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Netflix pays their upstream ISP to saturate the link they pay for. Why should Verizon, Comcast and others demand payment from Netflix? They are connecting cus

Netflix pays their upstream ISP to saturate the link they pay for. Why should Verizon, Comcast and others demand payment from Netflix? They are connecting customers to the internet, and should be peered to IXs that can feed what their customers need. Netflix even offers to put caches on the ISPs network to lighten the burden on their IX uplink. It will get untenable if every random ISP charges each content provider.

toast0 3y ago
Netflix shouldn't pay their ISP and some other ISP to deliver traffic. That's unreasonable. But if Netflix connects directly to Verizon, Comcast, etc, it's not inheriently unreasonable for Netflix to pay for that connection. Verizon, Comcast and many other telcos and cablecos are national transit ISPs as well as residential ISPs, and paying a transit ISP to get packets to the ISP's customers (and peers) is totally normal.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  This is conflating two different things. If Netflix connects to Comcast in Los Angeles and wants to deliver traffic to Comcast customers in New York, they're using Comcast as a transit network. If Netflix connects to Comcast in Los Angeles and wants to deliver traffic to Comcast customers in Los Angeles, they're not, and getting the traffic between their house and the IX in Los Angeles is what Comcast is charging their own customers for.
  - toast0 3y ago
    What other transit ISP gives you a discount because the traffic is local? Do you or your customer get a discount when you're both only connected with a transit ISP? No, both parties pay for connection to the transit ISP (even if it's the same). Traditional wired telephone networks are almost always caller pays (although cellphones in the US are caller pays toll, callee pays for wireless segment), but IP networking has always been both end points pay. It's not some new thing Comcast (or whoever) invented in 2006 or whenever. If you want to connect to customers behind ISP A, you typically need to pay an ISP that's connected to ISP A, or pay ISP A, or qualify for peering with ISP A. If you and ISP A are both paying ISP B for that data, then there's motivation for you an ISP A to peer; if not, ISP A says we're happy to take your traffic through peering with these ISPs or you can pay us for a direct connection. Maybe a bit less cost for 'paid peering' vs a full transit connection. In the old days of dial-up, all you needed to start an ISP was two T1s, one for your uplink, one for your modem pool. Once you got a little bigger, you'd look to see what content networks you could peer with to reduce your transit budget. After the move to broadband which has a bias towards only two, maybe three companies running wires to homes, and the FCCs abandonment of mandatory line sharing from the telecom act of 1996, we run into the situation where there's a handful of residential ISPs nationwide, and they almost all run transit networks, and there's no longer an economic incentive for them to peer with content networks --- they can justify peering with most other transit ISPs, so there's no cost savings from peering; and they have no competitive need to offer better service. The solution isn't mandating 'neutral treatment', it's mandating competitive local access markets via mandatory line sharing[1], and splitting up the national transit business from the last-mile business, ala 1984 AT&T. [1] But with tighter regulations, so that incumbents can't cross-subsidize retail prices to be lower than wholesale pricing as was common in the early 2000s before mandatory line sharing ended; building out new wiring where line sharing was infeasible was another common loophole. It'd be way more competitive if the wiring providers weren't permitted to offer retail services, but that might be a bit too meddlesome.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > What other transit ISP gives you a discount because the traffic is local? You don't need transit for local traffic, the destination network is already in the same IX as you are. Transit is the thing that carries traffic from one IX to the others. > Do you or your customer get a discount when you're both only connected with a transit ISP? No, both parties pay for connection to the transit ISP (even if it's the same). If you and your customer are both in the same IX you don't use a transit ISP at all. > If you want to connect to customers behind ISP A, you typically need to pay an ISP that's connected to ISP A, or pay ISP A, or qualify for peering with ISP A. If you and ISP A are both paying ISP B for that data, then there's motivation for you an ISP A to peer; if not, ISP A says we're happy to take your traffic through peering with these ISPs or you can pay us for a direct connection. Paying Cogent (or Comcast) to carry traffic from one IX to another is normal; otherwise you would need to run your own fiber or have a presence in the other IX and it allows you to avoid that cost. But if you do have a presence in the other IX, what are you paying them for? It's just a monopoly rent because they control the only network path to their residential customers.
0xy 3y ago
That's not what happened. Netflix pays their bandwidth middleman, and their bandwidth middleman subsequently refused to pay for upgrades for the massive usage of their customer. Netflix should have either demanded their middleman pay, moved to a different middleman, or offered to sign an agreement with the companies directly. Let's put it another way. Let's say Netflix's bandwidth middleman hosts both Netflix and a critical telehealth operator. Should Verizon shake down or throttle the telehealth service, potentially putting health at risk, in order to prop up entertainment content streams for a deadbeat company? Of course only Netflix gets throttled, they're degrading the rest of the internet and not paying for upgrades. Netflix being able to degrade the internet for other services traversing the same lines while refusing to pay (again, industry standard) is greed. >Netflix even offers to put caches on the ISPs network We don't want to pay, but give us free rack space to solve this problem?

toast0 3y ago

Netflix shouldn't pay their ISP and some other ISP to deliver traffic. That's unreasonable. But if Netflix connects directly to Verizon, Comcast, etc, it's not inheriently unreasonable for Netflix to pay for that connection. Verizon, Comcast and many other telcos and cablecos are national transit ISPs as well as residential ISPs, and paying a transit ISP to get packets to the ISP's customers (and peers) is totally normal.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
This is conflating two different things. If Netflix connects to Comcast in Los Angeles and wants to deliver traffic to Comcast customers in New York, they're using Comcast as a transit network. If Netflix connects to Comcast in Los Angeles and wants to deliver traffic to Comcast customers in Los Angeles, they're not, and getting the traffic between their house and the IX in Los Angeles is what Comcast is charging their own customers for.
- toast0 3y ago
  What other transit ISP gives you a discount because the traffic is local? Do you or your customer get a discount when you're both only connected with a transit ISP? No, both parties pay for connection to the transit ISP (even if it's the same). Traditional wired telephone networks are almost always caller pays (although cellphones in the US are caller pays toll, callee pays for wireless segment), but IP networking has always been both end points pay. It's not some new thing Comcast (or whoever) invented in 2006 or whenever. If you want to connect to customers behind ISP A, you typically need to pay an ISP that's connected to ISP A, or pay ISP A, or qualify for peering with ISP A. If you and ISP A are both paying ISP B for that data, then there's motivation for you an ISP A to peer; if not, ISP A says we're happy to take your traffic through peering with these ISPs or you can pay us for a direct connection. Maybe a bit less cost for 'paid peering' vs a full transit connection. In the old days of dial-up, all you needed to start an ISP was two T1s, one for your uplink, one for your modem pool. Once you got a little bigger, you'd look to see what content networks you could peer with to reduce your transit budget. After the move to broadband which has a bias towards only two, maybe three companies running wires to homes, and the FCCs abandonment of mandatory line sharing from the telecom act of 1996, we run into the situation where there's a handful of residential ISPs nationwide, and they almost all run transit networks, and there's no longer an economic incentive for them to peer with content networks --- they can justify peering with most other transit ISPs, so there's no cost savings from peering; and they have no competitive need to offer better service. The solution isn't mandating 'neutral treatment', it's mandating competitive local access markets via mandatory line sharing[1], and splitting up the national transit business from the last-mile business, ala 1984 AT&T. [1] But with tighter regulations, so that incumbents can't cross-subsidize retail prices to be lower than wholesale pricing as was common in the early 2000s before mandatory line sharing ended; building out new wiring where line sharing was infeasible was another common loophole. It'd be way more competitive if the wiring providers weren't permitted to offer retail services, but that might be a bit too meddlesome.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    > What other transit ISP gives you a discount because the traffic is local? You don't need transit for local traffic, the destination network is already in the same IX as you are. Transit is the thing that carries traffic from one IX to the others. > Do you or your customer get a discount when you're both only connected with a transit ISP? No, both parties pay for connection to the transit ISP (even if it's the same). If you and your customer are both in the same IX you don't use a transit ISP at all. > If you want to connect to customers behind ISP A, you typically need to pay an ISP that's connected to ISP A, or pay ISP A, or qualify for peering with ISP A. If you and ISP A are both paying ISP B for that data, then there's motivation for you an ISP A to peer; if not, ISP A says we're happy to take your traffic through peering with these ISPs or you can pay us for a direct connection. Paying Cogent (or Comcast) to carry traffic from one IX to another is normal; otherwise you would need to run your own fiber or have a presence in the other IX and it allows you to avoid that cost. But if you do have a presence in the other IX, what are you paying them for? It's just a monopoly rent because they control the only network path to their residential customers.

0xy 3y ago

That's not what happened. Netflix pays their bandwidth middleman, and their bandwidth middleman subsequently refused to pay for upgrades for the massive usage of their customer. Netflix should have either demanded their middleman pay, moved to a different middleman, or offered to sign an agreement with the companies directly. Let's put it another way. Let's say Netflix's bandwidth middleman hosts both Netflix and a critical telehealth operator. Should Verizon shake down or throttle the telehealth service, potentially putting health at risk, in order to prop up entertainment content streams for a deadbeat company? Of course only Netflix gets throttled, they're degrading the rest of the internet and not paying for upgrades. Netflix being able to degrade the internet for other services traversing the same lines while refusing to pay (again, industry standard) is greed. >Netflix even offers to put caches on the ISPs network We don't want to pay, but give us free rack space to solve this problem?