18 ms·

Netflix and Alphabet will need to become ISPs, fast

389 points by ilamont 8y ago

mikece 8y ago
Netflix seems to be hedging their bets by partnering with T-Mobile, the company aiming to bring 5G wireless to the US. As for Alphabet, I'm submitting this comment via my 1Gbps synchronous Google Fiber internet connection. Google seems to have stalled rollout of Fiber, however.
- murph-almighty 8y ago
  That news is so frustrating to hear: 1) It would help break up local ISP monopolies. Yes, internet is a bit of a natural monopoly, but if we can't have NN then lets start breaking ground for new fiber, 2) Google will need to lobby for changes in local regulations that prohibit local ISPs... which helps the local ISP startup market.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    > 2) Google will need to lobby for changes in local regulations that prohibit local ISPs... which helps the local ISP startup market. Google won't do that because of its political ties. To open up local ISP competition, you need to get rid of things like build-out requirements, loosen permitting requirements, reduce the ways people can stall installation of Fiber huts for NIMBY reasons, etc. Google will happily push for waivers of those requirements (as it did in every Fiber city), but cannot politically justify lobbying to eliminate those requirements for everyone else.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      That sounds exactly backwards. Google argued for net neutrality because they said it benefits everyone, not just them. And it does benefit everyone. Google doesn't have to justify things politically. At the same time, Google doesn't always do everything it can in the public interest, it sometimes does things that primarily benefit itself.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        Net neutrality is something that Google can reconcile with its other political affiliations. The stuff that's required to reduce barriers to broadband deployment at the state and local level is not. Take build out requirements for example (the idea that ISPs should be forced to build service to areas where people can't afford to subscribe to it). Google can't lobby to get rid of build-out requirements generally, even though it would massively help broadband deployment. It's a meat-and-potatoes Democratic issue at the state and local level. So instead of lobbying to get rid of them, it simply sought waivers of those requirements in every Fiber city. (And even then, it got pilloried for it: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-salkever-/is-google-fiber-discrimin_b_8322088.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-salkever-/is-google-fibe...).
- inthewoods 8y ago
  Yes they're also hedging their bets by getting distribution via Xfinity - I can watch Netflix through my Comcast cable box. This essentially reduces them to a "channel" ala HBO (albeit a deep channel).
- regnerba 8y ago
  My understanding of Google Fiber is that they ran into to many headaches from existing telecom companies while trying to expand their fiber infrastructure. Instead of continuing to fight such an uphill battle they are trying to make a wireless approach work. I haven't heard much recently from their more standard wireless attempts (other than Loom being used in Puerto Rico) but they did invest (jointly with Fidelity) $1 billion into SpaceX. The assumption is the SpaceX investments are specifically to support the SpaceX Starlink constellation which if successful could bring wireless internet to pretty much all of the planet.
  - VectorLock 8y ago
    Every little town in America is a battleground of government blessed monopolies for physical access. Trying to do a large rollout for Google Fiber probably turned into a bigger hassle than they expected.
    - mikece 8y ago
      Would be nice if there was a nationwide building code for cities which stipulates fiber optic to the premises with absolute minimum connection speeds of 1Gbps synchronous and ideally 10Gbps. Completely unrealistic but I can dream.
telchar 8y ago
Or better yet, we can work toward a future (no later than 2021, I hope) when net neutrality can be brought back into force just as it was from 2015-2017 by FCC action or perhaps with more staying power via legislative action. Ground taken once can be taken twice. If we resign ourselves to the current legal landscape we hand a victory to these corrupt players. That said I'm sure the tech giants will want to hedge their bets.
- twtw 8y ago
  A net neutrality bill already passed the senate. With a new house (and speaker) it could potentially go through.
  - sjm-lbm 8y ago
    We're going to need a new president before such a bill could be signed, but it's good news that political will seems to be moving (ever so slightly) toward net neutrality.
- alfredallan1 8y ago
  Just go the Finland route, and declare high speed internet access a basic right. Maybe add it onto the constitution. That should pave the way for getting back NN and keeping it for good.
pbreit 8y ago
Sounds like healthy competition?
- sethhochberg 8y ago
  I have a hard time getting excited about a world where every new business has to be fully vertically-integrated because their competitors are all being dicks to one another. Healthy competition only amongst those who have the resources to compete in all markets at once...
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    It's inevitable with the efficiencies brought by technology. You need fewer and fewer middlemen, and so you end up going vertical.
    - aylmao 8y ago
      If anything this makes things more inefficient, because I bet a lot of core infrastructure will have to be laid out many times over.
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        It doesn't seem to be enough to offset the gains from the efficiency of scaling horizontally. Each product or service, when provided or assisted by computers, requires fewer and fewer humans which are the most difficult to scale up, so an organization can set that up and then move up and down their supply chain. It might be a temporary benefit though, because once it's big player vs big player they won't be able to easily extract value (or one of them will kill the other and get even bigger, which is bad for the rest).
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  it's healthy in the sense that the giants are pitted against each other. it's unhealthy in the sense that the little player is basically locked out. it's also unhealthy in the sense that the big players will be incentivized to unite in an unholy alliance against the masses for the sake of increased profitability.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
People have made endless points about how ISPs and last-mile providers will hurt the consumer and the small video startup. I don't dispute those. But, IMHO, independent of that, the behavior of Alphabet has been less and less charitable to the little guy over the last few years too, especially in the area of android app development. (e.g. they recently eliminated their "free-forever" policy on the use of android map/location/place APIs in apps). To me it seems that now, in one more way, the internet landscape is more fully dominated by giant corporations. Even more of the little players will be permanently confined to nickel-and-dime sidelines.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  There's an incredibly ironic undertone to an article suggesting two of the world's largest global monopolies should expand their reach to better be able to beat other, smaller regional corporations.
  - lkbm 8y ago
    Smaller regional corporations with local monopolies.
pascalxus 8y ago
This the end of innovation in online videos: "When companies like Netflix, which today closed with a market cap of almost $158 billion, can’t necessarily get enough negotiating power to ensure that consumers have direct access to them, no startup can ever hope to compete. America may believe in its entrepreneurs, but its competition laws have done nothing to keep the terrain open for them. Those implications are just beginning." Sounds like this is the end of TV and Online video watching as we know it. Oh well, time to start reading books again ~ they'll never be able to take that from us.
- murph-almighty 8y ago
  All books are now sold with a small display attached that gives you a URL. The book is magnetically sealed until you take out your phone, navigate to that URL, and watch an ad.
  - aogl 8y ago
    Oh goodness! This actually sounds like something that could literally happen. Given how things are going..
  - justinlink 8y ago
    quick patent it!
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - mattnewton 8y ago
    Sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon figuring out how to defeat the lock.
  - MrLeap 8y ago
    My angle grinder says hi.
    - wolfgang42 8y ago
jedberg 8y ago
Lobbying the government to restore net neutrality is far cheaper than building out an ISP. Also, 5G is coming by the end of this year with at least two providers (Verizon and T-Mobile) and once that happens, ATT and Comcast won't have as much stranglehold on the ISP market, so NN may not matter anymore.
- kec 8y ago
  I don't see how 5G changes anything. Wireless providers were exempt from net neutrality even when it was in force and have a long history of tiered usage and throttling.
  - ab071c41 8y ago
    I think the idea is better fixed WISP options which could potentially replace cable internet. If Verizon/T-Mobile suddenly have a home internet option based on 5G, then Comcast gets competition.
    - twothamendment 8y ago
      That is tough to do. I lived in a city where there wasn't any cable and the DSL sucked. A few WISPs were the only real game in town. They weren't bad - until evening when everyone started to stream. They upgraded several times over the years, but it is still a rough business to try to broadcast out so many streams at once. I had it pretty good because my WISP had a tower on my roof and I was hard wired to their backhaul. For everyone else in the neighborhood it was slower.
  - haikuginger 8y ago
    Having wireless providers who are able to provide landline-level speeds means that many markets will go from having one or maybe two real ISP options to having three or four. Competition means that if the benefits of net neutrality are desirable, customers will prefer an ISP (wireless or otherwise) that provides those benefits. Of course, most actual counterexamples to net neutrality are seen as positives (free Netflix or Hulu with usage not counted towards a data cap) rather than negatives, so it might not work out.
shmerl 8y ago
Doesn't this very story with handicapped anti-trust that let AT&T run amok teach us, that conflating ISP with media / video distribution is hurting the end user? So no, they should not become ISPs, but they can help independent ISPs break current sick oligopolies. Working anti-trust would simply forbid ISPs from owning media businesses.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
aogl 8y ago
Is it just me, or does this site/link not work on mobile?
AmIFirstToThink 8y ago
No Net Neutrality, without Free Speech for online content. I was a raging Net Neutrality supporter, but now I don't really care given Twitter/YouTube/Facebook abuse of neutrality towards speech. No neutrality for words, but neutrality for packets? No wonder Net neutrality lost steam this time around.
Shivetya 8y ago
I am more than happy on two events, seeing if the FTC truly does resume their role as watch dog and prosecutor and seeing what Congress may end up doing. With regards to all the panic and irrational reactions, we got to 2015 before the FCC decided to rewrite some rules and not others and we did fine. The FTC with FCC cooperation did work. there are more than two sides to this argument and why we favor content providers exclusively over service providers would need to be addressed as well. even some of the big high flying rollouts stalled or stopped when the rules first changed but it was fun watching many of them dance around the reasons.(FIOS and Google fiber pretty much are nothing). 5G is not a valid excuse. People decry the lack of high speed internet (the definition changes based of the techs savvy of who you talk too) but as someone who does a lot of road trips you would be amazed where you cannot get a cell signal and how often it happens
- abvdasker 8y ago
  Your comment misses one of the two key points of the original post: the level of consolidation between ISPs and content providers is unprecedented and the merger between AT&T and Time Warner makes that even worse. Competitors which are solely ISPs or solely content providers will not be able to compete due to the advantage this newly vertically integrated company has in both arenas. The article is saying the only way to avert the catastrophe of a complete monopoly over both content and Internet access is for companies like Google and Netflix to "fight fire with fire" by becoming vertically integrated ISP/Content companies themselves. This is not a case of market dominance through technological innovation, which is generally hard to predict, but rather a completely predictable result of old-school vertical monopoly. It's Econ 101 stuff and is not specific to the Internet at all.
gazarsgo 8y ago
don't worry, SpaceX Starlink will kneecap every other ISP.
- Maybestring 8y ago
  It will be good to have a global option. But I wouldn't bet on Starlink being competitive in urban areas.
- planteen 8y ago
  I brought this up a while back on HN. It looks like in the most optimistic case you are looking at 20 Gbps per spacecraft and 200 spacecraft over the continental US for Star Link. So you are looking at 4 Tbps capacity for the entire country. What sort of capacity does the US have right now? It seems like 4 Tbps is very far off, like the level of a single large city. Heck, you can get 10 Gbps service to your home in Chattanooga, TN. Update: Cisco predicts 847 Tbps in 2021 and "busy" up to 5.0 Pbps globally. US looks like 242 Tbps with "busy" up to 1.7 Pbps. So if Star Link has 200 space craft over the US by 2021, it could handle about 1.5% of the US non-peak usage. https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-provider/vni-forecast-highlights.html https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-provider/v...
- practice9 8y ago
  Did you know that Alphabet invested over 1 billion $ in SpaceX / Starlink back in 2015?
- paragraft 8y ago
  Starlink will only be most useful in remote areas, as you'll be sharing the satellites above you with fewer people. In municipal areas terrestrial will always win.
allthenews 8y ago
I don't understand why this is turning into such a massive panic. The internet wasn't cut up into throttled tiers pre-NN, and who exactly is going to be paying for internet if it doesn't deliver what they want? Why do people have so little faith in the market? Why is the answer MORE regulation, when regulation and regulatory capture are what got us into this monopolized mess in the first place? What about the fact that 5G is on the horizon? That powerful people like Elon Musk have spoken publicly about building alternatives to fiber/cable based internet?
- spruciefic399 8y ago
  1. Monopolization has increased in markets in general (see: ATT-Time Warner merger). 2. ISPs have realized what they can do with their increased monopolies, and have started developing technical strategies for doing so. 3. Regardless of this, these companies are getting certain things from the public, such as right-of-way. They act like they owe nothing to the public, which is a lie. It's a logical mistake to assume that behavior of ISPs in the past is what they will do in the future. I'll start respecting the arguments against net neutrality when: 1. Private citizens and government entities are allowed to charge arbitrary rates for ISP lines to go over their property. 2. ISPs are legally responsible for the content of any and all packets going over their infrastructure. 3. All legal challenges / obstacles to public / municipal ISPs are dropped and eliminated.
  - Spivak 8y ago
    Re: 1. ATT and Time Warner didn't really compete prior to the merge. 2. ISPs have realized that basically every business is dependent on them to access their customers. Why wouldn't you try to extract value from that? 3. Hand-wavy feelings doesn't mean anything in government outside of impassioned speeches. They owe the public nothing other than providing their service according to the contracts they made. Large organizations where every individual has their own incentives don't really have feelings or a sense of duty. --- 1. This is already true, as it turns out private citizens largely don't actually own the land where the poles are and governments don't want to charge. 2. You would hate this world. Content can't be encrypted because there might be illegal content contained within. All your traffic will need to be scanned and scrutinized. P2P is basically dead. Any site with user-generated content will be blocked. Sites will have to make legal agreements with ISPs to be whitelisted for strict content moderation. 3. Blocking municipal ISPs is not as mustache-twirlingly evil as people make it seem. Some ISP goes to a town where it would normally not be profitable to operate and makes a deal with city in exchange for exclusivity. The risk that the citizens of that town would just form a municipal ISP funded by tax dollars and undercut them once the market is established has a real cost which is going to be paid in one way or another.
spruciefic399 8y ago
Another strategy to this (not exclusive of other strategies) is to encourage municipal ISPs, or even go further and roll out federal ISP infrastructure ala the federal highway system. I've always thought that this would be well within the rubric of the USPS. The constitutional mandate for a postal service was drafted at a time when the internet could not have been conceived of. I would argue that the intent of the constitutional mandate was to establish communications and not necessarily paper mail per se. I think if the founders were alive today they would say that ISPs were the sort of thing that was intended. I.e., have the USPS start acting as an ISP, and charging for it like it would mail services. I'm not saying that private ISPs should go away, just that I'm sick of this government handout to companies that want to have their cake and eat it too. No net neutrality? Fine. But then allow public ISPs--no, actively fund public ISP infrastructure--and allow for unfettered lawsuits against private ISPs for content going over their pipes. Also, take away right of way to private ISPs, and let citizens and municipalities charge arbitrary amounts for anything going over their property.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  The next step beyond the mail was the telegraph and then the telephone. Those were built out by private companies, but operated under a regulatory regime called "common carrier," which protected the network owner from liability so long as it charged and carried traffic from all parties equally. These days, that concept is called "net neutrality" in the context of the Internet, and I suppose you may have heard it mentioned in the news recently once or twice. (I think it was a mistake to rename common carrier, but too late I guess.) Personally, I think that private buildouts are a better way to go than a government-funded network infrastructure. Private industry is better at investment and product development than the government, and any enterprise that generates a profit contributes to the long-term economic sustainability of innovation. A government-run economy becomes starved for capital and innovation slows way down; that is why the Soviet Union lagged U.S. technology and why Cubans still drive 50-year-old cars. But privately run networks need regulation to deliver the results that citizens want. Railroads needed it, telephone companies needed it, airlines needed it, and yes, ISPs need it. And if that is thwarted, then sure, let municipalities take a swing at it. My town is looking into muni fiber now, and I'm in favor of it because the local service from Comcast is so bad and so expensive and there seems to be no other way to do something about it.
heisenbit 8y ago
Netflix as ISP seems to me the exact opposite of net neutrality no matter what short term tactical arguments there are.
httpz 8y ago
What we really need is preventing existing ISPs from having a regional monopoly. In order to do that, the congress has to change the law so the ISPs have to share the cables they own in a building like phone lines, or someone has to make a technological break through that solves the last mile problem. Also, this is a US specific problem that doesn't exist in places like S.Korea or Japan. Here's a NPR PlanetMoney episode on it. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/299060527/episode-529-the-last-mile https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/299060527/epis...
- amazon_not 8y ago
  > In order to do that, the congress has to change the law so the ISPs have to share the cables they own in a building like phone lines, No can do. We already had that law and it was revoked in the Brand X decision.
nickjj 8y ago
I don't think ISPs have any power in this situation at all. They are just delivery mechanisms when it comes to providing internet connectivity. All of the power lies within Google, Netflix and other content providers. Google could one day deny access to all of its services for all Comcast customers. If all of the content providers / big sites band together and do this, then there would be no value in paying for a Comcast internet connection. I'm sure this would never happen but that's all it would take for real change to happen.
- ncallaway 8y ago
  > I'm sure this would never happen but that's all it would take for real change to happen. Interestingly, this kind of thing happens with some frequency in cable channels and various TV providers. I'm not quite so sure this is as far fetched as "would never happen". I think it'd take some fairly well-demonstrated bad behavior by one or a handful of ISPs before sites would go there, but I think this could be possible.
- 0xffff2 8y ago
  Wait a minute. Couldn't Google do this even with net neutrality? If I put a web server on the public internet, I'm perfectly free to refuse connections arbitrarily. It's only ISPs, who are routing traffic, that are required to route everything the same under NN.
  - georgemcbay 8y ago
    > Couldn't Google do this even with net neutrality? Sure, but it is clearly not within Google's business interests to reduce their customer base arbitrarily. Cutting off access from specific ISPs would basically be a nuclear option for them.
- xutopia 8y ago
  That only goes to serve Comcast who then has the possibility to create a product shittier than Netflix and force it down their client's throat.
CyberDildonics 8y ago
This is what happens when cable companies are the ISPs - if they give you enough bandwidth to no longer subscribe to TV, they won't be able to sell you data twice.
bjornsing 8y ago
I wonder if a bunch of Internet companies (Netflix, Alphabet, etc) could gang up and collectively block an ISP...? Could give them quite interesting leverage in negotiations.
- SimbaOnSteroids 8y ago
  It would be more effective to just buy the house senate and presidency, they collectively have the budget.
  - RIMR 8y ago
    I don't know, if suddenly all Google services completely disappeared for all Comcast users, I have a feeling that Comcast would bend over backwards to make them stop. Nothing about that would be against net neutrality rules. I can already start a website and make it accessible only to specific ISPs by whitelisting only the subnets I want.
- acdha 8y ago
  They don’t even need to do that: just making e.g. Netflix or YouTube display a message like “Your experience is bad right now because your ISP is trying to double-charge for your traffic. Click here to call them…” would get an enormous amount of leverage.
  - georgemcbay 8y ago
    Google actually already has something like this in place for YouTube. Not specific to net neutrality (or lack thereof), but if they detect that your access to YouTube is slow due to network congestion on your local ISP, there's a popup that essentially names and shames your ISP by redirecting you to this: https://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/ https://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/
Proven 8y ago
The Sherlocks from TechChrunch are onto something. It turns out if you don't want to pay for services you may need to build your own. Said differently, Net Neutrality is nonsense. Nothing prevents these freeloaders from buying xSPs and Telcos if they don't want to be their customers.
super_mario 8y ago
Technically now that net neutrality is gone, everyone who routes your packets can ask for money for them to pass through their network not slowed down and de-prioritized. So becoming an ISP if you are a high traffic Web company changes nothing, unless you also own entire network from source to destination.
alfredallan1 8y ago
Isn’t there a chance a subsequent administration could “reinstate” net neutrality? If so what’d that mean for Comcast, AT&T, etc.? Or are there ways such a move could be blocked?
forapurpose 8y ago
I wonder how much the ISPs will invest based on the current regulatory rules. Net neutrality could be revived, especially in a few years after the next U.S. presidential election. Businesses usually want certainty so that they can invest in the future. In the state where net neutrality is repealed, there is far more uncertainty; it could be revived any time. If the ISPs accept the state that net neutrality is implemented, there is stability and certainty going forward.
fortythirteen 8y ago
Why not prosecute the telecoms under current anti-trust legislation? I'm as troubled by the zeitgeist's two proposed solutions, more big companies or more big government, as I am by the merger.
apeace 8y ago
Since I work for a startup ISP I am praying that AT&T will be dumb enough to prioritize their content over others. You're going to make TNT fast and Netflix slow? You've got to be kidding. The amazing PR team at Netflix will be all over this and users will revolt. It will open up opportunities for the small guys to compete. By all means big ISPs, please cripple a huge part of your service that is very important to your customers. I'll be rich in no time (and my customers will be happy).
- lcfcjs 8y ago
  I think this comment hits the nail on the head - It will open up opportunities for the small guys to compete.
- tstrimple 8y ago
  > The amazing PR team at Netflix will be all over this and users will revolt. That theory is not supported by history. Netflix will pay, because they can. New video streaming companies will have no chance. https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/index.html https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-com...
  - PuffinBlue 8y ago
    It's not either/or. Both things will happen. Netflix will pay and small ISPs will capitalize. These things can (and will) happen concurrently.
redial 8y ago
Everyone is worried about video and rightly so, or maybe is just being used as an example, but my question is: Could ISPs prevent in any way Software Updates? Could they block (for example) a patch that would fix a bug allowing them to mim web requests to inject lets say, ads?
augbog 8y ago
I have some friends who work at Netflix and it's crazy how far the executive team foresaw how Netflix would grow. I know they put a lot of resources early on into Open Connect which was to handle working with ISPs. https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-with-isps-around-the-globe-to-deliver-a-great-viewing-experience https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-... Apparently a lot of people (internally too) called them out it was unnecessary but it's paying dividends back now.
- bcrescimanno 8y ago
  I worked at Netflix when OpenConnect was introduced and I don't remember anyone internally thinking it was unnecessary (though, even at the time, the company was large enough that you didn't know everyone). Quite contrary, this was the era of the 250GB / month cap from Comcast and we could observe clearly that they were throttling Netflix traffic. OpenConnect, the ability to deploy the CDN directly into the internal network of these ISPs served multiple purposes--not the least of which was to expose the fact that they were holding Netflix for ransom. So, to say that was the executive foreseeing things is a bit of revisionist history. It doesn't lessen the impact or importance of OpenConnect; but, it grew out of a very real impasse with a very large ISP. Ultimately, Netflix did end up paying Comcast in 2014 and, surprise surprise, the throttling stopped.
MrZongle2 8y ago
I have absolutely no interest in increasing my dependence upon Google or any Alphabet company.
_bxg1 8y ago
We are truly in a wasteland of competition when Alphabet and Netflix are the underdogs.
jhatax 8y ago
Comcast just made a bid for 21st Century Fox. $65B USD offered to Fox to compete against Disney. Massive acquisitions and mergers are becoming commonplace.
saisundar 8y ago
Comcast acquiring Fox would also mean they gain control of Hulu -> that would make things really interesting for Netflix, and narrow it's moat - especially if Comcast starts bundling Hulu with it's internet services.
zn44 8y ago
Can Netflix and Alphabet ‘reverse’ the problem and block the ISP that throttle them? I imagine some consumers would rather change ISP than stop using Netflix/google. (I would but that’s my UK perspective)
- thatfunkymunki 8y ago
  Most people in the US don't have more than 1 viable ISP in their area, so switching is not an option.
ct520 8y ago
well that didnt take long... https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st-century-fox-film-tv-studios-acquisition-deal-announced https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st-cen...
dragonwriter 8y ago
Alphabet is already an ISP, though not a major national one. OTOH, they could probably afford to buy a major ISP outright quite easily if not controlling one was seen as an existential threat.
jpao79 8y ago
What would seem to make sense for Netflix would be use more HDD/SSD caching of videos, similar to how a DVR for Tivo works. There really isn't a huge reason to live stream Netflix movie/show content. It's not live video. The Netflix subscriber user could download up to 30 or 40 Netflix shows in advance from their Netflix queue (sort of like the original 'Netflix by mail' queue) over LTE at midnight under some sort of LTE multi-cast deal with AT&T or Verizon. Or maybe lossless transmission over standard POTS/DSL or Dish Satellite.
- error54 8y ago
  TV's would be one (of many) limiting factors here. Most consumer televisions have, relative to most other computing devices, low processing power and disk space. Plus you have to factor the additional bandwidth load of downloading a 4K television show that you may not watch and then multiply that cost by 30 or 40.
  - jpao79 8y ago
    Yes, it would be like a Netflix box (maybe branded under their Roku brand name) that's similar to Tivo. A Tivo Bolt Premier can be had for $299 with a 1TB drive. The key is signing a lower cost deal with Verizon/ATT LTE or Dish Satellite to do some sort of the multicast broadcasting similar to Over the Air broadcasting but over the internet. Or do unicast transmissions but during off peak hours and blast it out over the LTE/Satellite network over the span of a week between the hours of 1AM to 5AM. The Netflix Top 100 is probably like 95% of what people are watching. That way not everyone is congested from 5PM to 11PM every night and the mobile operators have additional revenue from existing wireless/satellite infrastructure.
- amazon_not 8y ago
  While technically feasible, content owners won't allow it, so it's a moot point.
  - jpao79 8y ago
    Agreed. Caching the video to a Netflix DVR would likely only be guaranteed to work with Netflix's own content. But isn't creating all its own content Netflix's plan?
AndyMcConachie 8y ago
Just a reminder that this is only a problem in the USA, and Netflix and Alphabet are international companies. Now the USA is a big market, but it's not the only one.
matchagaucho 8y ago
Let's face it... Internet access is an essential utility similar to roadways, sewage, water, electrical, and gas. Our municipality will likely just create a bond measure to run city-owned fiber direct to all homes and business, and put the ISP backbone operations up for bid (contingent on net neutral management).
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
WindowsFon4life 8y ago
Interesting that wireless services was left out of the conversation. Given it's massive growth in urban areas, and the fact, there are many options for most populations. Video is hardly a high bandwidth use case. Cultivation of victims.
- twohlix_ 8y ago
  Wireless has traditionally been left out of common carrier / nn talks because its easier to compete in infra-structurally compared to running cabling.
kushnick 8y ago
A few facts: ---In 2001, there were 9300 ISPs in America, handling the majority of US internet subscribers. ----By 2010, most of America was supposed to have a fiber optic service to the home as every state cut a deal to have the state utilities upgraded to fiber and to charge local phone customers. ---And every merger made the situation worse. Unfortunately, the companies essentially lied about the deployments while competition was shut down, not through market forces but through a takeover of the FCC. The FCC, in 2005, removed the right of small ISPs to use line sharing to offering service, and the competitors were removed by getting rid of the wholesale arrangements, both of which started when the Telecom Act of 1996 opened the networks to competition. By combining the 'Broadband' service, which is Title II, with the Internet Service, an “information” service -- when the FCC mushed these 2 services together, they became, together, an information service, which stopped the obligation to rent the utility networks – This caused Net Neutrality. ---7000 small ISPs were put out of business and then AT&T and MCI were put up for sale-- and merged. Documented in: ‘The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal”-- a free download. https://bit.ly/2M7KzTE https://bit.ly/2M7KzTE The FCC is currently erasing all the remaining laws and regulations on the telcos, claiming 5G will fix everything. With a range a few blocks and requiring a fiber optic wire -- what this is really about is that we'll have a few companies in control with no more regulations or obligations -- and whatever they give us-- we will have to be thankful for. My take -- this has gone too far and we need to start to break up AT&T again.... and separate the companies from the wires. And, we also need to go after the billions in cross-subsidies where the companies have been able, with the help of the FCC, to manipulate the accounting to dump most of the expenses into the state utility to make their other services 'profitable'. These 2 recent articles supply a short history of the mergers and the commitments that were never completed for broadband and competition; the second is the Verizon New York 2017 financial report -- published MAY 31, 2018 ---“The Mergers that Created ATT & Verizon Were Failures. Time to Break Up AT&T…Again.” https://bit.ly/2JM5zRB https://bit.ly/2JM5zRB and ---“How Did Verizon NY, the State Utility, Lose $2.6 Billion in Just 2017? The FCC’s “Zombie” Rules.” https://bit.ly/2sLj2i0 https://bit.ly/2sLj2i0 I summarized the findings. So far, NO regulator has bothered to examine this new financial report and no reporter has bothered to dig into it. We've all been played. Most people don't understand how we got here or that the FCC and telcos have actually rewritten the history-- it is said that the winners write the history.--We can't let this stand. Netflix et al doesn't have to be ISPs... We need to reopen the networks for competition—wireline and wireless and let the customer choose which ISP to use over the networks customers paid multiple times to have upgraded. And AT&T and Verizon should be separated from these utility networks—ie, all of the wires which would include all the fiber that was built for wireless, FiOS, etc). No more tracking, blocking, prioritizing of their own affiliate companies, overcharging, and letting the networks deteriorate.
wpdev_63 8y ago
I guarantee you that if they start tampering with netflix traffic there will be riots.

389 points by ilamont 8y ago

Netflix seems to be hedging their bets by partnering with T-Mobile, the company aiming to bring 5G wireless to the US. As for Alphabet, I'm submitting this comment via my 1Gbps synchronous Google Fiber internet connection. Google seems to have stalled rollout of Fiber, however.

murph-almighty 8y ago
That news is so frustrating to hear: 1) It would help break up local ISP monopolies. Yes, internet is a bit of a natural monopoly, but if we can't have NN then lets start breaking ground for new fiber, 2) Google will need to lobby for changes in local regulations that prohibit local ISPs... which helps the local ISP startup market.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > 2) Google will need to lobby for changes in local regulations that prohibit local ISPs... which helps the local ISP startup market. Google won't do that because of its political ties. To open up local ISP competition, you need to get rid of things like build-out requirements, loosen permitting requirements, reduce the ways people can stall installation of Fiber huts for NIMBY reasons, etc. Google will happily push for waivers of those requirements (as it did in every Fiber city), but cannot politically justify lobbying to eliminate those requirements for everyone else.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    That sounds exactly backwards. Google argued for net neutrality because they said it benefits everyone, not just them. And it does benefit everyone. Google doesn't have to justify things politically. At the same time, Google doesn't always do everything it can in the public interest, it sometimes does things that primarily benefit itself.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      Net neutrality is something that Google can reconcile with its other political affiliations. The stuff that's required to reduce barriers to broadband deployment at the state and local level is not. Take build out requirements for example (the idea that ISPs should be forced to build service to areas where people can't afford to subscribe to it). Google can't lobby to get rid of build-out requirements generally, even though it would massively help broadband deployment. It's a meat-and-potatoes Democratic issue at the state and local level. So instead of lobbying to get rid of them, it simply sought waivers of those requirements in every Fiber city. (And even then, it got pilloried for it: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-salkever-/is-google-fiber-discrimin_b_8322088.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-salkever-/is-google-fibe...).
inthewoods 8y ago
Yes they're also hedging their bets by getting distribution via Xfinity - I can watch Netflix through my Comcast cable box. This essentially reduces them to a "channel" ala HBO (albeit a deep channel).
regnerba 8y ago
My understanding of Google Fiber is that they ran into to many headaches from existing telecom companies while trying to expand their fiber infrastructure. Instead of continuing to fight such an uphill battle they are trying to make a wireless approach work. I haven't heard much recently from their more standard wireless attempts (other than Loom being used in Puerto Rico) but they did invest (jointly with Fidelity) $1 billion into SpaceX. The assumption is the SpaceX investments are specifically to support the SpaceX Starlink constellation which if successful could bring wireless internet to pretty much all of the planet.
- VectorLock 8y ago
  Every little town in America is a battleground of government blessed monopolies for physical access. Trying to do a large rollout for Google Fiber probably turned into a bigger hassle than they expected.
  - mikece 8y ago
    Would be nice if there was a nationwide building code for cities which stipulates fiber optic to the premises with absolute minimum connection speeds of 1Gbps synchronous and ideally 10Gbps. Completely unrealistic but I can dream.

telchar 8y ago

Or better yet, we can work toward a future (no later than 2021, I hope) when net neutrality can be brought back into force just as it was from 2015-2017 by FCC action or perhaps with more staying power via legislative action. Ground taken once can be taken twice. If we resign ourselves to the current legal landscape we hand a victory to these corrupt players. That said I'm sure the tech giants will want to hedge their bets.

twtw 8y ago
A net neutrality bill already passed the senate. With a new house (and speaker) it could potentially go through.
- sjm-lbm 8y ago
  We're going to need a new president before such a bill could be signed, but it's good news that political will seems to be moving (ever so slightly) toward net neutrality.
alfredallan1 8y ago
Just go the Finland route, and declare high speed internet access a basic right. Maybe add it onto the constitution. That should pave the way for getting back NN and keeping it for good.

pbreit 8y ago

Sounds like healthy competition?

sethhochberg 8y ago
I have a hard time getting excited about a world where every new business has to be fully vertically-integrated because their competitors are all being dicks to one another. Healthy competition only amongst those who have the resources to compete in all markets at once...
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  It's inevitable with the efficiencies brought by technology. You need fewer and fewer middlemen, and so you end up going vertical.
  - aylmao 8y ago
    If anything this makes things more inefficient, because I bet a lot of core infrastructure will have to be laid out many times over.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      It doesn't seem to be enough to offset the gains from the efficiency of scaling horizontally. Each product or service, when provided or assisted by computers, requires fewer and fewer humans which are the most difficult to scale up, so an organization can set that up and then move up and down their supply chain. It might be a temporary benefit though, because once it's big player vs big player they won't be able to easily extract value (or one of them will kill the other and get even bigger, which is bad for the rest).
HillaryBriss 8y ago
it's healthy in the sense that the giants are pitted against each other. it's unhealthy in the sense that the little player is basically locked out. it's also unhealthy in the sense that the big players will be incentivized to unite in an unholy alliance against the masses for the sake of increased profitability.

HillaryBriss 8y ago

People have made endless points about how ISPs and last-mile providers will hurt the consumer and the small video startup. I don't dispute those. But, IMHO, independent of that, the behavior of Alphabet has been less and less charitable to the little guy over the last few years too, especially in the area of android app development. (e.g. they recently eliminated their "free-forever" policy on the use of android map/location/place APIs in apps). To me it seems that now, in one more way, the internet landscape is more fully dominated by giant corporations. Even more of the little players will be permanently confined to nickel-and-dime sidelines.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
There's an incredibly ironic undertone to an article suggesting two of the world's largest global monopolies should expand their reach to better be able to beat other, smaller regional corporations.
- lkbm 8y ago
  Smaller regional corporations with local monopolies.

pascalxus 8y ago

This the end of innovation in online videos: "When companies like Netflix, which today closed with a market cap of almost $158 billion, can’t necessarily get enough negotiating power to ensure that consumers have direct access to them, no startup can ever hope to compete. America may believe in its entrepreneurs, but its competition laws have done nothing to keep the terrain open for them. Those implications are just beginning." Sounds like this is the end of TV and Online video watching as we know it. Oh well, time to start reading books again ~ they'll never be able to take that from us.

murph-almighty 8y ago
All books are now sold with a small display attached that gives you a URL. The book is magnetically sealed until you take out your phone, navigate to that URL, and watch an ad.
- aogl 8y ago
  Oh goodness! This actually sounds like something that could literally happen. Given how things are going..
- justinlink 8y ago
  quick patent it!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- mattnewton 8y ago
  Sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon figuring out how to defeat the lock.
- MrLeap 8y ago
  My angle grinder says hi.
  - wolfgang42 8y ago

jedberg 8y ago

Lobbying the government to restore net neutrality is far cheaper than building out an ISP. Also, 5G is coming by the end of this year with at least two providers (Verizon and T-Mobile) and once that happens, ATT and Comcast won't have as much stranglehold on the ISP market, so NN may not matter anymore.

kec 8y ago
I don't see how 5G changes anything. Wireless providers were exempt from net neutrality even when it was in force and have a long history of tiered usage and throttling.
- ab071c41 8y ago
  I think the idea is better fixed WISP options which could potentially replace cable internet. If Verizon/T-Mobile suddenly have a home internet option based on 5G, then Comcast gets competition.
  - twothamendment 8y ago
    That is tough to do. I lived in a city where there wasn't any cable and the DSL sucked. A few WISPs were the only real game in town. They weren't bad - until evening when everyone started to stream. They upgraded several times over the years, but it is still a rough business to try to broadcast out so many streams at once. I had it pretty good because my WISP had a tower on my roof and I was hard wired to their backhaul. For everyone else in the neighborhood it was slower.
- haikuginger 8y ago
  Having wireless providers who are able to provide landline-level speeds means that many markets will go from having one or maybe two real ISP options to having three or four. Competition means that if the benefits of net neutrality are desirable, customers will prefer an ISP (wireless or otherwise) that provides those benefits. Of course, most actual counterexamples to net neutrality are seen as positives (free Netflix or Hulu with usage not counted towards a data cap) rather than negatives, so it might not work out.

shmerl 8y ago

Doesn't this very story with handicapped anti-trust that let AT&T run amok teach us, that conflating ISP with media / video distribution is hurting the end user? So no, they should not become ISPs, but they can help independent ISPs break current sick oligopolies. Working anti-trust would simply forbid ISPs from owning media businesses.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

aogl 8y ago

Is it just me, or does this site/link not work on mobile?

AmIFirstToThink 8y ago

No Net Neutrality, without Free Speech for online content. I was a raging Net Neutrality supporter, but now I don't really care given Twitter/YouTube/Facebook abuse of neutrality towards speech. No neutrality for words, but neutrality for packets? No wonder Net neutrality lost steam this time around.

Shivetya 8y ago

I am more than happy on two events, seeing if the FTC truly does resume their role as watch dog and prosecutor and seeing what Congress may end up doing. With regards to all the panic and irrational reactions, we got to 2015 before the FCC decided to rewrite some rules and not others and we did fine. The FTC with FCC cooperation did work. there are more than two sides to this argument and why we favor content providers exclusively over service providers would need to be addressed as well. even some of the big high flying rollouts stalled or stopped when the rules first changed but it was fun watching many of them dance around the reasons.(FIOS and Google fiber pretty much are nothing). 5G is not a valid excuse. People decry the lack of high speed internet (the definition changes based of the techs savvy of who you talk too) but as someone who does a lot of road trips you would be amazed where you cannot get a cell signal and how often it happens

abvdasker 8y ago
Your comment misses one of the two key points of the original post: the level of consolidation between ISPs and content providers is unprecedented and the merger between AT&T and Time Warner makes that even worse. Competitors which are solely ISPs or solely content providers will not be able to compete due to the advantage this newly vertically integrated company has in both arenas. The article is saying the only way to avert the catastrophe of a complete monopoly over both content and Internet access is for companies like Google and Netflix to "fight fire with fire" by becoming vertically integrated ISP/Content companies themselves. This is not a case of market dominance through technological innovation, which is generally hard to predict, but rather a completely predictable result of old-school vertical monopoly. It's Econ 101 stuff and is not specific to the Internet at all.

gazarsgo 8y ago

don't worry, SpaceX Starlink will kneecap every other ISP.

Maybestring 8y ago
It will be good to have a global option. But I wouldn't bet on Starlink being competitive in urban areas.
planteen 8y ago
I brought this up a while back on HN. It looks like in the most optimistic case you are looking at 20 Gbps per spacecraft and 200 spacecraft over the continental US for Star Link. So you are looking at 4 Tbps capacity for the entire country. What sort of capacity does the US have right now? It seems like 4 Tbps is very far off, like the level of a single large city. Heck, you can get 10 Gbps service to your home in Chattanooga, TN. Update: Cisco predicts 847 Tbps in 2021 and "busy" up to 5.0 Pbps globally. US looks like 242 Tbps with "busy" up to 1.7 Pbps. So if Star Link has 200 space craft over the US by 2021, it could handle about 1.5% of the US non-peak usage. https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-provider/vni-forecast-highlights.html https://www.cisco.com/c/m/en_us/solutions/service-provider/v...
practice9 8y ago
Did you know that Alphabet invested over 1 billion $ in SpaceX / Starlink back in 2015?
paragraft 8y ago
Starlink will only be most useful in remote areas, as you'll be sharing the satellites above you with fewer people. In municipal areas terrestrial will always win.

allthenews 8y ago

I don't understand why this is turning into such a massive panic. The internet wasn't cut up into throttled tiers pre-NN, and who exactly is going to be paying for internet if it doesn't deliver what they want? Why do people have so little faith in the market? Why is the answer MORE regulation, when regulation and regulatory capture are what got us into this monopolized mess in the first place? What about the fact that 5G is on the horizon? That powerful people like Elon Musk have spoken publicly about building alternatives to fiber/cable based internet?

spruciefic399 8y ago
1. Monopolization has increased in markets in general (see: ATT-Time Warner merger). 2. ISPs have realized what they can do with their increased monopolies, and have started developing technical strategies for doing so. 3. Regardless of this, these companies are getting certain things from the public, such as right-of-way. They act like they owe nothing to the public, which is a lie. It's a logical mistake to assume that behavior of ISPs in the past is what they will do in the future. I'll start respecting the arguments against net neutrality when: 1. Private citizens and government entities are allowed to charge arbitrary rates for ISP lines to go over their property. 2. ISPs are legally responsible for the content of any and all packets going over their infrastructure. 3. All legal challenges / obstacles to public / municipal ISPs are dropped and eliminated.
- Spivak 8y ago
  Re: 1. ATT and Time Warner didn't really compete prior to the merge. 2. ISPs have realized that basically every business is dependent on them to access their customers. Why wouldn't you try to extract value from that? 3. Hand-wavy feelings doesn't mean anything in government outside of impassioned speeches. They owe the public nothing other than providing their service according to the contracts they made. Large organizations where every individual has their own incentives don't really have feelings or a sense of duty. --- 1. This is already true, as it turns out private citizens largely don't actually own the land where the poles are and governments don't want to charge. 2. You would hate this world. Content can't be encrypted because there might be illegal content contained within. All your traffic will need to be scanned and scrutinized. P2P is basically dead. Any site with user-generated content will be blocked. Sites will have to make legal agreements with ISPs to be whitelisted for strict content moderation. 3. Blocking municipal ISPs is not as mustache-twirlingly evil as people make it seem. Some ISP goes to a town where it would normally not be profitable to operate and makes a deal with city in exchange for exclusivity. The risk that the citizens of that town would just form a municipal ISP funded by tax dollars and undercut them once the market is established has a real cost which is going to be paid in one way or another.

spruciefic399 8y ago

Another strategy to this (not exclusive of other strategies) is to encourage municipal ISPs, or even go further and roll out federal ISP infrastructure ala the federal highway system. I've always thought that this would be well within the rubric of the USPS. The constitutional mandate for a postal service was drafted at a time when the internet could not have been conceived of. I would argue that the intent of the constitutional mandate was to establish communications and not necessarily paper mail per se. I think if the founders were alive today they would say that ISPs were the sort of thing that was intended. I.e., have the USPS start acting as an ISP, and charging for it like it would mail services. I'm not saying that private ISPs should go away, just that I'm sick of this government handout to companies that want to have their cake and eat it too. No net neutrality? Fine. But then allow public ISPs--no, actively fund public ISP infrastructure--and allow for unfettered lawsuits against private ISPs for content going over their pipes. Also, take away right of way to private ISPs, and let citizens and municipalities charge arbitrary amounts for anything going over their property.

snowwrestler 8y ago
The next step beyond the mail was the telegraph and then the telephone. Those were built out by private companies, but operated under a regulatory regime called "common carrier," which protected the network owner from liability so long as it charged and carried traffic from all parties equally. These days, that concept is called "net neutrality" in the context of the Internet, and I suppose you may have heard it mentioned in the news recently once or twice. (I think it was a mistake to rename common carrier, but too late I guess.) Personally, I think that private buildouts are a better way to go than a government-funded network infrastructure. Private industry is better at investment and product development than the government, and any enterprise that generates a profit contributes to the long-term economic sustainability of innovation. A government-run economy becomes starved for capital and innovation slows way down; that is why the Soviet Union lagged U.S. technology and why Cubans still drive 50-year-old cars. But privately run networks need regulation to deliver the results that citizens want. Railroads needed it, telephone companies needed it, airlines needed it, and yes, ISPs need it. And if that is thwarted, then sure, let municipalities take a swing at it. My town is looking into muni fiber now, and I'm in favor of it because the local service from Comcast is so bad and so expensive and there seems to be no other way to do something about it.

heisenbit 8y ago

Netflix as ISP seems to me the exact opposite of net neutrality no matter what short term tactical arguments there are.

httpz 8y ago

What we really need is preventing existing ISPs from having a regional monopoly. In order to do that, the congress has to change the law so the ISPs have to share the cables they own in a building like phone lines, or someone has to make a technological break through that solves the last mile problem. Also, this is a US specific problem that doesn't exist in places like S.Korea or Japan. Here's a NPR PlanetMoney episode on it. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/299060527/episode-529-the-last-mile https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2014/04/04/299060527/epis...

amazon_not 8y ago
> In order to do that, the congress has to change the law so the ISPs have to share the cables they own in a building like phone lines, No can do. We already had that law and it was revoked in the Brand X decision.

nickjj 8y ago

I don't think ISPs have any power in this situation at all. They are just delivery mechanisms when it comes to providing internet connectivity. All of the power lies within Google, Netflix and other content providers. Google could one day deny access to all of its services for all Comcast customers. If all of the content providers / big sites band together and do this, then there would be no value in paying for a Comcast internet connection. I'm sure this would never happen but that's all it would take for real change to happen.

ncallaway 8y ago
> I'm sure this would never happen but that's all it would take for real change to happen. Interestingly, this kind of thing happens with some frequency in cable channels and various TV providers. I'm not quite so sure this is as far fetched as "would never happen". I think it'd take some fairly well-demonstrated bad behavior by one or a handful of ISPs before sites would go there, but I think this could be possible.
0xffff2 8y ago
Wait a minute. Couldn't Google do this even with net neutrality? If I put a web server on the public internet, I'm perfectly free to refuse connections arbitrarily. It's only ISPs, who are routing traffic, that are required to route everything the same under NN.
- georgemcbay 8y ago
  > Couldn't Google do this even with net neutrality? Sure, but it is clearly not within Google's business interests to reduce their customer base arbitrarily. Cutting off access from specific ISPs would basically be a nuclear option for them.
xutopia 8y ago
That only goes to serve Comcast who then has the possibility to create a product shittier than Netflix and force it down their client's throat.

CyberDildonics 8y ago

This is what happens when cable companies are the ISPs - if they give you enough bandwidth to no longer subscribe to TV, they won't be able to sell you data twice.

bjornsing 8y ago

I wonder if a bunch of Internet companies (Netflix, Alphabet, etc) could gang up and collectively block an ISP...? Could give them quite interesting leverage in negotiations.

SimbaOnSteroids 8y ago
It would be more effective to just buy the house senate and presidency, they collectively have the budget.
- RIMR 8y ago
  I don't know, if suddenly all Google services completely disappeared for all Comcast users, I have a feeling that Comcast would bend over backwards to make them stop. Nothing about that would be against net neutrality rules. I can already start a website and make it accessible only to specific ISPs by whitelisting only the subnets I want.
acdha 8y ago
They don’t even need to do that: just making e.g. Netflix or YouTube display a message like “Your experience is bad right now because your ISP is trying to double-charge for your traffic. Click here to call them…” would get an enormous amount of leverage.
- georgemcbay 8y ago
  Google actually already has something like this in place for YouTube. Not specific to net neutrality (or lack thereof), but if they detect that your access to YouTube is slow due to network congestion on your local ISP, there's a popup that essentially names and shames your ISP by redirecting you to this: https://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/ https://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/

Proven 8y ago

The Sherlocks from TechChrunch are onto something. It turns out if you don't want to pay for services you may need to build your own. Said differently, Net Neutrality is nonsense. Nothing prevents these freeloaders from buying xSPs and Telcos if they don't want to be their customers.

super_mario 8y ago

Technically now that net neutrality is gone, everyone who routes your packets can ask for money for them to pass through their network not slowed down and de-prioritized. So becoming an ISP if you are a high traffic Web company changes nothing, unless you also own entire network from source to destination.

alfredallan1 8y ago

Isn’t there a chance a subsequent administration could “reinstate” net neutrality? If so what’d that mean for Comcast, AT&T, etc.? Or are there ways such a move could be blocked?

forapurpose 8y ago

I wonder how much the ISPs will invest based on the current regulatory rules. Net neutrality could be revived, especially in a few years after the next U.S. presidential election. Businesses usually want certainty so that they can invest in the future. In the state where net neutrality is repealed, there is far more uncertainty; it could be revived any time. If the ISPs accept the state that net neutrality is implemented, there is stability and certainty going forward.

fortythirteen 8y ago

Why not prosecute the telecoms under current anti-trust legislation? I'm as troubled by the zeitgeist's two proposed solutions, more big companies or more big government, as I am by the merger.

apeace 8y ago

Since I work for a startup ISP I am praying that AT&T will be dumb enough to prioritize their content over others. You're going to make TNT fast and Netflix slow? You've got to be kidding. The amazing PR team at Netflix will be all over this and users will revolt. It will open up opportunities for the small guys to compete. By all means big ISPs, please cripple a huge part of your service that is very important to your customers. I'll be rich in no time (and my customers will be happy).

lcfcjs 8y ago
I think this comment hits the nail on the head - It will open up opportunities for the small guys to compete.
tstrimple 8y ago
> The amazing PR team at Netflix will be all over this and users will revolt. That theory is not supported by history. Netflix will pay, because they can. New video streaming companies will have no chance. https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-comcast-to-end-slowdown/index.html https://consumerist.com/2014/02/23/netflix-agrees-to-pay-com...
- PuffinBlue 8y ago
  It's not either/or. Both things will happen. Netflix will pay and small ISPs will capitalize. These things can (and will) happen concurrently.

redial 8y ago

Everyone is worried about video and rightly so, or maybe is just being used as an example, but my question is: Could ISPs prevent in any way Software Updates? Could they block (for example) a patch that would fix a bug allowing them to mim web requests to inject lets say, ads?

augbog 8y ago

I have some friends who work at Netflix and it's crazy how far the executive team foresaw how Netflix would grow. I know they put a lot of resources early on into Open Connect which was to handle working with ISPs. https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-with-isps-around-the-globe-to-deliver-a-great-viewing-experience https://media.netflix.com/en/company-blog/how-netflix-works-... Apparently a lot of people (internally too) called them out it was unnecessary but it's paying dividends back now.

bcrescimanno 8y ago
I worked at Netflix when OpenConnect was introduced and I don't remember anyone internally thinking it was unnecessary (though, even at the time, the company was large enough that you didn't know everyone). Quite contrary, this was the era of the 250GB / month cap from Comcast and we could observe clearly that they were throttling Netflix traffic. OpenConnect, the ability to deploy the CDN directly into the internal network of these ISPs served multiple purposes--not the least of which was to expose the fact that they were holding Netflix for ransom. So, to say that was the executive foreseeing things is a bit of revisionist history. It doesn't lessen the impact or importance of OpenConnect; but, it grew out of a very real impasse with a very large ISP. Ultimately, Netflix did end up paying Comcast in 2014 and, surprise surprise, the throttling stopped.

MrZongle2 8y ago

I have absolutely no interest in increasing my dependence upon Google or any Alphabet company.

_bxg1 8y ago

We are truly in a wasteland of competition when Alphabet and Netflix are the underdogs.

jhatax 8y ago

Comcast just made a bid for 21st Century Fox. $65B USD offered to Fox to compete against Disney. Massive acquisitions and mergers are becoming commonplace.

saisundar 8y ago

Comcast acquiring Fox would also mean they gain control of Hulu -> that would make things really interesting for Netflix, and narrow it's moat - especially if Comcast starts bundling Hulu with it's internet services.

zn44 8y ago

Can Netflix and Alphabet ‘reverse’ the problem and block the ISP that throttle them? I imagine some consumers would rather change ISP than stop using Netflix/google. (I would but that’s my UK perspective)

thatfunkymunki 8y ago
Most people in the US don't have more than 1 viable ISP in their area, so switching is not an option.

ct520 8y ago

well that didnt take long... https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st-century-fox-film-tv-studios-acquisition-deal-announced https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17457244/comcast-21st-cen...

dragonwriter 8y ago

Alphabet is already an ISP, though not a major national one. OTOH, they could probably afford to buy a major ISP outright quite easily if not controlling one was seen as an existential threat.

jpao79 8y ago

What would seem to make sense for Netflix would be use more HDD/SSD caching of videos, similar to how a DVR for Tivo works. There really isn't a huge reason to live stream Netflix movie/show content. It's not live video. The Netflix subscriber user could download up to 30 or 40 Netflix shows in advance from their Netflix queue (sort of like the original 'Netflix by mail' queue) over LTE at midnight under some sort of LTE multi-cast deal with AT&T or Verizon. Or maybe lossless transmission over standard POTS/DSL or Dish Satellite.

error54 8y ago
TV's would be one (of many) limiting factors here. Most consumer televisions have, relative to most other computing devices, low processing power and disk space. Plus you have to factor the additional bandwidth load of downloading a 4K television show that you may not watch and then multiply that cost by 30 or 40.
- jpao79 8y ago
  Yes, it would be like a Netflix box (maybe branded under their Roku brand name) that's similar to Tivo. A Tivo Bolt Premier can be had for $299 with a 1TB drive. The key is signing a lower cost deal with Verizon/ATT LTE or Dish Satellite to do some sort of the multicast broadcasting similar to Over the Air broadcasting but over the internet. Or do unicast transmissions but during off peak hours and blast it out over the LTE/Satellite network over the span of a week between the hours of 1AM to 5AM. The Netflix Top 100 is probably like 95% of what people are watching. That way not everyone is congested from 5PM to 11PM every night and the mobile operators have additional revenue from existing wireless/satellite infrastructure.
amazon_not 8y ago
While technically feasible, content owners won't allow it, so it's a moot point.
- jpao79 8y ago
  Agreed. Caching the video to a Netflix DVR would likely only be guaranteed to work with Netflix's own content. But isn't creating all its own content Netflix's plan?

AndyMcConachie 8y ago

Just a reminder that this is only a problem in the USA, and Netflix and Alphabet are international companies. Now the USA is a big market, but it's not the only one.

matchagaucho 8y ago

Let's face it... Internet access is an essential utility similar to roadways, sewage, water, electrical, and gas. Our municipality will likely just create a bond measure to run city-owned fiber direct to all homes and business, and put the ISP backbone operations up for bid (contingent on net neutral management).

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

WindowsFon4life 8y ago

Interesting that wireless services was left out of the conversation. Given it's massive growth in urban areas, and the fact, there are many options for most populations. Video is hardly a high bandwidth use case. Cultivation of victims.

twohlix_ 8y ago
Wireless has traditionally been left out of common carrier / nn talks because its easier to compete in infra-structurally compared to running cabling.

kushnick 8y ago

A few facts: ---In 2001, there were 9300 ISPs in America, handling the majority of US internet subscribers. ----By 2010, most of America was supposed to have a fiber optic service to the home as every state cut a deal to have the state utilities upgraded to fiber and to charge local phone customers. ---And every merger made the situation worse. Unfortunately, the companies essentially lied about the deployments while competition was shut down, not through market forces but through a takeover of the FCC. The FCC, in 2005, removed the right of small ISPs to use line sharing to offering service, and the competitors were removed by getting rid of the wholesale arrangements, both of which started when the Telecom Act of 1996 opened the networks to competition. By combining the 'Broadband' service, which is Title II, with the Internet Service, an “information” service -- when the FCC mushed these 2 services together, they became, together, an information service, which stopped the obligation to rent the utility networks – This caused Net Neutrality. ---7000 small ISPs were put out of business and then AT&T and MCI were put up for sale-- and merged. Documented in: ‘The Book of Broken Promises: $400 Billion Broadband Scandal”-- a free download. https://bit.ly/2M7KzTE https://bit.ly/2M7KzTE The FCC is currently erasing all the remaining laws and regulations on the telcos, claiming 5G will fix everything. With a range a few blocks and requiring a fiber optic wire -- what this is really about is that we'll have a few companies in control with no more regulations or obligations -- and whatever they give us-- we will have to be thankful for. My take -- this has gone too far and we need to start to break up AT&T again.... and separate the companies from the wires. And, we also need to go after the billions in cross-subsidies where the companies have been able, with the help of the FCC, to manipulate the accounting to dump most of the expenses into the state utility to make their other services 'profitable'. These 2 recent articles supply a short history of the mergers and the commitments that were never completed for broadband and competition; the second is the Verizon New York 2017 financial report -- published MAY 31, 2018 ---“The Mergers that Created ATT & Verizon Were Failures. Time to Break Up AT&T…Again.” https://bit.ly/2JM5zRB https://bit.ly/2JM5zRB and ---“How Did Verizon NY, the State Utility, Lose $2.6 Billion in Just 2017? The FCC’s “Zombie” Rules.” https://bit.ly/2sLj2i0 https://bit.ly/2sLj2i0 I summarized the findings. So far, NO regulator has bothered to examine this new financial report and no reporter has bothered to dig into it. We've all been played. Most people don't understand how we got here or that the FCC and telcos have actually rewritten the history-- it is said that the winners write the history.--We can't let this stand. Netflix et al doesn't have to be ISPs... We need to reopen the networks for competition—wireline and wireless and let the customer choose which ISP to use over the networks customers paid multiple times to have upgraded. And AT&T and Verizon should be separated from these utility networks—ie, all of the wires which would include all the fiber that was built for wireless, FiOS, etc). No more tracking, blocking, prioritizing of their own affiliate companies, overcharging, and letting the networks deteriorate.

wpdev_63 8y ago

I guarantee you that if they start tampering with netflix traffic there will be riots.