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

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#251

Post by barrynolan » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 10:58 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…

Quick question. When you signed up to your say 20meg broadband contract, did the contract exclude certain services - YouTube, amazon Prime, Netflix?

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#252

Post by FollowSteph3 » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 10:58 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…

What about fedex or ups? The customer is paying for x bandwidth and not getting it.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#253

Post by noonespecial » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 11:00 PM UTC

Two ugly chickens are coming home to roost here.

1) ISP's insisted on selling home bandwidth as functionally unlimited. They did this primarily so they would only have to offer expensive plans. Grandma can't get the 300meg email plan for $8, only the $80 plan. And then everybody tried to use it like it really was unlimited.

2) DRM. Drm makes it so that the net can't cache. 90% of netfilx bandwidth is likely the same 10% of videos. They all have to make the full trip through the wires. A local cache at the ISP to improve efficiency is impossible.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#254

Post by drusenko » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 11:00 PM UTC

randomfool wrote: post #173

drusenko wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If Netflix is paying Level3 enough to send the data to users, but Verizon is not paying Level3 enough to get the data on behalf of their users then it sounds like Verizon's fault. Peering agreements should be about saving costs on both sides, but if Netflix is willing to pay Level3 for sufficient bandwidth then Verizon should have the ability to handle that for their users.

Verizon doesn't pay Level3 for the traffic, the person sending the traffic always pays, unless there is a peering agreement.

That's how it's always worked. These fights and skirmishes over peering agreements happen often. That's the reality of how things have always been up until today, it's not a change in the status quo.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#255

Post by snorrah » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 11:05 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #253

Two ugly chickens are coming home to roost here. 1) ISP's insisted on selling home bandwidth as functionally unlimited. They did this primarily so they would only have to offer expensive plans. Grandma can't get the 300meg email plan for $8, only the $80 plan. And then everybody tried to use it like it really was unlimited. 2) DRM. Drm makes it so that the net can't cache. 90% of netfilx bandwidth is likely the same…

Regarding 2): Don't Netflix provide content servers / boxes / network devices that ISP's can put in the ISP's own data centres to help with exactly this issue?

https://www.netflix.com/openconnect

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#256

Post by ColinDabritz » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 11:06 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…

Thank you for the position, this comes up regularly, and I love seeing it discussed and dismissed.

It's not that Netflix is 35% of global internet traffic. 100% of my ISPs "global bandwidth" should be content of the end users choosing (usually requests). The user is paying for the right to request this content, and have it delivered. Wether its Netflix, gaming, news, poltiics or Zombo.com doesn't enter into it. At 35% though, it might make sense for Netflix to enter the ISP business.

This framing is a tool that ISPs and their supporters use to excuse charging twice for the same service, and more importantly, controlling users access to content through discrimination.

Thanks again for the writing prompt though.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#257

Post by rodgerd » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 11:07 PM UTC

jeremycole wrote: post #249

There is an easy and practical solution to this whole problem: If Verizon doesn't like the amount of bandwidth their customers use watching Netflix, they can always choose to block Netflix completely on their network, and inform their customers that they've done so. It would be honest, clean, fair, etc. Customers would be paying for exactly what they are getting, everyone could be happy with the arrangement. Of cours…

Perhaps I've misunderstood the situation in the US, but isn't the problem that Verizon are a de-facto monopoly in many markets? If customers can't say "screw you" then all Verizon need to do is avoid getting hammered by the DOJ anti-trust department.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#258

Post by dlgeek » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 11:13 PM UTC

I feel like Verizon's treading VERY dangerous waters here. If they sue Netflix for libel over this, then they're going to have to go through discovery. Since the claims center around network congestion, that means it'd be fair game for Netflix to go after every scrap of paper they have about the state of their internal network, oversubscription strategies, data about advertised vs. actual customer performance, any history of traffic shaping, and they'd be able to depose employees about all of these things.

As much as I'd love to see all of that information come to light in a court battle, somehow, I don't think Verizon would...

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#259

Post by wpietri » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 11:16 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…

Does the devil need any help? Does Verizon's PR department? You might ask yourself why you feel obliged to take the side of an enormously wealthy oligopoly.

But to answer your question: I am already paying my ISP to deliver all packets I request to me, up to certain limits that my ISP agreed to when they started my service. If my ISP is failing to live up to that bargain, I'd like to know.

Also, the "poor Verizon, helpless in the hands of Wall Street" thing verges on obscene. That they are in a position to shake down people for more money does not justify them doing so. If they don't want to be in the ISP business, they can get out of it. They are also welcome to find new ways to create value. But running a protection racket is not in any way morally defensible.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#260

Post by fekberg » Thu, Jun 05, 2014, 11:16 PM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #178

anoncow wrote: post #135

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.

The traffic exchange would only occur once a customer routing data over a Verizon network uses Netflix, no? Meaning that the 35% of the Verizon network usage that Netflix uses, is due to customers actually using the connection they pay for, no?

As an ISP, I think if you are offering 100Mbps unlimited in/out, you should Expect full thrust from every connection, or at least be capable of delivering that. I know it's not really realistic, they need to assume that some people, sometimes are disconnected but if I am paying for a connection and a certain level of throughput, I expect to get that.

Just my point of view, correct me if my assumptions are incorrect!