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That was a really weak part of the post. Settlement-free peering is when I route your traffic and you route my traffic and they're about even so there's not rea
by cheald 13y ago
That was a really weak part of the post. Settlement-free peering is when I route your traffic and you route my traffic and they're about even so there's not really anything to be gained by you paying me $1000 this month and me paying you $1000 next month. If Netflix were to start routing Comcast traffic to the general internet at the same rate that they route traffic from their data centers to Comcast, that would be a rather different story.
Offering to just accept and blackhole traffic is silly, and everyone involved knows it. I'm really disappointed that Netflix chose to present that argument in their post, because it's deliberately misleading about the nature of settlement-free peering.
- Natsu 13y agoIs it? I think that Netflix offers quite a lot to Comcast subscribers and far less to Comcast itself, which is the crux of the problem.
- cheald 13y agoSorry, I'm not sure what you mean. Netflix originates a lot of traffic, but it doesn't accept non-Netflix traffic for routing. That is, I can't send a request for gmail.com to my ISP, who then sends it to Netflix, who then sends it to Google. Netflix does not have a neutral network which routes traffic regardless of origin or destination - they just accept requests for Netflix and serve responses from Netflix.
- Natsu 13y agoI mean, literally, that Netflix traffic is valuable to Comcast's customers (it's their movies) and not valuable to Comcast (it competes with their other offerings).
- kyleashipley 13y agoIsn't it valuable to Comcast as well in the long run? I know several people who have updated their internet packages to ensure high quality Netflix streaming. I have to imagine Comcast's profits on that upgrade far exceed the delivery costs.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Isn't it valuable to Comcast as well in the long run? No, because Comcast offers streaming video services to which Netflix is a direct competitor. Comcast would rather Netflix not exist.
- ckozlowski 13y agoI was puzzled by that argument as well. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Netflix is not a network provider. They do not route traffic. They are not a "peer". What traffic from Comcast are they going to offload, and to where?