http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/how-comcast-became-a-toll-collecting-hydra-with-a-nuke.ars/2

Pretty much since Netflix signed a CDN agreement with level 3 to host all their videos, Comcast is saying due to increased traffic to this, they want to charge for their connection to Level 3.

This is not going to be pretty, as this is going to be a major net neutrality fight I forsee. Hope you arnt on comcast as you can say goodbye to netflix and half the internet from a speed perspective until this is fixed. You can always backroute around this but its a pain in the butt to do.

12/1/2010 4:28:58 PM

my understanding of the economics of bandwidth is limited, so let me ask this

why shouldn't comcast be able to charge Level 3 more? if Level 3 is suddenly sending some multiple of its previous bandwidth due to its new contract with netflix, shouldn't they have to pay comcast for access to that bandwidth? particularly if it's standard operating procedure for Comcast to charge other companies for similar rights

12/1/2010 4:38:48 PM

yea, i read the AP article and it sounds like Comcast should be able to charge Level3 since Level3 is going beyond internet bandwidth and providing a media content delivery system for Netflix. it's common practice for other media content providers to pay ISP's to access their high bandwidth.

none-the-less, i don't like it.

[Edited on December 1, 2010 at 5:00 PM. Reason : .]

12/1/2010 4:57:43 PM

I don't like Comcast charging extra because someone wants to push streaming video across their network. They should charge for the bandwidth used and the nature of the content shouldn't matter. Data doesn't cost more to move just because it's from Netflix or youtube or <insert brand name here>.

12/1/2010 6:18:40 PM

(From my very limited understanding) Well there's a fine line. Netflix you PAY to STREAM, it's a business model centered around bandwidth. When you subscribe to Netflix streaming you are essentially paying for the right to send video data across the internet to your TV or computer, this HAS to go through your ISP. Making Comcast pay for more bandwidth from Level3... yet Level3 is essentially making money on both ends, both from Netflix & Comcast, so Comcast is stuck in the middle and don't see any benefit from business models that incorporate bandwidth as part of the service they are providing. Comcast is essentially just asking for a kickback to keep from charging subscribers more.

Surfing Youtube is not a business, surfing the web is not a business, renting and streaming movies over the internet is a business. This is part of the problem where ISP's think they OWN their subscribers and their bandwidth. When it should be subscribers pay for bandwidth and should have free reign on what they do with it. Same for businesses that are based on bandwidth, Netflix should pay for the bandwidth they use and in turn, should charge their customers for it. And not involve Level3 OR Comcast and their "gates"

[Edited on December 1, 2010 at 6:40 PM. Reason : .]

12/1/2010 6:26:31 PM

Disclaimer: I'm not an expert on anything with the exception of rooting for under-achieving college football and basketball teams based in the Raleigh-Durham area. I don't mean to step on any toes, but I thought I'd throw in my 2cents here. If you're not interested in listening to me rant, feel free to skip to the last paragraph.

Quote :

"host all their videos"

I don't agree. They intend to serve a portion of their CDN-based traffic via Level3, but I haven't heard any confirmation that they intend to serve all of their traffic via it. In fact, that would be a pretty poor business decision on their part, as I'm sure they intend to leverage their pricing with L3 against their existing providers (likely akamai and limelight).

Quote :

"major net neutrality"

This really isn't directly comparable to contemporary net neutrality issues. as we're discussing the relationship between Level3 and Comcast, not directly involving the original content provider (netflix). In addition, we're discussing the delivery of bits not the priority of this traffic relative to any other traffic comcast may be serving.

Quote :

"comcast as you can say goodbye to netflix and half the internet from a speed perspective"

. According to a few of their press releases, L3 has already conceded to comcast's terms. That said, let's hypothetically discuss what would happen if all negotiations fell through, and that comcast refused to accept any CDN traffic from L3 altogether. I do believe comcast is the largest consumer ISP in the US, and as Netflix is currently only servicing the US and Canada this would be a huge blow to their bottom line. There would be no outage for comcast customers, rest assured those bits would be served via one of netflix's other CDN providers (albeit likely at a slightly higher price per megabit for comcast).

Quote :

"why shouldn't comcast be able to charge Level 3 more"

Interesting question, but not quite the one I think should be asked. L3 serves as a global tier-1 to comcast, and as a consequence comcast is obligated to pay L3 for the majority of the bits that it sends to or receives from L3 (usually 95th percentile in the dominant direction). However in this particular case, comcast is demanding a similar relationship for the traffic originating from the L3 CDN destined to comcast users but with the direction of payment reversed.

You can (and the press generated on this issue certainly will) see this issue from a million different angles, but here's my take. The moment you view L3 as a content provider (in this case, a CDN) then this becomes a very normal stance for comcast (or any other entrenched end-user ISP to take). A very large portion of the content providers on the internet today settle for such paid-peering relationships with ISP similar to and including comcast. However, L3 is trying to wear both hats (L3 and content provider), leveraging their settlement-free or paid (in the positive direction) relationships with existing peers/customers (in this case comcast) while also charging netflix for the caching and delivery of their content at what is very likely a wholesale discount relative to CDNs that are competing for netflix and other content providers business as a consequence of the terms of their peering agreement. It quickly becomes clear that this gives L3 a competitive advantage in negotiations, and whether or not this is fair or legal is beyond my expertise, but that point certainly isn't being overlooked by comcast.

Quote :

"They should charge for the bandwidth used and the nature of the content shouldn't matter"

You have no idea how many levels I agree with you on in principle, but in reality its just not that simple. We could have a discussion about this topic for days (look for topics on nanog archives if you are honestly interested), but it will quickly digress back to the fact that your opinion doesn't matter and neither does mine. Without regulation, I see no reason to believe that it won't always be this way. It's been this way for a LONG time, and I don't see any reason for the government to intervene in this particular case over any other. The best thing you can hope for is more competition in the broadband market (and I do believe there is light at the end of this tunnel), that more content providers will vocalize and evangelize the issue to their consumers. In the end, I do think regulation can (and in many countries already is) helping to develop more competition in metro broadband markets, but to be perfectly honest, I don't think most users give a shit how money is changing hands behind the scenes (pardon the pun).

This is not doomsday, this happens on an all too regular basis in the internet community and the matters are sorted out w/o all but a few netizens and network operators even noticing. Sure, there have been a couple of exceptions in the past (google cogent depeering for a good laugh), but I don't personally believe this is any cause for alarm.

[Edited on December 2, 2010 at 4:57 AM. Reason : summary paragraph moved to end]

12/2/2010 4:56:32 AM

Quote :

"I don't like Comcast charging extra because someone wants to push streaming video across their network. They should charge for the bandwidth used and the nature of the content shouldn't matter. Data doesn't cost more to move just because it's from Netflix or youtube or <insert brand name here>. "

This is what Comcast says they are doing. They aren’t charging more because it’s Netflix.

The netflix part comes in to play because Level3 is requesting the greater access because of their deal with netflix, which means Level3 is going to be pushing way more data through than they are accepting, which is very outside the scope of their peering agreement.

This is all based on the information here: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/comcast-we-bent-over-backwards-to-help-level-3-those-bastards.ars

Also, for qntmfred and others, Ars had a great write-up on how peering works if you’ve never heard about it: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/peering-and-transit.ars

12/2/2010 9:23:45 AM

Heres the tl;dr:

Level3 and comcast have a mutually beneficial peering arrangement.

Level3 offers netflix a really sweet deal to move all of its content to Level3

Level3 oversells comcat's network 5:1. Meaning they've gone way over the original peering arangement.

Comcast says thats bullshit (which it is) so they tell Level3 to fork over the difference.

Level3 aggrees because they know they're still getting a good deal, but they feign persecution in the press to get the support of the retards in the network neutrality movement.


Level3 tried to get comcast to build out additional capacity at the expense of comcast so that Level 3 could sell that capacity to netflix. Whats even worse, is that comcast generally uses level3 to build its fiber. So not only would Level3 be getting a 5x capacity increase for free (at the expense of comcast customers) it would also make bank on getting the one time fiber build out costs.

If you want a pretty good indicator that someone is either a total moron or doesn't know anything about the internet, they're the ones defending level3 and preaching network neutrality.



This is not the first time Level3 has oversold their peering arangements with other networks. It wont be the last either. Luckily because we dont have any bullshit government regulations to come in and fuck things up, it always gets resolved properly. In this case Level3 forks over $$$ for the additional bandwidth they're using. The other thing that could have happened is comcast either refushed the capacity upgrade and/or de-peered level3. Thats alot harsher but it wouldn't be the first time its happened to Level3.



[Edited on December 2, 2010 at 9:36 AM. Reason : ']

12/2/2010 9:29:50 AM

^what he said.

12/2/2010 11:51:42 AM

Education taking place in this thread. I approve.

12/2/2010 12:02:37 PM

educated on how bad my typing is, amirite

12/2/2010 12:07:21 PM

Quote :

"retards in the network neutrality movement"

btw, at least for those folks with cable modems - next-gen cable/video architectures are absolutely suffering as a result of having to build within the architectural confines established by net neutrality. specifically in terms of bandwidth efficiency.

you could be seeing somewhere in the neighborhood of twice the bandwidth to the home on cable modems within the next 2 years (in some locations) if it were not for the absolutely ridiculous rules put in place by net neutrality. i'm not talking doubling your 10 meg pipe to 20 megs, i'm talking doubling a potential 100 meg pipe to 200 megs.

12/2/2010 2:41:52 PM

Your ISP If Net Neutrality Dies



[Edited on December 19, 2010 at 3:27 PM. Reason : The 'Net must be neutral!

12/19/2010 3:22:48 PM

actually thats more likely the happen with net neutraliy. You're an idiot if you dont understand why and/or you're just a stooge for google spitting out their bullshit.

12/19/2010 3:40:43 PM

ugh, how is this turning into a net neutrality argument

12/21/2010 3:26:21 AM

because the idiots behind the network neutrality tardfest dont understand how the internet works.

12/21/2010 1:31:26 PM

Enlighten us.

12/21/2010 1:33:06 PM

i'm interested to hear the explanation as well, i don't know how the internet works

12/21/2010 3:16:24 PM

IT'S A SERIES OF TUBES.

12/21/2010 3:40:20 PM

^ beat me to it

12/21/2010 3:45:57 PM

I bet Al Gore knows

12/21/2010 4:57:17 PM

Speak Shaggy, I'm all ears.

12/21/2010 6:01:45 PM

I'm not sure that the only person in history to defend a cable company should pick the word "stooge" to define others.

12/21/2010 6:21:00 PM

I don’t think this comcast/level3 thing is a net neutrality issue.

It seems more of a contract dispute.

12/21/2010 6:30:08 PM

I feel like I put together a relatively thoughtful couple of sentences describing my opinions of why this isn't at all related to net neutrality. If someone wants to argue against them, let's do that. If not, let's move on. There are plenty of other interesting implications to discuss regarding this issue.

12/21/2010 7:06:36 PM

A contract dispute is a network neutrality issue. If network neutrality is law, then firms are not allowed to sign such contracts to later have a dispute over them.

12/22/2010 12:14:38 AM

^ How is a contract dispute a network neutrality issue? Its a bandwidth/resources issue.

This shouldn't be Net Neutrality. Its not saying you can access website A but not B. Comcast is in the bandwidth business; they don't (at least shouldn't, that is where Net Neutrality could come in) care about the content, they care about how much content is being transmitted.

Company X buys a pipe from Comcast for # a month, and they use 100 gigs/day in bandwidth.
Company Y buys a pipe from Comcast for # a month, but they use 10,000 gigs/day in bandwidth.
If Comcast is charging the same for bandwidth, the Company A is 'wasting' bandwidth and could share its bandwidth with other companies, reducing its overall cost.
Why shouldn't Comcast be able to see this and charge the Company A #/100 since that is how much bandwidth they are using?


I don't get why ISPs should get in the middle of this. Company A and B are providing their service, the cost of offering that business should be included in their overhead. I don't pay a building for accessing an room vs a floor of a store, rent is factored into the store's prices. But that is just my opinion, if an ISP can charge me to get in, as well as the occupants to exist, that is just another way for them to make $.

12/22/2010 2:11:31 AM

idiots behind network neutrality mistake content for bandwidth and thats why they think theres a problem. They see "comcast charges netflix" when in reality its "comcast charges level3 previously agreed charges".

The internet is not a single public entity. It is a collection of private networks peered for mutual benefit. If that benefit disapears, so will those peered connections. The idea of any government meddling no matter how well intentioned can only ever decrease the benefits of peering and make companies at best, less likely to increase bandwidth to peered networks, and at worst, more likely to de-peer entirely.

Contrary to the idiocy perpetuated by those who dont know shit, ISPs have no reason to filter content. They make their money selling access to their networks. If content provider A wants access to ISP X's network, they work out a deal and everything is good. In most cases unless content provider A is also a network owner, the trade is $$$ to ISP X for network access. This creates a fair balance for those already on ISP X since they dont have to subsidize the costs for content provider A, but will still get access to their content.

ISP X makes money wether content provider A's content is worthwhile or not. If it sucks, content provider A folds, if not, they make enough money to cover access to ISP X and to expand if they need. Everyone is happy.

The so called controversy is that ISPs who also provide content (formerly cable companies, now also verizon/att) will block content that competes with their services. This has never been the case nor was it even the original concern that touched off network neutrality. Network neutrality as a buzzword was created by retard bloggers who quoted the CEO of AT&T out of context back when AT&T was getting federal approval to buy Bell South. The quote was something about charging emerging streaming video sources more for their increased bandwidth usage (use more, pay more) but that tardosphere took it to mean charging more for video sources period.

Google was more than happy to continue to spread misinformation about how the evil ISPs were going to start blocking youtube, which of course was bullshit. Youtube is a money sink and google wants a way to lower their bandwidth costs. They want to abuse the FCC to force ISPs and the customers of ISPs to subsidize their bandwidth costs under the bullshit misnomer of network neutrality.

Funny thing about that at&t bellsouth merger, at&t benefited hugely from the misquote. They were under alot of pressure from the fed since the merger would make them the largest telco in the US. They masterfully assured the idiots on the FCC board that they would never filter content if the merger was approved, even though they had never planned to do any such thing. AT&T agreed to give up doing something they didnt have any plans to do, and in return they became the largest telco in the US. Fucking brilliant.

Now days Network Neutrality doesn't really mean anything. Google wants it to mean free internet access for google, freetards want it to mean free access to pirated content, and really only the network owners see it as what it really is. Undefined and pointless regulation for the benefit of no one and the cost of everyone.

And thats before you even get into the questions of how the FCC even has the authority to do anything. The FCC has filtered more content than any network company ever has. They have no constitutional mandate for most of their regulations.

If you want to actually provide more consumer choice, then step #1 should be to break up the big three telcos. But that wont happen. Network "neutrality" is another way for the Fed to grab more power. Plain and simple. They could use laws on the books to break the networks into smaller chunks, creating more network competition and guaranteeing both content providers and consumers more network choices, but that doesn't grant the fed more power. It would also mean much smaller campaign contributions.

So what we're left with here is regulation that at best, wont do anything, but at worst will result in lower quality links between network owners. I guess its not all bad, since edge caching will proceed at a faster pace. The only people who will really suffer from network neutrality are those on the old fashioned internet. Sites like tdub. But that will only be short term.

Long term edge cached networks will become so cheap that anyone can get on them. The internet will no longer exist in its current form. Only local private networks owned entirely by ISPs. All content you want will be local to the network so there wont be a need to peer at all. If theres only one network its about as neutral as you can get.

12/23/2010 12:19:50 AM