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Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

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Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#191
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Verizon Network is Crowded Right Now." http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/netfli...

That seems like a very fair and accurate claim. They should've done it to Comcast, too, before they paid up, and when they did this to them: http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious...

They did for ATT atleast: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7854446

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: rewritten because I misunderstood your point. Funny, I actually just added an edit to my post above that discusses this. Comcast adds interconnect capacity as needed. So in at least one way, it's actually easier this way, right? Just one peer to make sure they have capacity for. But either way, it's Comcast's job to run a network that's optimized for its customers needs, not some abstract concept of fairness. A…

I am not talking about imbalance in U/D, but rather imbalance in destination (or source). If tremendous amounts of traffic is going to or from just a small handful of nodes, you need tremendous routers & pipes going to those nodes.

Oops, my bad. Rewrote my response.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#193

Someone please clarify my doubts. When I run a server, I have to pay for bandwidth costs. For eg. My website hosted on linode gets me 20TB of data transfer limit. I expect end users to be able to view content worth 20 tb of up/down data transfer. Netflix runs its own servers but the ISP providing connectivity must be already charging Netflix for a certain bandwidth and data transfer limit. If the ISP is charging for…

Netflix has their own ISP. Netflix's ISP and Verizon pay eachother nothing to exchange traffic (called peering). Verizon wakes up one day and says, "Shit out of all the ISPs we peer with, Netflix and their ISP is responsible for 35% of our traffic, we have to do huge upgrades on the link to them, and they aren't paying us a dime" That's my understanding of what is going on.

Does Netflix's ISP pay anything to anyone? If no why does linode make me pay for data transfer?

Thanks for replying (Linode is just an example)

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If Netflix is 35% of global internet traffic at peak capacity (as per the Akamai CEO's comments at a number of events), is it really fair to treat them like every other company? I don't see why not. I think it might make more sense to think of it as streaming video, the category of goods, rather than Netflix, the company. So 35% of global internet traffic is people streaming videos. And who cares that it's video; fr…

What if Comcast's network is built around the idea that traffic is exchanged relatively equally? They put in gigabit switches everywhere, a nice fair balanced network. Then Netflix comes along, and suddenly 35% of Comcast's customer traffic is all going to a handful of Netflix DSNs? Suddenly Comcast has to redo the whole connection. They have to buy top-shelf hardware just for Netflix. I don't know if this has happen…

Asymmetrical peering has been the rule since the 90s. Think of it as fan-in and fan-out, each of which has different dimensions.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excellent question. Anything that doesn't have a natural monopoly. I can say with certainty that the following should be socialized or delivered in non-profit ways: * Water * Sewer * Power * Internet * Healthcare * Fire * Police * Roads * Education (added per /u/CodeMage) Feel free to chime in if you can add anything I forgot.

I'd just like to point out that Adam Smith himself (the "Carl Marx of Capitalism") agrees with you for fire, police, and roads at the very least (I haven't read everything he wrote). If he were born today rather than in 1723 I suspect his list would look very much like yours.

I will take that as a compliment! Thank you!

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#196
post #46

Awesome response to the C&D, via spokesman Jonathan Friedland: "This is about consumers not getting what they paid for from their broadband provider. We are trying to provide more transparency, just like we do with the ISP Speed Index, and Verizon is trying to shut down that discussion."

Playing Devil's advocate here for a second: If Netflix is 35% of global internet traffic at peak capacity (as per the Akamai CEO's comments at a number of events), is it really fair to treat them like every other company? That is to say, if Netflix is really the sole driver of Network upgrades, why does Verizon have to subsidize their costs of business? I'm not taking the stance that this is correct, only querying as…

I'm more concerned about the fact that everyone seems to give priority to speedtest traffic, then abruptly chokes streaming HD.

I'd really like Netflix to offer their own speedtest site that looks to the network almost exactly like streaming video, so the ISPs couldn't game the measurements.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, same here. I was watching a movie on Roku/Netflix 6 weeks or so ago. Quality was 2* (out of 4, meaning OK, but visible encoding artifacts now and again) and yet it still fell back to the buffering screen 8 times in 30 minutes. I got fed up and rented the same movie on Amazon (still on Roku) and watched it in HD without a single instance of buffering. After it was done I switched back to Netflix and tried to wat…

That's funny. I'm using a Roku as well and had pretty much the same experience except I rented a movie from M-Go. Of note, I'm paying for "Quantum" speeds 75/35.

Yeah, likewise. On speedtest.net I'm 57 down, 38 up.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#198
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... Your wireless network service is best effort. This is why your service provider doesn't have to compensate you for dropped calls or dropped packets or towers with insufficient capacity. The word "promise" is not an accurate reading of the legal concepts at play in bandwidth purchase. Dedicated bandwidth for consumers is expensive and completely unavailable on cellular networks. Verizon also doesn't have to let iP…

> Your wireless network service is best effort. Wouldn't intentionally throttling and/or not keeping up your capacity intentionally be a violation of this "best effort" doctrine? Not arguing, honest question.

To the best of my knowledge, Net Neutrality doesn't apply to wireless networks.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if Comcast's network is built around the idea that traffic is exchanged relatively equally? They put in gigabit switches everywhere, a nice fair balanced network. Then Netflix comes along, and suddenly 35% of Comcast's customer traffic is all going to a handful of Netflix DSNs? Suddenly Comcast has to redo the whole connection. They have to buy top-shelf hardware just for Netflix. I don't know if this has happen…

Note: It is definitely not built under that premise, hence why your consumer bandwidth is asymmetrical... The Tier 1 always wants to ask for more bits than a lower tier operator. If a lower tier operator asks for more bits and tilts the traffic balance, things get interesting. Cogent is not a tier 1 but slings 35% of the internet around at will. It does cost a lot of money to route Netflix's bits and the narrative is…

If Netflix closed its doors today, presumably Amazon Prime and Hulu would pick up the slack. The problem is not Netflix providing content; the problem is users consuming it. Users want better service than the ISPs are inclined to provide.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#200
post #21

It's frustrating that Verizon and friends can make grandiose statements in their advertising about "unlimited bandwidth", "faster wifi" ,"stream 5 things at a time", etc, etc. Or lie to customers, My mother just called Comcast to downgrade her service and the CS Rep said "WiFi won't work with our Economy Plus internet plan" Yet when another entity does something as simple as showing an error message that casts them i…

What do they mean WiFi won't work? How is that anything other than a blatant lie? Reminds me of the late 90's when my ISP told me I couldn't get cable Internet because I didn't have a 486. I lied and told them I did to have the modem sent to me to hook up myself. It's a computer network, once it's in my house I can expose it as I like.

At the earlier 2000's my ISP sent a "drivers" with malware that would disable brigding and NATing at the OS.

But, of course, it only run on Windows, and I was lying telling that I had Windows, as every ISP would refuse to serve somebody that uses Linux...

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