81–90 of 180 posts
That doesn't seem right to me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your issue is here: "Doesn't Level 3 buy a contract from Comcast that says "we get to send this much data per month"? If Netflix (or Level 3) tries to push more data through that, which causes congestion, it seems like a contractual fact that Comcast is either holding up their end of the bargain or not." Level 3 doesn't buy the connection from Comcast. Comcast buys a connection from Level 3. Comcast needs to…
Thanks a lot for your response (and to the others who responded as well, appreciate it!). What you're saying makes sense, but just to play devils advocate... Disclaimer: The blog I'm about to post was linked from Comcast's blog. They claim he is independent, I know nothing about him. "Netflix could use multiple providers to connect to ISPs and could also use third party CDNs like Akamai, EdgeCast and Limelight, who a…
Summary of situation Comcast cripples customers internet services to extort money from companies connecting Comcast to the internet for free.
It's completely crazy and just blatant extortion on Comcast's part. The current system is pretty straight forward. Level 3: Server(Who Level 3 Charges) -> Level 3 -> Comcast -> End User Comcast: End User(Who Comcast Charges) -> Comcast -> Level 3 -> Server Now Comcast wants to charge everyone in the chain that isn't them. They are attempting to do this by degrading (or at the very least not upgrading) their services…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks a lot for your response (and to the others who responded as well, appreciate it!). What you're saying makes sense, but just to play devils advocate... Disclaimer: The blog I'm about to post was linked from Comcast's blog. They claim he is independent, I know nothing about him. "Netflix could use multiple providers to connect to ISPs and could also use third party CDNs like Akamai, EdgeCast and Limelight, who a…
Couple of points: Comcast isn't buying bandwidth from Level 3. "Settlement-free peering" means no money is exchanged. The reason they don't charge each other is because it is mutually beneficial; Comcast gets to charge it's customers for access to content that passes through Level 3 and Level 3 gets to charge it's customers for access to the Comcast subscribers. The problem is that there is only a market solution for…
Everyone except Comcast.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The big trouble is that we need settlement-free peering, or we'll have a very different sort of internet, or maybe none at all. Though it's hard for some to remember (or to believe), there were big consumer networks prior to the advent of consumer-oriented Internet. Compuserve and AOL were their own networks. And they were abysmal. Peering not only ruined that business model, it managed to co-opt those networks and a…
You could have a situation where the government mandates net neutrality and at the same time compensates the likes of Comcast in some way (recognising their role as public utility and basically sanctioning their monopoly, but without taking over their operations entirely). You could have an anti-monopolistic legal action that splits Comcast but prevents Level3 from taking over / being present in that market. Etc etc.…
Serious question, how would one find the exact sum with which Comcast should be compensated in the absence of a functional market?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your issue is here: "Doesn't Level 3 buy a contract from Comcast that says "we get to send this much data per month"? If Netflix (or Level 3) tries to push more data through that, which causes congestion, it seems like a contractual fact that Comcast is either holding up their end of the bargain or not." Level 3 doesn't buy the connection from Comcast. Comcast buys a connection from Level 3. Comcast needs to…
You cannot pull anything from the Internet. Merely request that someone sends data to you. EDIT: I understand it's an emotional issue but it's true. You can only send packets and hope others will talk to you.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think your issue is here: "Doesn't Level 3 buy a contract from Comcast that says "we get to send this much data per month"? If Netflix (or Level 3) tries to push more data through that, which causes congestion, it seems like a contractual fact that Comcast is either holding up their end of the bargain or not." Level 3 doesn't buy the connection from Comcast. Comcast buys a connection from Level 3. Comcast needs to…
Thanks a lot for your response (and to the others who responded as well, appreciate it!). What you're saying makes sense, but just to play devils advocate... Disclaimer: The blog I'm about to post was linked from Comcast's blog. They claim he is independent, I know nothing about him. "Netflix could use multiple providers to connect to ISPs and could also use third party CDNs like Akamai, EdgeCast and Limelight, who a…
Comcast's monopoly status is greatly impacting their negotiating position, and is core to this issue.
I mean, I'm trying to get a deal worked out with Netflix where they send me some information. For various technical reasons, this deal needs to go through a couple middlemen. Literally the only middleman I can hire is refusing to work out a deal with them that doesn't give an unusual benefit to that middleman (while Netflix's middleman is offering the standard package), and is screwing me in the process. I'd take literally any other middleman if I could, but this particular middleman has political connections, and stops that from being possible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yet somehow we manage to spend trillions of dollars on streets, sewers and other infrastructure
Those things are built with public money, not private money, which introduces problems of its own. Once you start using public money to build infrastructure, politics determines the level of spending rather than actual demand. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that we have $3.6 trillion in delayed maintenance and underinvestment of our core infrastructure (water, sewers, bridges, power lines, etc): ht…
Historic and present demand are terrible ways of predicting future demand when it comes to technology. Most people don't know what they want because they're living in yesterday, but wait five years when they see what their early adopter neighbors are doing, then suddenly everybody would be happy with gigabit service, and who needs to upgrade to 10GbE anyway?
You could easily have said that nobody would want more than 128kb/s ISDN, because nobody does anything more intensive than download music, check e-mail, and watch flash animations. Faster speeds made newer services, services that are used by very ordinary people (like Netflix, Hangouts, Skype) possible.