7 ms·

In those days it was typical for the costs of peering to be borne by the sender, relative to the traffic ratio. This changed when Netflix and Youtube decided to

In those days it was typical for the costs of peering to be borne by the sender, relative to the traffic ratio. This changed when Netflix and Youtube decided to use their PR and lobbying strength to bring the negotiation to the court of public opinion - and normal people started referring to typical peering cost-sharing agreements using emotionally loaded words like "ransom"

jrockway 7y ago
Peering has traditionally been free.
- jerkstate 7y ago
  Subject to ratio requirements. Go have a look at peeringdb - there is a field for "Ratio Requirement" and it is common for that field to be "Yes"
  - jrockway 7y ago
    Yeah, but these consumer ISPs self-inflicted the ratio imbalance. They literally don't let their customers upload at the same speed they download at; of course their peering ratios are going to be imbalanced. I checked several of the largest ASNs and several smaller NYC-area ISPs on peeringdb and they are all "No" to the ratio requirement. Google doesn't care. Amazon doesn't care. Cloudflare doesn't care. There's half the Internet. Demanding money to peer with Netflix is just trying to charge customers twice because they can. It's not normal, conventional, or good for the Internet. Netflix might be able to pay, but will your startup be able to pay? Probably not. And that's not the future we want.
vorpalhex 7y ago
And if Netflix and Youtube were being charged the actual charge for a tech to walk down and plug in another cable or pop together another interconnect, that would be fine. Instead companies like Comcast are seeking to make profit from this.
- jerkstate 7y ago
  All of the companies involved are seeking to make a profit. For example, Netflix and Youtube are seeking to lower their cost of bandwidth, thus increasing their profits.
ummonk 7y ago
Netflix provides boxes it can plugin to local exchange points so all the ISP has to do is carry the last mile. How is that not sender pays?
jedberg 7y ago
The ratio requirements are a red herring. If your ISP says you get a certain bandwidth, it is on them to provide the appropriate pipes to get to where their customers want to go. How can the ISP on the other side of Comcast be responsible for maintaining ratios if Comcast's customers are the ones that are requesting the data?
- jerkstate 7y ago
  How can Netflix claim to sell streaming video without paying for adequate bandwidth to stream that video?
  - jedberg 7y ago
    They had sufficient bandwidth. Netflix paid their ISP for sufficient bandwidth. Comcast just refused to connect to it, to the detriment of Comcast's customers.
    - jerkstate 7y ago
      Cogent (Netflix's ISP) and Comcast had a peering agreement which spelled out costs and ratios; Cogent sold Netflix bandwidth (probably very cheaply) that they could not provide without breaching their peering agreement. Cogent was unwilling to fulfill the financial terms of their peering agreement in order to provide the product that they had sold to Netflix. Somehow, people think this is Comcast's fault?
      - liability 7y ago
        Netflix is a very popular company and Comcast is a deeply unpopular company. Consequently people take Netflix's statements at face value while assuming that Comcast always lies, even in situations where the facts suggest otherwise. But who's fault is any of this? I say you reap what you sow. Comcast has only themselves to blame when consumers are skeptical of them.
      - gog 7y ago
        You can also turn that statement around. Customers have paid Comcast to access the internet (Netflix) and Comcast didn't want to upgrade his peering with backbone providers forcing Netflix to pay them interconnection. In this case Comcast is getting money from it's customers and then Netflix has to pay extra for the traffic Comcast's customers requested and paid for.
briffle 7y ago
Peering ratio requirements are kind of a scapegoat. Especially in the case of an 'eyeball' network like Comcast. I have 250Mb down, and 10mb up. (I would love 50Mb up, I push a ton of docker images daily). Their circuits they sell their clients will only re-enforce those ratios.. (then again, if netflix was to partner with a bunch of backup providers, like Mozy, crashplan, backblaze, etc, to carry their backup traffic, that could get VERY interesting) [0] https://drpeering.net/white-papers/The-Folly-Of-Peering-Ratios.html https://drpeering.net/white-papers/The-Folly-Of-Peering-Rati...
FireBeyond 7y ago
Okay, let's go the other route then. BackBlaze, CrashPlan. These are companies where Comcast/other ISP customers are sending THEM huge amounts of data and getting nearly nothing in return. So these ISPs should be bearing the costs of peering to backup providers, correct, by your logic? Or would that be the backup providers holding ISPs to "ransom"? Apropos of anything else, ISPs (generally) provide massively asymmetric pipes. You can't provide an asymmetric pipe and then complain that data use on that pipe is, well, asymmetric.
- xorcist 7y ago
  Certainly your ingress/egress ratio affects what kind of peering deals you can get. Peering can be something of a wild west. If you can charge the other party, you do. Otherwise you don't.
hinkley 7y ago
One of my biggest factors for choosing an ISP and contract is how much bandwidth streaming a high-res movie is going to take. I had to chose Comcast when I moved because the alternative could only handle HD streaming but not 4K. And then I'm paying half again as much to be able to watch a pretty movie while others are using the internet, or for several of us to watch shows on our own. Comcast is getting paid for bandwidth, plenty.
jessaustin 7y ago
...the costs of peering to be borne by the sender, relative to the traffic ratio. This "rule" is too simple to game, to have ever been a functioning rule. Netflix could have just patched their app to constantly upload lots of random data. This would have killed ISPs who often expect mostly-down traffic profiles, but it would have evened out "the ratio" so it theoretically would have won the peering argument. Of course, Netflix never did this, which proves that this so-called rule never really governed anything.

jrockway 7y ago

Peering has traditionally been free.

jerkstate 7y ago
Subject to ratio requirements. Go have a look at peeringdb - there is a field for "Ratio Requirement" and it is common for that field to be "Yes"
- jrockway 7y ago
  Yeah, but these consumer ISPs self-inflicted the ratio imbalance. They literally don't let their customers upload at the same speed they download at; of course their peering ratios are going to be imbalanced. I checked several of the largest ASNs and several smaller NYC-area ISPs on peeringdb and they are all "No" to the ratio requirement. Google doesn't care. Amazon doesn't care. Cloudflare doesn't care. There's half the Internet. Demanding money to peer with Netflix is just trying to charge customers twice because they can. It's not normal, conventional, or good for the Internet. Netflix might be able to pay, but will your startup be able to pay? Probably not. And that's not the future we want.

vorpalhex 7y ago

And if Netflix and Youtube were being charged the actual charge for a tech to walk down and plug in another cable or pop together another interconnect, that would be fine. Instead companies like Comcast are seeking to make profit from this.

jerkstate 7y ago
All of the companies involved are seeking to make a profit. For example, Netflix and Youtube are seeking to lower their cost of bandwidth, thus increasing their profits.

ummonk 7y ago

Netflix provides boxes it can plugin to local exchange points so all the ISP has to do is carry the last mile. How is that not sender pays?

jedberg 7y ago

The ratio requirements are a red herring. If your ISP says you get a certain bandwidth, it is on them to provide the appropriate pipes to get to where their customers want to go. How can the ISP on the other side of Comcast be responsible for maintaining ratios if Comcast's customers are the ones that are requesting the data?

jerkstate 7y ago
How can Netflix claim to sell streaming video without paying for adequate bandwidth to stream that video?
- jedberg 7y ago
  They had sufficient bandwidth. Netflix paid their ISP for sufficient bandwidth. Comcast just refused to connect to it, to the detriment of Comcast's customers.
  - jerkstate 7y ago
    Cogent (Netflix's ISP) and Comcast had a peering agreement which spelled out costs and ratios; Cogent sold Netflix bandwidth (probably very cheaply) that they could not provide without breaching their peering agreement. Cogent was unwilling to fulfill the financial terms of their peering agreement in order to provide the product that they had sold to Netflix. Somehow, people think this is Comcast's fault?
    - liability 7y ago
      Netflix is a very popular company and Comcast is a deeply unpopular company. Consequently people take Netflix's statements at face value while assuming that Comcast always lies, even in situations where the facts suggest otherwise. But who's fault is any of this? I say you reap what you sow. Comcast has only themselves to blame when consumers are skeptical of them.
    - gog 7y ago
      You can also turn that statement around. Customers have paid Comcast to access the internet (Netflix) and Comcast didn't want to upgrade his peering with backbone providers forcing Netflix to pay them interconnection. In this case Comcast is getting money from it's customers and then Netflix has to pay extra for the traffic Comcast's customers requested and paid for.

briffle 7y ago

Peering ratio requirements are kind of a scapegoat. Especially in the case of an 'eyeball' network like Comcast. I have 250Mb down, and 10mb up. (I would love 50Mb up, I push a ton of docker images daily). Their circuits they sell their clients will only re-enforce those ratios.. (then again, if netflix was to partner with a bunch of backup providers, like Mozy, crashplan, backblaze, etc, to carry their backup traffic, that could get VERY interesting) [0] https://drpeering.net/white-papers/The-Folly-Of-Peering-Ratios.html https://drpeering.net/white-papers/The-Folly-Of-Peering-Rati...

FireBeyond 7y ago

Okay, let's go the other route then. BackBlaze, CrashPlan. These are companies where Comcast/other ISP customers are sending THEM huge amounts of data and getting nearly nothing in return. So these ISPs should be bearing the costs of peering to backup providers, correct, by your logic? Or would that be the backup providers holding ISPs to "ransom"? Apropos of anything else, ISPs (generally) provide massively asymmetric pipes. You can't provide an asymmetric pipe and then complain that data use on that pipe is, well, asymmetric.

xorcist 7y ago
Certainly your ingress/egress ratio affects what kind of peering deals you can get. Peering can be something of a wild west. If you can charge the other party, you do. Otherwise you don't.

hinkley 7y ago

One of my biggest factors for choosing an ISP and contract is how much bandwidth streaming a high-res movie is going to take. I had to chose Comcast when I moved because the alternative could only handle HD streaming but not 4K. And then I'm paying half again as much to be able to watch a pretty movie while others are using the internet, or for several of us to watch shows on our own. Comcast is getting paid for bandwidth, plenty.

jessaustin 7y ago

...the costs of peering to be borne by the sender, relative to the traffic ratio. This "rule" is too simple to game, to have ever been a functioning rule. Netflix could have just patched their app to constantly upload lots of random data. This would have killed ISPs who often expect mostly-down traffic profiles, but it would have evened out "the ratio" so it theoretically would have won the peering argument. Of course, Netflix never did this, which proves that this so-called rule never really governed anything.