP, so your quality of service is, "best effort". If you want an SLA, you have to pay, otherwise you're going to get the best that the ISP can give you, which means some degraded performance. That's what you've paid for. If you…

I've read both the blog post and the linked article. Can you provide specific quotes for the claims? Because the only thing that came close which I saw in either the post or the link was a graph of a different connection which isn't fully saturated, but has very little head room, certainly not enough to handle the spillage that L3 is dealing with. There's a mention of capacity upgrades in the works for that connectio…

This isn't the forum. Email me (provided in my profile) if you'd like to continue this discussion.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#179

Post by jamesbrownuhh »

The UK experience is, broadly speaking, that any ISP who is sufficiently tall to have the appropriate interconnects can offer a service to a customer via the incumbent's last-mile infrastructure. (This is for telephone-based ADSL broadband - the UK's only cable operator is not bound by this.) But, furthermore, competitor ISPs are enabled to install their own equipment and backhaul directly into local exchanges, known as LLU - local loop unbundling. LLU allows competitor companies to provide just your broadband, or your voice telephone service, or both.

There is one further step, whereby the prices of the incumbent monopoly are regulated in areas where no competition exists. Ironically this works in the opposite way to how you'd think, as it forces the incumbent NOT to offer their lowest prices in that market - the intention being to make monopoly areas prime targets for competition and to ensure that potential competitors aren't scared out of the area by predatory pricing.

It's an odd system with good and bad on both sides, but it seems a lot better than being stuck with a single source of Internet access.

Re: Level3 is without peer, now what to do?

#180

Post by [deleted] »

yuliyp wrote: post #67
[deleted] wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Talking about symmetric links only makes sense when you think about backbone providers. When you're talking about residential ISPs, their traffic is by default asymmetric (residential customers consume bits and request much smaller numbers of bits), but that doesn't mean the value is gained only by the person sending the bits, it's also gained by the person receiving the bits. This doesn't actually make any sense. Le…

[deleted]
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