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"On November 22, after being informed by Comcast that its demand for payment was ‘take it or leave it,’ Level 3 agreed to the terms, under protest, in order to

"On November 22, after being informed by Comcast that its demand for payment was ‘take it or leave it,’ Level 3 agreed to the terms, under protest, in order to ensure customers did not experience any disruptions" I do not understand how Comcast had leverage in that situation. Had Level 3 told them no then Comcast customers would have been affected. Why is Comcast even negotiating with Level 3 and not the content providers?

wmf 16y ago
Any content provider who's single-homed to Level 3 (which may include L3 CDN customers like Netflix) would become unavailable to Comcast customers if they disconnected.
- kierank 16y ago
  Traffic would go through another tier one to reach LVLT.
jonknee 16y ago
"Customers" in this situation mean the big streaming players like Netflix and Hulu. Comcast would surely point fingers at the streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, etc) who would then have to move off Level3. A pretty ballsy move and exactly why Net Neutrality is important. I think they went for Level3 because average users have no idea who they are. Attacking Netflix gets you in the NY Times. Attacking Level3 gets you on a BusinessWire press release.
- donohoe 16y ago
  Actually, they made the NYTimes: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/netflix-partner-says-comcast-toll-threatens-online-video-delivery/ http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/netflix-par...