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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 fail

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
  - tomp 13y ago
    But this still doesn't explain why Netflix is paying Comcast, not the other way around, or, even better, with noone paying anyone. This clearly shows that Comcast had an upper hand in the negotiations, probably because of its monopolistic position.
    - dangrossman 13y ago
      All internet services pay for their bandwidth, they don't get paid to be online. Usually that means paying a hosting company, which pays a data center, which pays some transit provider like Cogent or Level 3 to get onto the internet. Netflix was paying Cogent to link it to the internet. Now Netflix's servers are directly linked to Comcast, so Comcast is connecting it to the internet [ed: to Comcast's customers], and that's who they're paying instead. Why would they want to pay Comcast instead of Cogent? Because Comcast's fight with Cogent was resulting in poor performance for Netflix customers. They had the option of waiting for it to get bad enough that one side or the other gave in on the negotiations and increased capacity, meanwhile losing customers frustrated with buffering at peak hours, or choosing an alternate route to get their bits to those customers. It also nicely sets up barriers for entry to new video streaming services, which is something maturing companies tend to do. Netflix has grown big enough to buy transit directly from ISPs instead of through middle-men like Cogent, while startups don't have the capital for that.
      - smw 13y ago
        Netflix was paying Cogent to link it to the internet. Now Netflix's servers are directly linked to Comcast, so Comcast is connecting it to the internet, and that's who they're paying instead. No, Netflix is paying Comcast to connect them to only Comcast's customers, not the Internet. Suggesting that they're paying Comcast for transit is disingenuous.
      - srj 13y ago
        All internet services pay transit providers but they don't typically pay last mile networks for access to their subscribers. Comcast is able to fight with Cogent while their own customer's connectivity suffers precisely because the customers often don't have an alternative ISP. Netflix argues that if the TWC merger proceeds the situation will get even worse.

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
- tomp 13y ago
  But this still doesn't explain why Netflix is paying Comcast, not the other way around, or, even better, with noone paying anyone. This clearly shows that Comcast had an upper hand in the negotiations, probably because of its monopolistic position.
  - dangrossman 13y ago
    All internet services pay for their bandwidth, they don't get paid to be online. Usually that means paying a hosting company, which pays a data center, which pays some transit provider like Cogent or Level 3 to get onto the internet. Netflix was paying Cogent to link it to the internet. Now Netflix's servers are directly linked to Comcast, so Comcast is connecting it to the internet [ed: to Comcast's customers], and that's who they're paying instead. Why would they want to pay Comcast instead of Cogent? Because Comcast's fight with Cogent was resulting in poor performance for Netflix customers. They had the option of waiting for it to get bad enough that one side or the other gave in on the negotiations and increased capacity, meanwhile losing customers frustrated with buffering at peak hours, or choosing an alternate route to get their bits to those customers. It also nicely sets up barriers for entry to new video streaming services, which is something maturing companies tend to do. Netflix has grown big enough to buy transit directly from ISPs instead of through middle-men like Cogent, while startups don't have the capital for that.
    - smw 13y ago
      Netflix was paying Cogent to link it to the internet. Now Netflix's servers are directly linked to Comcast, so Comcast is connecting it to the internet, and that's who they're paying instead. No, Netflix is paying Comcast to connect them to only Comcast's customers, not the Internet. Suggesting that they're paying Comcast for transit is disingenuous.
    - srj 13y ago
      All internet services pay transit providers but they don't typically pay last mile networks for access to their subscribers. Comcast is able to fight with Cogent while their own customer's connectivity suffers precisely because the customers often don't have an alternative ISP. Netflix argues that if the TWC merger proceeds the situation will get even worse.