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And so the precedent is set. This is the direction I see things going: For $70 a month from Comcast you can get Amazon, Google, and Facebook. For only $10 more

And so the precedent is set. This is the direction I see things going: For $70 a month from Comcast you can get Amazon, Google, and Facebook. For only $10 more a month you can add Netflix and Spotify. Want Pandora? Sorry, you'll have to switch to AT&T for that. The broadband providers are used to this type of packaged service given their history as cable television providers. It's how they make their money beyond providing simple connectivity. Their future expansion and profits are linked to their ability to create exclusivity and extract revenue based on targeted demand. I don't see any other way around this. Absent regulations prohibiting packet discrimination, I'm not sure I would do any different if I were in Comcast's shoes.

bbosh 13y ago
> I don't see any other way around this. Vote with your feet.
- rosser 13y ago
  That's not an option for entirely too many people to be meaningful.
- westernmostcoy 13y ago
  It's not really a free market to end consumers. To change cable companies, I have to go for some WiMax/Wifi type ISP (lower quality in most cases), DSL (also lower quality in most cases), or move my residence to somewhere in the service area for another cable company.
- saryant 13y ago
  So I should just disconnect myself from the internet? Because it's either Comcast or a DSL provider that won't give me a straight answer as to whether or not they service my address. And this is in Boulder.
  - mkempe 13y ago
    Interestingly, Boulder forced a few years ago the electric utility (Xcel) to bring fiber to the vast majority of houses in town, but the fiber sits unused because it was intended for realtime metering solutions and the town & utility gave up on that goal. Imagine if that fiber were used as a community network! Unfortunately, the town is not planning to do this -- they've excluded the fiber from their plans to take over the Xcel infrastructure.
aleem 13y ago
That is not going to happen. The onus is not on the consumer, it's on the service provider. The service provider may transfer the costs onto the consumer but Comcast won't directly charge the consumers a premium. That would be a bad move and Comcast would lose out its customers to competitors.
- cmircea 13y ago
  Not when their competitors will do the same. Heck, what competitors? Many areas only have Comcast service!
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    >> "Many areas only have Comcast service!" Do a lot of people in the US only have access to one or two ISP's?? If so why? I'm in a not particularly urban part of Ireland and I can choose between at least 5 ISP's, decent speeds, and a good variety of prices.
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      There are normally only one or two low cost options. There are often some higher cost options. For example, in the Bay Area there is high speed microwave internet available, but it comes out to more like 150/mo.
    - balls187 13y ago
      Depends. Many people in the US have quite a bit of choices: Cable, DSL, Cell+Internet, Wireless. Usually those that live in large urban areas. But the service and quality of these ISP's varies greatly, which Comcast--in my area, being top. Those Americans that live in rural areas, may not even have access to high speed internet, or always on internet--see the Xbox 1 fiasco for more details.
      - betterunix 13y ago
        "Many people in the US have quite a bit of choices: Cable, DSL, Cell+Internet, Wireless. Usually those that live in large urban areas. But the service and quality of these ISP's varies greatly, which Comcast--in my area, being top." This needs to be emphasized more. We rarely get to choose between equally cost-effective ISP options. The typical choice is one cable company, one phone company, and some kind of wireless service (possibly satellite). That is not competition, any more than heavy truck sales compete with mo-ped sales.
philwelch 13y ago
That's already the case if you want websites like ESPN3 or NBC Sports Live Extra.
- tylermac1 13y ago
  You don't have to pay extra for those services though. They come with your cable subscription.
  - SwellJoe 13y ago
    My cable subscription is "Internet". I do not have a cable television subscription, and have no desire to have one; even back when Comcast was offering cable TV for $1 added to the Internet price and seemed shocked that I wouldn't want it...I replied, "I don't have a TV. WTF would I do with it?"
    - simplimedia 13y ago
      For a business...it was $300 cheaper to install Comcast with TV than without as of Oct 2013. I pay $2/month for TV but got free install and I can cancel TV in a year. It seems to me they need another mouth to feed.
      - ggreenbe 13y ago
        Maybe I'm missing something but why would it be cheaper for Comcast to include TV?
        CamperBob2 13y ago
        It probably means that some mid-level manager at Comcast is catching heat from the home office for letting their TV numbers slip. At least once a month for the past couple of years, Comcast sends me some junk mail begging for an "Account Review," in which they would add triple-play service to my business Internet account in exchange for a discount on all three. Those letters go in the trash on general principles.
ffk 13y ago
The deal was a paid-peering deal, which would likely drive down Netflix costs. We don't have any information on whether net neutrality was harmed. Hopefully netflix will provide information on this. Peering is a practice where two sides agree to maintain their side of the infrastructure and not charge for metered bandwidth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering
- null_ptr 13y ago
  Is it really peering in this case between Comcast and Netflix? How would Comcast leverage Netflix's infrastructure?
  - ffk 13y ago
    Comcast will likely get better customer retention, less service calls for higher quality netflix streams, a direct line to Netflix's core networking team to resolve problems, and a transfer of cash for the initial peering. Comcast will also likely work with Netflix to estimate traffic growth and make sure their infrastructure scales before they have problems. Again, we don't know the details of the deal. Assuming net neutrality was not damaged is also speculation. We need more information to know what is going on.
  - wmf 13y ago
    When Comcast has a packet that needs to get to Netflix, they can now hand it off directly to Netflix. That's all that peering means.
- valas 13y ago
  Why do you think it would drive down Netflix costs? In old world there were a dozen of "tier1" providers who would all peer with each other more or less settlement free. It is conceivable that one of these providers (I think it was Cogent in this case) was offering "low rates" to take Netflix traffic and deliver that traffic to Comcast over their settlement free peering. As traffic flow between Cogent and Comcast was increasing, Comcast refused to upgrade the interconnect to accommodate the flow. Then: links get hot, traffic gets dropped, customers complain, Netflix+Cogent asks Comcast to behave, Comcast offers to unblock the pipes via direct Netflix<->Comcast peering for a "fee". Now I don't know whether that "low rate" that Cogent was charging Netflix was lower than a "fee" that Comcast is charging. It might be that you are right and the fee overall reduced Netflix costs. What I do know however, is that Comcast is a monopoly and if unregulated, they can start extracting higher and higher rent from Netflix (or any other content provider for that sake).
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rayiner 13y ago
If this is a problem, then build physical infrastructure so your business isn't dependent on someone else's pipes. If states and municipalities put up roadblocks to it, then let's focus on tearing down those roadblocks. I think it's ridiculous and self-serving for internet companies to complain about this. Getting bits to customers is a critical part of any online business. You can either do it yourself, or pay someone to do it. Does Amazon complain that UPS charges them to deliver packages to customers?
- zaidf 13y ago
  Will amazons' customers be okay if UPS charged an additional fee to amazon's customers to receive their packages?
  - hellgas00 13y ago
    This situation is more akin to Amazon building it's warehouse on UPS's land to get shipments out (for a fee of course). The prior situation would be if amazon shipped via US post to UPS, then UPS ships to destination. Ideally the fee to use UPS (Comcast) land would be less than the fee to ship the product via US post (cogent) to UPS. The reduction in transit time also factors in to the decision Netflix made.
- joenathan 13y ago
  So if I need to drive to a customers site I should build my own interstate?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    If you drive to your customers house over a private road, you can't complain if they charge toll.
    - cdash 13y ago
      Except your customers paid to have that road built to their house, why is there now a toll being set up (of which the customers get none of the money) to charge use of that road for something they want.
ghshephard 13y ago
This is exactly the opposite of what you are talking about - there is no preference being provided for Netflix traffic. There is no charge going to the customer for access to Netflix. This is simply the case of a provider, discovering that Cogent provides poor transit services, realizes that you actually have to pay in order to get good Internet peering. This has always been the case on the Internet. As long as Comcast treats all traffic the same regardless of source, destination, packet type, etc.. I'm fine with their behavior here.
- platinum1 13y ago
  According to the article, "the average speeds of Netflix's prime-time streams to Comcast subscribers had dropped 27% since October" I guess the question is, did all other traffic see the same drop? And what changes in their network would cause this?
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    Exactly - was it the case that ALL cogent traffic being blocked - from everything that I've read, it was. Cogent's circuits were just overloaded. They had sold transit to Netflix that they were unable to provide. Netflix customers, in this situation, can point their fingers at Netflix (who, in turn, can point them at Cogent). If Cogent provided 1 Gigabit of transit to Netflix, but didn't have circuits with which to connect Netflix to their customers, well, It will be interesting to see what kind of Liquidated Damages Netflix wrote into their contract with Cogent. Maybe it will be enough to pay their peering fees with Comcast.
    - lern_too_spel 13y ago
      Why should Comcast provide transit at a a reasonable price to Cogent when Cogent hosts data that competes with Comcast's own services? Their uneven traffic argument is a relic of the telephone era -- Comcast's customers pay them for 20 Mbps of bandwidth to services they want, but what they get is just 20 Mbps to speedtest.net. It should be on Comcast to ensure their network can get their customers the data they want.
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atmosx 13y ago
Exactly my thoughts.
diminoten 13y ago
You don't see any way around this? I guess you've never heard of VPNs, then?
Wingman4l7 13y ago
This was from 2009; it's more prescient than ever, and no less terrifying: http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/net-neutrality.jpg http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/net-neut...

bbosh 13y ago

> I don't see any other way around this. Vote with your feet.

rosser 13y ago
That's not an option for entirely too many people to be meaningful.
westernmostcoy 13y ago
It's not really a free market to end consumers. To change cable companies, I have to go for some WiMax/Wifi type ISP (lower quality in most cases), DSL (also lower quality in most cases), or move my residence to somewhere in the service area for another cable company.
saryant 13y ago
So I should just disconnect myself from the internet? Because it's either Comcast or a DSL provider that won't give me a straight answer as to whether or not they service my address. And this is in Boulder.
- mkempe 13y ago
  Interestingly, Boulder forced a few years ago the electric utility (Xcel) to bring fiber to the vast majority of houses in town, but the fiber sits unused because it was intended for realtime metering solutions and the town & utility gave up on that goal. Imagine if that fiber were used as a community network! Unfortunately, the town is not planning to do this -- they've excluded the fiber from their plans to take over the Xcel infrastructure.

aleem 13y ago

That is not going to happen. The onus is not on the consumer, it's on the service provider. The service provider may transfer the costs onto the consumer but Comcast won't directly charge the consumers a premium. That would be a bad move and Comcast would lose out its customers to competitors.

cmircea 13y ago
Not when their competitors will do the same. Heck, what competitors? Many areas only have Comcast service!
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  >> "Many areas only have Comcast service!" Do a lot of people in the US only have access to one or two ISP's?? If so why? I'm in a not particularly urban part of Ireland and I can choose between at least 5 ISP's, decent speeds, and a good variety of prices.
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    There are normally only one or two low cost options. There are often some higher cost options. For example, in the Bay Area there is high speed microwave internet available, but it comes out to more like 150/mo.
  - balls187 13y ago
    Depends. Many people in the US have quite a bit of choices: Cable, DSL, Cell+Internet, Wireless. Usually those that live in large urban areas. But the service and quality of these ISP's varies greatly, which Comcast--in my area, being top. Those Americans that live in rural areas, may not even have access to high speed internet, or always on internet--see the Xbox 1 fiasco for more details.
    - betterunix 13y ago
      "Many people in the US have quite a bit of choices: Cable, DSL, Cell+Internet, Wireless. Usually those that live in large urban areas. But the service and quality of these ISP's varies greatly, which Comcast--in my area, being top." This needs to be emphasized more. We rarely get to choose between equally cost-effective ISP options. The typical choice is one cable company, one phone company, and some kind of wireless service (possibly satellite). That is not competition, any more than heavy truck sales compete with mo-ped sales.

philwelch 13y ago

That's already the case if you want websites like ESPN3 or NBC Sports Live Extra.

tylermac1 13y ago
You don't have to pay extra for those services though. They come with your cable subscription.
- SwellJoe 13y ago
  My cable subscription is "Internet". I do not have a cable television subscription, and have no desire to have one; even back when Comcast was offering cable TV for $1 added to the Internet price and seemed shocked that I wouldn't want it...I replied, "I don't have a TV. WTF would I do with it?"
  - simplimedia 13y ago
    For a business...it was $300 cheaper to install Comcast with TV than without as of Oct 2013. I pay $2/month for TV but got free install and I can cancel TV in a year. It seems to me they need another mouth to feed.
    - ggreenbe 13y ago
      Maybe I'm missing something but why would it be cheaper for Comcast to include TV?
      - CamperBob2 13y ago
        It probably means that some mid-level manager at Comcast is catching heat from the home office for letting their TV numbers slip. At least once a month for the past couple of years, Comcast sends me some junk mail begging for an "Account Review," in which they would add triple-play service to my business Internet account in exchange for a discount on all three. Those letters go in the trash on general principles.

ffk 13y ago

The deal was a paid-peering deal, which would likely drive down Netflix costs. We don't have any information on whether net neutrality was harmed. Hopefully netflix will provide information on this. Peering is a practice where two sides agree to maintain their side of the infrastructure and not charge for metered bandwidth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering

null_ptr 13y ago
Is it really peering in this case between Comcast and Netflix? How would Comcast leverage Netflix's infrastructure?
- ffk 13y ago
  Comcast will likely get better customer retention, less service calls for higher quality netflix streams, a direct line to Netflix's core networking team to resolve problems, and a transfer of cash for the initial peering. Comcast will also likely work with Netflix to estimate traffic growth and make sure their infrastructure scales before they have problems. Again, we don't know the details of the deal. Assuming net neutrality was not damaged is also speculation. We need more information to know what is going on.
- wmf 13y ago
  When Comcast has a packet that needs to get to Netflix, they can now hand it off directly to Netflix. That's all that peering means.
valas 13y ago
Why do you think it would drive down Netflix costs? In old world there were a dozen of "tier1" providers who would all peer with each other more or less settlement free. It is conceivable that one of these providers (I think it was Cogent in this case) was offering "low rates" to take Netflix traffic and deliver that traffic to Comcast over their settlement free peering. As traffic flow between Cogent and Comcast was increasing, Comcast refused to upgrade the interconnect to accommodate the flow. Then: links get hot, traffic gets dropped, customers complain, Netflix+Cogent asks Comcast to behave, Comcast offers to unblock the pipes via direct Netflix<->Comcast peering for a "fee". Now I don't know whether that "low rate" that Cogent was charging Netflix was lower than a "fee" that Comcast is charging. It might be that you are right and the fee overall reduced Netflix costs. What I do know however, is that Comcast is a monopoly and if unregulated, they can start extracting higher and higher rent from Netflix (or any other content provider for that sake).

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rayiner 13y ago

If this is a problem, then build physical infrastructure so your business isn't dependent on someone else's pipes. If states and municipalities put up roadblocks to it, then let's focus on tearing down those roadblocks. I think it's ridiculous and self-serving for internet companies to complain about this. Getting bits to customers is a critical part of any online business. You can either do it yourself, or pay someone to do it. Does Amazon complain that UPS charges them to deliver packages to customers?

zaidf 13y ago
Will amazons' customers be okay if UPS charged an additional fee to amazon's customers to receive their packages?
- hellgas00 13y ago
  This situation is more akin to Amazon building it's warehouse on UPS's land to get shipments out (for a fee of course). The prior situation would be if amazon shipped via US post to UPS, then UPS ships to destination. Ideally the fee to use UPS (Comcast) land would be less than the fee to ship the product via US post (cogent) to UPS. The reduction in transit time also factors in to the decision Netflix made.
joenathan 13y ago
So if I need to drive to a customers site I should build my own interstate?
- rayiner 13y ago
  If you drive to your customers house over a private road, you can't complain if they charge toll.
  - cdash 13y ago
    Except your customers paid to have that road built to their house, why is there now a toll being set up (of which the customers get none of the money) to charge use of that road for something they want.

ghshephard 13y ago

This is exactly the opposite of what you are talking about - there is no preference being provided for Netflix traffic. There is no charge going to the customer for access to Netflix. This is simply the case of a provider, discovering that Cogent provides poor transit services, realizes that you actually have to pay in order to get good Internet peering. This has always been the case on the Internet. As long as Comcast treats all traffic the same regardless of source, destination, packet type, etc.. I'm fine with their behavior here.

platinum1 13y ago
According to the article, "the average speeds of Netflix's prime-time streams to Comcast subscribers had dropped 27% since October" I guess the question is, did all other traffic see the same drop? And what changes in their network would cause this?
- ghshephard 13y ago
  Exactly - was it the case that ALL cogent traffic being blocked - from everything that I've read, it was. Cogent's circuits were just overloaded. They had sold transit to Netflix that they were unable to provide. Netflix customers, in this situation, can point their fingers at Netflix (who, in turn, can point them at Cogent). If Cogent provided 1 Gigabit of transit to Netflix, but didn't have circuits with which to connect Netflix to their customers, well, It will be interesting to see what kind of Liquidated Damages Netflix wrote into their contract with Cogent. Maybe it will be enough to pay their peering fees with Comcast.
  - lern_too_spel 13y ago
    Why should Comcast provide transit at a a reasonable price to Cogent when Cogent hosts data that competes with Comcast's own services? Their uneven traffic argument is a relic of the telephone era -- Comcast's customers pay them for 20 Mbps of bandwidth to services they want, but what they get is just 20 Mbps to speedtest.net. It should be on Comcast to ensure their network can get their customers the data they want.

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atmosx 13y ago

Exactly my thoughts.

diminoten 13y ago

You don't see any way around this? I guess you've never heard of VPNs, then?

Wingman4l7 13y ago

This was from 2009; it's more prescient than ever, and no less terrifying: http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/net-neutrality.jpg http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/net-neut...