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That makes no sense. Charging Netflix for congestion their traffic creates on Comcast's upstream pipes has nothing to do with congestion or routing difficulties

That makes no sense. Charging Netflix for congestion their traffic creates on Comcast's upstream pipes has nothing to do with congestion or routing difficulties inside Comcast's network. Comcast still has to route "each bit to customer houses" in the current scenario of Netflix paying for access. The fact that Comcast is eschewing the Netflix offer of free Open Connect CDN appliances (https://www.netflix.com/openconnect https://www.netflix.com/openconnect) tells me that this isn't an issue relating to upstream congestion, but rather with Netflix competing with Comcast's own VOD service.

maxhou 13y ago
It may not has to do with it today, but it will tomorrow. As I said, generating traffic is easy. If there is no drawbacks in raising streaming bandwidth on Netflix side, they will continue to do so, 4k streaming, multiple streams per account, YouKnowWhat... all the way until all ISP subscribers will use 100% of their available bandwidth at all time. I may pay for a XXX Mbit/s access, but I know that no ISP can sustain that XXX limit for all customers at the same time. And I certainly don't want my ISP to shape my fiber access to 10kbit/s because that's the guarantied bandwidth they can offer me. Note that I'm in Europe, I don't have an resentful/hateful relationship with my ISP, but I can understand the US case is different because cable companies (used to) have bad business practices.
- jwatte 13y ago
  Then the ISP shouldn't sell you bandwidth it doesn't have. That's called "fraud" in most other businesses.
  - maxhou 13y ago
    at least my ISP term of sales is clear about it, the guaranteed bandwidth is close to 0. I do agree though that nowhere in the commercials it is said that you are paying for a peak rate.
- aidenn0 13y ago
  "(used to) have bad business practices" I think you mean "still have bad business practices." Comcast regularly gets rated as the worst company in the country by consumers (in some cases the worst entity, public or private, beating out the IRS for that coveted position). nearly 1/3 of the US have only a single option for broadband internet, and that company is typically a relatively unregulated company with low business costs that charges high prices. That's just a recipe for bad behavior.

maxhou 13y ago

It may not has to do with it today, but it will tomorrow. As I said, generating traffic is easy. If there is no drawbacks in raising streaming bandwidth on Netflix side, they will continue to do so, 4k streaming, multiple streams per account, YouKnowWhat... all the way until all ISP subscribers will use 100% of their available bandwidth at all time. I may pay for a XXX Mbit/s access, but I know that no ISP can sustain that XXX limit for all customers at the same time. And I certainly don't want my ISP to shape my fiber access to 10kbit/s because that's the guarantied bandwidth they can offer me. Note that I'm in Europe, I don't have an resentful/hateful relationship with my ISP, but I can understand the US case is different because cable companies (used to) have bad business practices.

jwatte 13y ago
Then the ISP shouldn't sell you bandwidth it doesn't have. That's called "fraud" in most other businesses.
- maxhou 13y ago
  at least my ISP term of sales is clear about it, the guaranteed bandwidth is close to 0. I do agree though that nowhere in the commercials it is said that you are paying for a peak rate.
aidenn0 13y ago
"(used to) have bad business practices" I think you mean "still have bad business practices." Comcast regularly gets rated as the worst company in the country by consumers (in some cases the worst entity, public or private, beating out the IRS for that coveted position). nearly 1/3 of the US have only a single option for broadband internet, and that company is typically a relatively unregulated company with low business costs that charges high prices. That's just a recipe for bad behavior.