Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#221

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 9:56 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #170

sliverstorm wrote: post #155

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…

Netflix is demanding huge network upgrades without any additional revenue source.

I think a lot of us would have more sympathy with the ISPs' situation if they hadn't consistently and for a very long time been promoting their services as ever more valuable by offering ever higher bandwidth, yet keeping quiet about little things like massive over-subscription and high contention ratios that meant if all their users actually tried to use the service that was purportedly being offered then no-one would get anywhere near the advertised speeds they were paying for.

With the rise of things like streaming video services and Internet telephony, some people are actually trying to pull significant volumes of data down the pipes relative to the advertised size of pipe available. Everyone's known this was coming for a long time, and no-one more so than the ISPs. The way I see it, if the current situation hurts ISPs that failed to invest or set a realistic pricing model, they'll just have to take their medicine and offer a more realistic deal to customers next time (or fail because they can't compete effectively).

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#222

Post by curveship » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 9:57 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #54

Arjuna wrote: 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've seen this argument about Netflix's oversized traffic slice, but it always seems to me like it should mean the opposite: if Netflix is 35% of the reason people sign up for broadband, isn't Netflix making broadband more valuable? People are willing to pay more for broadband because Netflix makes it worth more to them. So shouldn't the broadband providers be paying Netflix rather than the other way around? You never hear the cable TV providers complaining that a particular channel has gotten too popular. What's different here?

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#223

Post by criley2 » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 9:57 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #54

Arjuna wrote: 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…

"why does Verizon have to subsidize their costs of business?"

Because I, a Verizon customer, have paid to access Netflix.

I pay monthly for bandwidth to use as I see fit. It doesn't matter if all of the customers are using their bandwidth to go to one source. It doesn't matter: it's our bandwidth to use how we see fit.

It is Verizon's responsibility to provide us with the service that we are paying for. They advertise a service, they market this service, and they charge us for the service: but then fail to deliver on their promises because they're charging someone else too?

They sell us capped packages and tell us we have a set amount of data. We cannot exceed the data, because the infrastructure can't take it and we have to pay for our usage. We have to pay for our demand, that's the point of caps. Make the users pay for using.

That to me implies that we are paying for a set amount of data! That we are paying for it, not anyone else.

We pay for the upgrades that are necessary to deliver data to our homes. That is the point of a subscription.

This is like saying: all of the telephone customers are calling Pizza Hut, so Pizza Hut needs to pay the phone company to upgrade the switches at the Phone Company. What???

We've already paid for the infrastructure required to deliver the data we're paying for.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#224

Post by arjunnarayan » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 9:57 PM UTC

notdonspaulding wrote: post #210

toomuchtodo wrote: post #120

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.

Education, Police, Fire, Healthcare do not have natural monopolies. Still a good list to have around so we can argue about where the line should be drawn. Kudos!

Education doesn't, but police and fire definitely do: police because beat cops reduce crime for everyone, so they're a natural monopoly. Fire as well, since stopping houses burning down helps stop the entire neighborhood (especially when you have close-together row houses) burning down.

Healthcare is arguably a public good, at least as far as vaccinations and contagious diseases go, since herd immunity is a large way to fight them (especially for contagious diseases for which we have 80%-90% effective vaccines). Not so sure about other illnesses (like cancer) though. I'm personally for socialized medicine for other reasons (humanitarian), but I agree that the natural monopoly argument is not applicable there.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#225

Post by hueving » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 9:58 PM UTC

jwdunne wrote: post #74

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do they mean WiFi won't work? How is that anything other than a blatant lie? They probably mean the WiFi built into the cable modem.

Yes, whenever I miss the payment on my TalkTalk bill, the whole local network goes down, not just Internet access. I've been meaning to get a cheapo router to remedy. People just don't know that you can have wifi for free, especially when you've got adverts from O2 and such that 2gb 3G and " unlimited wifi". I dunno if it's the same in the US but apparently it's some typically restricted resource that many providers…

>I dunno if it's the same in the US but apparently it's some typically restricted resource that many providers in the UK are lifting the limits off.

No, this isn't too typical. Most people have their own router offering WiFi in front of the cable modem. It wasn't until recently that cable companies started bundling wi-fi and NAT into the modem.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#226

Post by netcan » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 9:58 PM UTC

drusenko wrote: post #131

josh2600 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're not as far off as you think. It seems very few commenters to this thread understand how the internet actually operates from a business perspective. When you install a server in a colo, you don't get free transit. You find a transit provider (like Level3, Cogent, or NTT) and you pay them for bandwidth. You can understand this very intuitively as most hosting services (like AWS) will charge you for bandwidth. As…

It's probably both. Having an incentive and an ideological position that align doesn't automatically invalidate the ideological position. I don't think that the net neutrality position is nonsensical, personally so I'm glad to have companies with an interest in it champion it.

I also think that there these peerage agreement create an untruthful dynamic with their customers, the point about transparency is valid. People think they are buying "internet" access at a certain speed, not different speeds for different sites. If Verizon thinks it's OK for the speed of their customers' connection to be dependant upon "interconnect agreements" or whatever, then letting their customers know about this isn't defamation. If they do have a problem with their customers knowing, then maybe they should be making sure their customers get what they expect (or expect what they get).

In any case, I don't see how this is foul play on Netflix' part. As long as the message they display is true, why should't they be able to display it? Even if the message openly advised their customers to switch away from Verizon, I don't see a foul.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#227

Post by drawkbox » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 10:01 PM UTC

josh2600 wrote: post #54

Arjuna wrote: 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…

Netflix is not using the capacity, they are selling access to the content. The customers are using 35% of the traffic. The customers who pay for access to content they want. Most people want Netflix because it is a sea/wonderland of content and is replacing tv. Netflix is not consuming the content, they are providing it, the customers, who pay for the access, are consuming the content and bandwidth.

Content services should not be harmed for being successful. If the bandwidth customers are desiring certain content providers it is the bandwidth providers responsibility to make sure it is available and fast, per their marketing and products.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#228

Post by Tossrock » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 10:06 PM UTC

arjunnarayan wrote: post #224

notdonspaulding wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education, Police, Fire, Healthcare do not have natural monopolies. Still a good list to have around so we can argue about where the line should be drawn. Kudos!

Education doesn't, but police and fire definitely do: police because beat cops reduce crime for everyone, so they're a natural monopoly. Fire as well, since stopping houses burning down helps stop the entire neighborhood (especially when you have close-together row houses) burning down. Healthcare is arguably a public good, at least as far as vaccinations and contagious diseases go, since herd immunity is a large way…

A natural monopoly doesn't mean it provides a public good, it means that a single entity can provide the service more efficiently than multiple competing entities.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#229

Post by ep103 » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 10:06 PM UTC

pwg wrote: post #71

addflip wrote: post #37

Verizon fios customer here. There has been a noticeable drop in the quality of streams in the past couple of months. The picture went from excellent > barely functional(after the FCC ruling) > watchable(after the peering agreement) still not great. Kudos to Netflix.

Verizon FIOS customer here (with a "business" link, I wanted a static IP, which is not offered with "residential"). I've seen no change in download/upload performance myself. So I suspect they prioritize the "business class" customers above the "residential" customers. [EDIT]: fix a spelling typo.

I've read elsewhere that business class internet connections are regulated by a different set of law than last mile residential connections.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#230

Post by corobo » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 10:10 PM UTC

saganus wrote: post #211

sliverstorm wrote: post #155

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…

But then doesn't that mean that it's also easier to put a cache in front of those overused switches and solve the problem much more easily? I guess the core issue here is that, from a customer's point of view, the ISP is selling me inet access, regardless of where the data actually goes, so it is the ISP's responsibility to keep their end of the bargain (to provide inet access). As a customer I should not care how is…

Netflix even makes it relatively easy to do this as an ISP too

https://www.netflix.com/openconnect