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No it is not that. The internet is largely a collection of privately owned network that has interconnects where networks meet. At that meeting point you can ei
by specialp 13y ago
No it is not that. The internet is largely a collection of privately owned network that has interconnects where networks meet. At that meeting point you can either pay for transit on another network, or agree to settlement free peering if it is mutually agreeable.
Google "Cogent peering dispute" you will see they have had problems with nearly every tier 1 out there. They sell bandwidth very cheap and then try to work out settlement free agreements. The problem is their network often times ends up pushing much more traffic onto the peer than they deliver themselves.
Netflix is a customer of Cogent's and as many customers of them know they often have disputes. Netflix is large enough now where they can pay at interconnects for transit and not have to deal with Cogent's oversubscribed network.
This is not the death of net neutrality. This is how the internet has always worked. To peer settlement free the networks need to be on near equal terms. If you are a small business you simply pay someone who has this peering worked out.
In this instance Comcast is not discriminating against traffic from Netflix in particular, it is discriminating against a peer network that is not paying settlement and providing a non mutually beneficial connection. That is business and is how the internet has always worked since it left the NSF.
- comex 13y agoWhat exactly does "mutually beneficial" mean, though? It doesn't necessarily mean traffic is flowing in both directions. Theoretically, when Netflix delivers traffic to residential customers, Netflix benefits through subscription fees, and the residential ISP benefits in that it is able to offer a fast internet experience to its paying customers. If it were easy to switch ISPs, then customers might switch to those with better Netflix streaming, giving Netflix bargaining power. Unfortunately, not only is it not easy to switch, but many areas have effective ISP monopolies... and on the other side, switching from Netflix to competing video services is easy, so customers are much more likely to punish Netflix than their ISP for bad interconnection. But that arguably has elements of market distortion to it.
- jjoonathan 13y agoExactly. Cogent isn't shoving a burden onto Comcast because that "burden" is part of Comcast's value proposition to its customers. Calling it a "burden" is like saying that Zappos is placing a burden on UPS and should pay above the standard rate to have their product delivered. Of course, UPS doesn't have a monopoly, so they can't get away with that crap. But they reveal the truth: this is all about leverage.
- allochthon 13y ago> Unfortunately, not only is it not easy to switch More to the point, in the US there's often only two players, a DSL and a cable provider, so little meaningful choice.
- specialp 13y agoMutually agreeable would be something like this: Comcast-we provide access to 30 million residential customers for you to deliver content to. Level 3: We provide connectivity to Europe over our Apollo cable, connectivity to ..... on and on Forget about Netflix here for a moment this is a network agreement. If you are Cogent Comcast can say: You are providing bulk bandwidth cheaply and delivering a huge amount of traffic to our network. You are not providing our customers or us with significantly greater connectivity, and far less of our traffic is going over your pipes. Pay us or we are not going to take more of your traffic.
- nknighthb 13y agoAs an end user, I say to Comcast: I'm paying you for access to a bunch of stuff on Cogent's network. Make sure you have adequate peering with them.
- allochthon 13y agoBut you have little leverage over Comcast, even collectively, if they're the only cable provider in your neighborhood.
- nknighthb 13y agoWhich is why government intervention is now an imperative.
- secabeen 13y agoI wonder if part of the value equation to Google for Google Fiber is to help balance their traffic.
- the_ancient 13y agoI am perfectly Aware of how "opeering" works, am I also perfectly aware how that is a bull shit excuse made up by people like Verizon to justify double billing There is absolutely zero chance Cogent will ever recieve more data from Verizon then Verizon receives from cogent. So the Teir 1 Providers that also just so happen to be last Mile Providers have created this nice little scam whereby they can double bill and call it "peering"