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Because their customers are paying for it.

by cdash 13y ago

cheald 13y ago
Nope. ISP customers pay for last-mile infrastructure and access to the connection that the ISP has brokered with larger traffic carriers, whatever that may be. You should read up on peering agreements.
- JohnTHaller 13y ago
  And part of that payment is for the ISP's peering agreements with other providers. Why would I pay just to connect to Verizon? I want my connection beyond Verizon to the peer networks hosting Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, etc. No customer would only pay for the last mile if that's all they got.
  - cheald 13y ago
    Yes, part of that payment is for access to those negotiated peers. However, just because a customer is paying indirectly for peer access doesn't establish an obligation on the ISP to support arbitrary uncompensated resource consumption on the behalf of their contracted peers. It's an entirely separate contract. Cogent should pay Comcast market peering costs for the unreciprocated bandwidth they send to Comcast. That's what this whole dispute is about. Arguing that Comcast's refusal to build out and maintain significant infrastructure to support a peering imbalance imposed on them by a peering partner via abuse of a good-faith concession, at their own expense, is somehow "taking hostages" is just silly. Cogent oversold. I think that Comcast sucks as much as the next guy, but I really don't think they're the bad guy here (as much as it pains me to say that). It looks that way to consumers because Comcast is the only contact affected users have with the whole industry (how many people who have been upset at crappy Netflix quality know who Cogent is, or what a transit agreement is?), but that doesn't mean that's actually an accurate perspective.
    - cdash 13y ago
      This is stupid, Cogent is providing Comcast customers with what they are requesting. Now Comcast says no way, I don't give a shit what my customers are asking for, you have to pay us as well. How is Cogent abusing Comcast by providing Comcast's customers with data they have requested. No, I don't think Comcast is being abused at all and its much more likely they just don't give a shit what their customers want because they know there is nothing the customer can do about it and so they let service degrade in order to extort more money.
      - cheald 13y ago
        Because Cogent and Comcast have a peering agreement in which they agree to exchange traffic that is more or less symmetric (since that means that both partners will be spending approximately equivalent amounts on infrastructure development and maintenance). It has been customary for consumer-bound traffic to not count against the balance, since it was a relatively minor portion of the overall traffic exchanged. With the advent of high-resolution consumer-oriented video services like Netflix, that has changed - consumer traffic has become a significant portion of overall traffic exchanged, which causes a flow disparity between the two peering partners and places a disproportionate burden on one. If this were not consumer-bound data, then Cogent would likely already be paying for the disparity. As it is, it's a good guess that Cogent has refused to compensate Comcast for the additional load on their network build-out and maintenance costs, instead relying on the good-faith consumer data exception to exempt them from paying for it. Comcast's response to this was to steal Netflix's business from Cogent, thereby alleviating the uncompensated load that Cogent was placing on their network and improving Netflix's deliverability. There's no such thing as a free lunch. If you're a service provider, you're paying someone for delivery of your bytes. Netflix just cut out the middleman here. It's not like Netflix didn't already have to pay for the bytes they delivered - they just changed who they're paying.

Because their customers are paying for it.

by cdash 13y ago

Because their customers are paying for it.

Nope. ISP customers pay for last-mile infrastructure and access to the connection that the ISP has brokered with larger traffic carriers, whatever that may be. You should read up on peering agreements.

JohnTHaller 13y ago
And part of that payment is for the ISP's peering agreements with other providers. Why would I pay just to connect to Verizon? I want my connection beyond Verizon to the peer networks hosting Netflix, Facebook, YouTube, etc. No customer would only pay for the last mile if that's all they got.
- cheald 13y ago
  Yes, part of that payment is for access to those negotiated peers. However, just because a customer is paying indirectly for peer access doesn't establish an obligation on the ISP to support arbitrary uncompensated resource consumption on the behalf of their contracted peers. It's an entirely separate contract. Cogent should pay Comcast market peering costs for the unreciprocated bandwidth they send to Comcast. That's what this whole dispute is about. Arguing that Comcast's refusal to build out and maintain significant infrastructure to support a peering imbalance imposed on them by a peering partner via abuse of a good-faith concession, at their own expense, is somehow "taking hostages" is just silly. Cogent oversold. I think that Comcast sucks as much as the next guy, but I really don't think they're the bad guy here (as much as it pains me to say that). It looks that way to consumers because Comcast is the only contact affected users have with the whole industry (how many people who have been upset at crappy Netflix quality know who Cogent is, or what a transit agreement is?), but that doesn't mean that's actually an accurate perspective.
  - cdash 13y ago
    This is stupid, Cogent is providing Comcast customers with what they are requesting. Now Comcast says no way, I don't give a shit what my customers are asking for, you have to pay us as well. How is Cogent abusing Comcast by providing Comcast's customers with data they have requested. No, I don't think Comcast is being abused at all and its much more likely they just don't give a shit what their customers want because they know there is nothing the customer can do about it and so they let service degrade in order to extort more money.
    - cheald 13y ago
      Because Cogent and Comcast have a peering agreement in which they agree to exchange traffic that is more or less symmetric (since that means that both partners will be spending approximately equivalent amounts on infrastructure development and maintenance). It has been customary for consumer-bound traffic to not count against the balance, since it was a relatively minor portion of the overall traffic exchanged. With the advent of high-resolution consumer-oriented video services like Netflix, that has changed - consumer traffic has become a significant portion of overall traffic exchanged, which causes a flow disparity between the two peering partners and places a disproportionate burden on one. If this were not consumer-bound data, then Cogent would likely already be paying for the disparity. As it is, it's a good guess that Cogent has refused to compensate Comcast for the additional load on their network build-out and maintenance costs, instead relying on the good-faith consumer data exception to exempt them from paying for it. Comcast's response to this was to steal Netflix's business from Cogent, thereby alleviating the uncompensated load that Cogent was placing on their network and improving Netflix's deliverability. There's no such thing as a free lunch. If you're a service provider, you're paying someone for delivery of your bytes. Netflix just cut out the middleman here. It's not like Netflix didn't already have to pay for the bytes they delivered - they just changed who they're paying.