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Netflix and Google and Amazon and Apple should join forces to let Comcast customers know when they're being throttled. "Your video is buffering because Comcast

Netflix and Google and Amazon and Apple should join forces to let Comcast customers know when they're being throttled. "Your video is buffering because Comcast is slowing your connection down. Click here to contact Comcast customer support. Click here to find Netflix Certified providers in your area." Netflix and Google and Amazon and Apple all have great brands with high customer satisfaction. They should utilize all those eyeballs to funnel even more hate toward Comcast.

xpose2000 13y ago
I think the real question is... why haven't they already done this? Are they worried about pushback at the political level? Certainly their users would agree.
- chacham15 13y ago
  In a lot of cases it will do nothing but frustrate users. Why? Because where I live, the only really decent internet is Comcast. If I wanted to change providers, I would go from 16 MB/s internet down to approximately 1 MB/s (advertised speed...so like 1/10th of that in reality).
  - kevinchen 13y ago
    If users get frustrated enough, the public policy on net equality might change. ISPs get away with lobbying, the revolving door, and exclusivity deals with city governments because only techies care.
    - sbarre 13y ago
      Yeah but nobody will be willing to be the ones who suffer horrible or no service in the short term, certainly not long enough to enact the required changes to bring better competition to the areas that Comcast monopolizes.
    - baddox 13y ago
      That's assuming that "the people" have a measurable influence on politics. Plenty of data show that no such influence exists in certain aspects of policy.
dangrossman 13y ago
According to Netflix in February, no ISP has ever throttled the service. My understanding is that nobody's intentionally slowed down anyone else, they just failed to allocate additional capital to improve congested parts of their network. Comcast should also still be bound by the "net neutrality" principles they agreed to as a condition of their NBC Universal merger. I'd think if they were singling out any service for throttling, at least one of their 136K employees would blow the whistle to the FCC/DOJ.
- shas3 13y ago
  But if it is a zero-sum game, 'crime by omission' may be as bad as 'commission' of throttling. So the question is: is it a zero-sum game? If Paying Company A pays for more bandwidth, are they doing so at the cost of revenues for competing nonpaying company, say Nonpaying Company B? In a sense, yes, because then, users are likely switch from the Nonpaying Company B to Paying Company A (whose product/service is superior by being on the 'paid fast lane'). So though it is not directly a zero-sum game, in terms of customers and revenue, it has the potential to be an indirect zero-sum game.
- knappe 13y ago
  This would make sense but for one point. The graph of service quality spiked as soon as Netflix began paying Comcast. If they're weren't throttling then how could such a spike be possible? You can't see those kind of performance gains by throwing a ton of hardware at it. You couldn't even provision the amount of hardware needed to see those gains in that short of a time frame (less than one day by the chart).
  - dangrossman 13y ago
    It's not a question of hardware but routing. The deal cut out the middle-man between Netflix's and Comcast's networks, Cogent. Because Comcast and Cogent were in a constant feud over their peering agreements (Comcast wanting Cogent to pay more to transit all that Netflix data), service through that link was pretty much at capacity and slowly degrading the Netflix experience for Comcast customers. The two networks are directly connected now, which eliminates that bottleneck. That's why performance spiked. There wasn't a capacity issue on either side of that Cogent link; Netflix is willing to pay for its bits, and Comcast's network has adequate capacity to deliver them. This routing change actually occurred two days before the deal was announced; you could see through a traceroute already that the route between Netflix and Comcast had shortened and no longer went through Cogent. Courtesy Ars Technica on February 21, two days before WSJ reported the deal: http://i.imgur.com/pZPVTeR.png http://i.imgur.com/pZPVTeR.png
brandon272 13y ago
> "Click here to find Netflix Certified providers in your area." Followed by: "I'm sorry, there are no Netflix Certified providers in your area." When Comcast is rated as one of the worst companies for customer satisfaction, customers aren't staying with them because they are ignorant when it comes to the alternatives. They are staying with them because there are no alternatives.
- hayksaakian 13y ago
  while this pessimistic perspective might be factual[1], those who do have a choice should be encouraged to switch. [1] 30% of Americans can't choose their ISP http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-americans-cant-choose-their-service-provider http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-...
  - ZachPruckowski 13y ago
    A majority of the people who can pick ISPs (37% of the country) have only two choices. I'd bet in most cases those two choices are Comcast and Verizon. The odds you'll have a neutral ISP as an option are pretty tiny.
- snambi 13y ago
  It is absolutely true. Even in the middle of silicon valley for many houses comcast is the only viable option. In that regard, internet service is very similar to public utility like electricity, water, sewage and phone service. And it should be treated as such.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    Do you actually know what kind of bad shape our electric, water, and sewage systems are in? In many cases, they consist of century old infrastructure with pipes leaching lead into water, sewage systems overflowing raw sewage into rivers, etc. Even with these companies being defacto monopolies in many places, they keep the infrastructure in far better condition and invest much more on upgrades than public utilities do. And I doubt you'd like the result if telecom infrastructure was upgraded on the timelines utilities operate under.
whoismua 13y ago
They have horrible customer service and service for one reason only: because they get away with it. In many markets you have no real choice, and even if you do is the Horrible Comcast or just a as horrible Verizon, AT&T and so on.
lern_too_spel 13y ago
Click somewhere else to cancel Netflix and use Comcast's competing service. Comcast is holding all the cards.
zecho 13y ago
This happens between cable/sat providers and the networks all the time. Company pissing matches in public are terrible for consumers.
graylights 13y ago
Or more directly add a Comcast fee to subscribers on comcast.

xpose2000 13y ago

I think the real question is... why haven't they already done this? Are they worried about pushback at the political level? Certainly their users would agree.

chacham15 13y ago
In a lot of cases it will do nothing but frustrate users. Why? Because where I live, the only really decent internet is Comcast. If I wanted to change providers, I would go from 16 MB/s internet down to approximately 1 MB/s (advertised speed...so like 1/10th of that in reality).
- kevinchen 13y ago
  If users get frustrated enough, the public policy on net equality might change. ISPs get away with lobbying, the revolving door, and exclusivity deals with city governments because only techies care.
  - sbarre 13y ago
    Yeah but nobody will be willing to be the ones who suffer horrible or no service in the short term, certainly not long enough to enact the required changes to bring better competition to the areas that Comcast monopolizes.
  - baddox 13y ago
    That's assuming that "the people" have a measurable influence on politics. Plenty of data show that no such influence exists in certain aspects of policy.

dangrossman 13y ago

According to Netflix in February, no ISP has ever throttled the service. My understanding is that nobody's intentionally slowed down anyone else, they just failed to allocate additional capital to improve congested parts of their network. Comcast should also still be bound by the "net neutrality" principles they agreed to as a condition of their NBC Universal merger. I'd think if they were singling out any service for throttling, at least one of their 136K employees would blow the whistle to the FCC/DOJ.

shas3 13y ago
But if it is a zero-sum game, 'crime by omission' may be as bad as 'commission' of throttling. So the question is: is it a zero-sum game? If Paying Company A pays for more bandwidth, are they doing so at the cost of revenues for competing nonpaying company, say Nonpaying Company B? In a sense, yes, because then, users are likely switch from the Nonpaying Company B to Paying Company A (whose product/service is superior by being on the 'paid fast lane'). So though it is not directly a zero-sum game, in terms of customers and revenue, it has the potential to be an indirect zero-sum game.
knappe 13y ago
This would make sense but for one point. The graph of service quality spiked as soon as Netflix began paying Comcast. If they're weren't throttling then how could such a spike be possible? You can't see those kind of performance gains by throwing a ton of hardware at it. You couldn't even provision the amount of hardware needed to see those gains in that short of a time frame (less than one day by the chart).
- dangrossman 13y ago
  It's not a question of hardware but routing. The deal cut out the middle-man between Netflix's and Comcast's networks, Cogent. Because Comcast and Cogent were in a constant feud over their peering agreements (Comcast wanting Cogent to pay more to transit all that Netflix data), service through that link was pretty much at capacity and slowly degrading the Netflix experience for Comcast customers. The two networks are directly connected now, which eliminates that bottleneck. That's why performance spiked. There wasn't a capacity issue on either side of that Cogent link; Netflix is willing to pay for its bits, and Comcast's network has adequate capacity to deliver them. This routing change actually occurred two days before the deal was announced; you could see through a traceroute already that the route between Netflix and Comcast had shortened and no longer went through Cogent. Courtesy Ars Technica on February 21, two days before WSJ reported the deal: http://i.imgur.com/pZPVTeR.png http://i.imgur.com/pZPVTeR.png

brandon272 13y ago

> "Click here to find Netflix Certified providers in your area." Followed by: "I'm sorry, there are no Netflix Certified providers in your area." When Comcast is rated as one of the worst companies for customer satisfaction, customers aren't staying with them because they are ignorant when it comes to the alternatives. They are staying with them because there are no alternatives.

hayksaakian 13y ago
while this pessimistic perspective might be factual[1], those who do have a choice should be encouraged to switch. [1] 30% of Americans can't choose their ISP http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-americans-cant-choose-their-service-provider http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-...
- ZachPruckowski 13y ago
  A majority of the people who can pick ISPs (37% of the country) have only two choices. I'd bet in most cases those two choices are Comcast and Verizon. The odds you'll have a neutral ISP as an option are pretty tiny.
snambi 13y ago
It is absolutely true. Even in the middle of silicon valley for many houses comcast is the only viable option. In that regard, internet service is very similar to public utility like electricity, water, sewage and phone service. And it should be treated as such.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Do you actually know what kind of bad shape our electric, water, and sewage systems are in? In many cases, they consist of century old infrastructure with pipes leaching lead into water, sewage systems overflowing raw sewage into rivers, etc. Even with these companies being defacto monopolies in many places, they keep the infrastructure in far better condition and invest much more on upgrades than public utilities do. And I doubt you'd like the result if telecom infrastructure was upgraded on the timelines utilities operate under.

whoismua 13y ago

They have horrible customer service and service for one reason only: because they get away with it. In many markets you have no real choice, and even if you do is the Horrible Comcast or just a as horrible Verizon, AT&T and so on.

lern_too_spel 13y ago

Click somewhere else to cancel Netflix and use Comcast's competing service. Comcast is holding all the cards.

zecho 13y ago

This happens between cable/sat providers and the networks all the time. Company pissing matches in public are terrible for consumers.

graylights 13y ago

Or more directly add a Comcast fee to subscribers on comcast.