5 ms·

They have, and guess what? The same shit happened. Its almost like everywhere they go Comcast ends up doing this, kind of like they are specifically targeting

by cdash 13y ago

They have, and guess what? The same shit happened. Its almost like everywhere they go Comcast ends up doing this, kind of like they are specifically targeting Netflix.

ghshephard 13y ago
"They have, and guess what? The same shit happened." What are you referring to? Comcast and Netflix just started peering a few days ago.
- byrgvt 13y ago
  Excuse me if I'm wrong but I think the parent might be referring to a 2010 dispute between Comcast and Level 3 regarding settlement free peering (a lot of the direct Level 3 or Comcast links seem dead now but some summary articles I can find are [1] and [2]). From these summary articles, the dispute happened after Level 3 agreed to become a CDN for Netflix. One tangent that I don't know where else to ask is: why would an ISP agree to peer with Netflix, if Netflix weren't paying them. Reading about openconnect makes it seem that Netflix wants free peering. My understanding of the situation is as follows. 1) Settlement free peering agreement are equivalent to free peering agreements. 2) Companies agree to these if they send roughly the same amount of traffic in both directions. So I'll agree to peer with you if I want to send ~N GB of traffic through your network and you want to send ~N GB through mine. 3) (and this is where I'm really unsure what I'm talking about) Anyone who peers with Netflix deals with handling traffic from Netflix to it's customers. But what traffic goes the other way? What traffic would an ISP send through Netflix network to make the relationship mutually beneficial? Isn't it just the normal way of things that content producers pay ISP to send traffic through their networks? Thanks for any clarifications! [1]http://www.telecompetitor.com/level-3comcast-dispute-revives-eyeball-vs-content-debate/ http://www.telecompetitor.com/level-3comcast-dispute-revives... and [2]http://www.telecompetitor.com/behind-the-level-3-comcast-peering-settlement/ http://www.telecompetitor.com/behind-the-level-3-comcast-pee...
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    No ISP would agree settlement free peering with Netflix - it has always been the case that Netflix has to pay people. They chose to go with the cheapest provider, Cogent, and Cogent did not have the capacity to provide the services that Netflix required. So Netflix started looking elsewhere, and presumably the next cheapest deal they could get was by peering directly with Comcast. Your understanding is absolutely correct - this is not a Net Neutrality issue, but a Peering Dispute, plain and simple.
    - byrgvt 13y ago
      So if that is the case, when I read the Netflix openconnect page at [1], the list of ISPs there do NOT engage in free peering? I was assuming they were because of the second sentence on that page: "ISPs can do this either by free peering...". Also, another tangent: I'm wondering what happens when Netflix installs one of their cache servers at an ISP data center. If 10 customers want to stream House of Cards and that's 10GB of data, I'm assuming Netflix has to end up paying somewhere for 10GB of upload bandwidth. But if the Netflix cache server was in a nearby ISP data center, would Netflix only pay for 1GB of bandwidth (to upload to their servers), and not pay for 10GB of bandwidth as the customers hit the cache server? I'm assuming that the ISP makes some of it back by charging Netflix to place their servers locally, but it's still cheaper then paying to stream all the bandwidth. If an ISP were completely focused on maximizing it's profit and not on what Netflix quality was to it's customer, does the ISP have any incentive to install Netflix cache server? Thanks again for clearing up these questions! [1]https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect
      - ghshephard 13y ago
        When Netflix installs their cache servers at ISP data centers, they purchase transit from those data centers and pay for it at the 95th percentile like any other data center (or CDN) customer of that ISP. Netflix pays for the traffic they put onto the network. The ISP has a big incentive to have Netflix increase their quality wherever there is strong competition for Broadband Internet. The more competition, the more incentive. Here is an excellent article on transit: http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/02/transit-works-costs-important.html http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/02/transit-works-costs-i...

by cdash 13y ago

They have, and guess what? The same shit happened. Its almost like everywhere they go Comcast ends up doing this, kind of like they are specifically targeting Netflix.

ghshephard 13y ago

"They have, and guess what? The same shit happened." What are you referring to? Comcast and Netflix just started peering a few days ago.

byrgvt 13y ago
Excuse me if I'm wrong but I think the parent might be referring to a 2010 dispute between Comcast and Level 3 regarding settlement free peering (a lot of the direct Level 3 or Comcast links seem dead now but some summary articles I can find are [1] and [2]). From these summary articles, the dispute happened after Level 3 agreed to become a CDN for Netflix. One tangent that I don't know where else to ask is: why would an ISP agree to peer with Netflix, if Netflix weren't paying them. Reading about openconnect makes it seem that Netflix wants free peering. My understanding of the situation is as follows. 1) Settlement free peering agreement are equivalent to free peering agreements. 2) Companies agree to these if they send roughly the same amount of traffic in both directions. So I'll agree to peer with you if I want to send ~N GB of traffic through your network and you want to send ~N GB through mine. 3) (and this is where I'm really unsure what I'm talking about) Anyone who peers with Netflix deals with handling traffic from Netflix to it's customers. But what traffic goes the other way? What traffic would an ISP send through Netflix network to make the relationship mutually beneficial? Isn't it just the normal way of things that content producers pay ISP to send traffic through their networks? Thanks for any clarifications! [1]http://www.telecompetitor.com/level-3comcast-dispute-revives-eyeball-vs-content-debate/ http://www.telecompetitor.com/level-3comcast-dispute-revives... and [2]http://www.telecompetitor.com/behind-the-level-3-comcast-peering-settlement/ http://www.telecompetitor.com/behind-the-level-3-comcast-pee...
- ghshephard 13y ago
  No ISP would agree settlement free peering with Netflix - it has always been the case that Netflix has to pay people. They chose to go with the cheapest provider, Cogent, and Cogent did not have the capacity to provide the services that Netflix required. So Netflix started looking elsewhere, and presumably the next cheapest deal they could get was by peering directly with Comcast. Your understanding is absolutely correct - this is not a Net Neutrality issue, but a Peering Dispute, plain and simple.
  - byrgvt 13y ago
    So if that is the case, when I read the Netflix openconnect page at [1], the list of ISPs there do NOT engage in free peering? I was assuming they were because of the second sentence on that page: "ISPs can do this either by free peering...". Also, another tangent: I'm wondering what happens when Netflix installs one of their cache servers at an ISP data center. If 10 customers want to stream House of Cards and that's 10GB of data, I'm assuming Netflix has to end up paying somewhere for 10GB of upload bandwidth. But if the Netflix cache server was in a nearby ISP data center, would Netflix only pay for 1GB of bandwidth (to upload to their servers), and not pay for 10GB of bandwidth as the customers hit the cache server? I'm assuming that the ISP makes some of it back by charging Netflix to place their servers locally, but it's still cheaper then paying to stream all the bandwidth. If an ISP were completely focused on maximizing it's profit and not on what Netflix quality was to it's customer, does the ISP have any incentive to install Netflix cache server? Thanks again for clearing up these questions! [1]https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect
    - ghshephard 13y ago
      When Netflix installs their cache servers at ISP data centers, they purchase transit from those data centers and pay for it at the 95th percentile like any other data center (or CDN) customer of that ISP. Netflix pays for the traffic they put onto the network. The ISP has a big incentive to have Netflix increase their quality wherever there is strong competition for Broadband Internet. The more competition, the more incentive. Here is an excellent article on transit: http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/02/transit-works-costs-important.html http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/02/transit-works-costs-i...