9 ms·

Comcast response to Netflix

94 points by itafroma 12y ago

massappeal 12y ago
its funny to me that two companies that hate each other so much have to do business together
- jhawk28 12y ago
  Apple/Samsung are another example.
- knodi 12y ago
  Well if Comcast refused to do business with Netflix it would be a pretty good reason to take them to court over anti-trust.
krebby 12y ago
Disappointed there weren't more House of Cards puns.
click170 12y ago
You lost me at "No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast" I'm sorry Comcast but if you can't fullfil our agreement (Internet access) then you aren't an ISP in my mind. I pay you for an Internet connection, not for the ability to send packets at someone else -- they get to respond to me as well, that's part of our deal.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  And is Comcast supposed to wire up every server for free? If I stick up a box and slap on a 1Gbps uplink to some hosting company that only bought 100Mbps from Comcast, should Comcast now give my and my hoster free access because you decided to download a video file from my server?
  - dangrossman 12y ago
    That's not what's expected. What's expected is that you get what you pay for, whether you're a customer on the hosting end or the residential end. If you're paying your data center for 1Gbps, then they ought to have at least 1Gbps capacity to the major residential ISPs. If you're paying your residential ISP for 15Mbps, then they ought to have at least 15Mbps capacity to their peers. If there are 100 people trying to use 15Mbps at once at peak hours, they need at least 1500Mbps of capacity to provide the level of service they sold. What Comcast is being chastised for, the thing that forced Netflix to transit with them directly, is being paid by its customers to connect to the internet, then refusing to use that money to buy a pipe large enough to deliver that. It wasn't Netflix that wasn't buying a large enough pipe to send its own bits. If Comcast had resolved its disputes with Cogent and widened the pipe to meet the customer demand it's being paid by those customers to meet, I'm sure Netflix would've been happy to stick with its ISP.
    - sbd 12y ago
      Unfortunately you don't buy an always open 15 Mbps pipe, you buy "15 Mbps peak speeds", or at least that's how it is worded for me. Which means at peak usage times you expect to get lower than 15 Mbps.
      - dangrossman 12y ago
        It's hard for customers to buy that when the YouTube and Netflix videos they're watching only need a few hundred Kbps, but they can't get one good stream going on an otherwise unutilized connection. It's not a capacity crunch near the edges of Comcast's network, where lines are still shared in neighborhoods and upgrades cost the most; it's just greed, fattening already healthy profit margins by refusing to increase peering capacity and demanding peers pay more for bits customers are already paying for.
      - Aloha 12y ago
        Which means deciding what an acceptable QoS is for those peak times - many of us think they decided too low - I personally think you should be able to get between 1/3 and 2/3rds (ideally around half) of 'peak' speeds on a sustained level at any time for any amount of time. It's just like the telephone network of yore, no single trunk was ever capacitied to mothers day call traffic - there were reroutes, and more than one path to any large point, so you'd get a lower quality of service, but the traffic would still get thru.
- betterunix 12y ago
  Yeah I stopped reading at that point. An ISP with a history of interfering with certain traffic and lobbying against net neutrality is not a supporter of an open Internet at all, let alone the "strongest."
- ndesaulniers 12y ago
  I was just about to post that exact same comment. I nearly spit out my drink reading that line!
- el_benhameen 12y ago
  That's what's really bothered me about this whole thing--Comcast and the likes have already mastered their phrasing, and that bodes poorly for public perception of the issue. I've heard the term Open Internet used in that context several times in the last few days, and I think it's a part of a concerted effort to paint preferential traffic treatment as making the internet more "open for business". The hope is that rosy phrasing will "help" Joe Shmoe decide that the FCC's proposal is pro-consumer and pro-openness. They're not using the term in some cynical attempt to say that it ain't so, they're trying to actively re-define and capture it to form a cohesive narrative.
- schackbrian 12y ago
  Myth: "No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast[.]" Fact: "Comcast spent the most money of any organization in support of the Stop Online Piracy and PROTECT IP bills, spending roughly $5 million to lobby for their passage." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast#Lobbying_and_electoral_fundraising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast#Lobbying_and_electoral_...
- jankins 12y ago
  Agreed, I just came to comment on that sentence as well. It's presented with no argument or references so it's just hyperbole.
togasystems 12y ago
What are other examples of companies that have agreements with Comcast?
- wmf 12y ago
  Probably other CDNs like Akamai. The lack of transparency here is a big part of the problem, because it's hard to tell what is or is not a common industry practice if everything is covered in NDAs.
- naviwins 12y ago
  Google, Microsoft, Twitch, all directly peer with Comcast. They are willing to do this because the transit providers can not handle their traffic efficiently. So why is Netflix complaining?
  - lern_too_spel 12y ago
    Netflix isn't complaining about peering directly. That's exactly what they want. They're complaining because according to anybody with common sense, that peering should be settlement-free.
    - naviwins 12y ago
      Why would it be settlement free? Its just like any other peering agreement, If the data was symmetrical it would be free, but its not. Netflix is sending way more than its receiving. If you were an ISP would you provide free transit to everyone? If you did, you would be out of business.
      - ncallaway 12y ago
        There's a difference between providing interchange transit, and transit to your end users. ISPs are being paid for transit to their end users _by their end users_.
        12y ago
jebblue 12y ago
Cry me a river Comcast and you actually quoted AT&T, laughable. Piss off.
ENGNR 12y ago
Where's the actual response, there's more disclaimer than content there
- charonn0 12y ago
  Yeah! ---- Certain statements in this communication regarding the alleged superfluity of disclaimers, including any statements regarding the expected length of such disclaimers, benefits and synergies of the disclaimers, future opportunities for the more disclaimers, and any other statements regarding future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, financial conditions, assumptions or future events or performance that are not historical facts are statements made within the meaning of RFC 1438.
- Patrick_Devine 12y ago
  I loved that the disclaimer was 2X the length of the blog post. Oh, and that they try to cram this into their anti-Netflix tweets by including the URL http://imprtnt.info http://imprtnt.info which has a pdf of the same disclaimer.
sfall 12y ago
ok lets not decide if the att link is valid, no one at comcast thought you know who we should align ourselves with att. Another ISP and telecom company that made the consumerist quarterfinals for worst company in america 2013
micahjames 12y ago
> Comcast has a multiplicity of other agreements just like the one Netflix approached us to negotiate, and so has every other Internet service provider for the last two decades. I may just be ignorant here, but in what sense is Netflix an "Internet service provider?"
- muaddirac 12y ago
  I think it's a misplaced modifier: "Comcast, as well as every other ISP for the last two decades, has a multiplicity of agreements just like the one Netflix approached Comcast to negotiate."
  - micahjames 12y ago
    Ah, that would make sense. Thanks!
sergiotapia 12y ago
Additional discussion: http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/23mdhx/netflix_officially_comes_out_against_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/23mdhx/netflix_officia...
mariusz79 12y ago
The sentence "While it’s understandable for Netflix to try to make all Internet users pay for its costs of doing business" should probably end with "we would like to shift some of our cost of doing business back to Netflix"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sytelus 12y ago
What angers me most is FCC and Comcast both are spinning this whole thing as "improving" net-neutrality while in reality is is plain, simple and naked "net anti-neutrality". They are obviously behind this push as lobbyist. Do they think people are complete idiot to buy off statements like charging content providers actually reduces their cost?
- dylan604 12y ago
  Yes, I believe that this is exactly what these corporations believe. They assume that the general public is too unaware of "how the sausage is made" to even know they are being duped. The average American, HN readers are not average, just want to come home from work to relax by not thinking. It's the same thing that happens when a network goes nuclear by pulling their content off of Comcast/DirecTV/etc. They count on the fact that average Americans just want the issue to go away so they can get back to watching Kardashians do what ever it is they do that make people want to watch.
rexreed 12y ago
In summary: NetFlix argument: Comcast is using its bully position to extra a toll from service providers and service subscribers. A Comcast-TwC merger would make it worse for Netflix and everyone else. Comcast argument: Netflix is wrong. We bully all the content providers, not just Netflix. So, er, yeah, they're wrong.
blazespin 12y ago
TLDR - Netflix abused net neutrality to their benefit so therefore we get to kill net neutrality.
scrabble 12y ago
So Netflix is wrong, because? I really didn't see a single counterpoint in that response.
- rtpg 12y ago
  The counterpoint is more in the first link than the actual article, but it is that the Comcast/Netflix relationship is not a website-ISP sort of relationship (the one where net neutrality comes into play), but an ISP-ISP peering relationship. In that relationship, ISPs have paid for peering agreements since the dawn of time. Netflix chose to go down the route of basically becoming the backbone but isn't willing to accept that if they're an infrastructure provider they have to pay for infrastructure costs. This is what I got from the argument at least.
  - scrabble 12y ago
    I could agree with that, but later they say that it's not fair that Comcast customers without Netflix pay for the bandwidth of Netflix users. I understand that Netflix uses a lot of bandwidth, but what about heavy P2P users that have their traffic subsidized by other customers -- or any other site that is not used by all customers. That's how it works. Everyone pays for access for everyone (except there is tiered access so you are explicitly paying more if you are a heavy user), it's the same way health care works in Canada for the most part.
    - rtpg 12y ago
      The problem (on both sides of the argument) is that there's conflation of the website-ISP relationship (i.e. should Comcast be allowed to throttle services/make "fast lanes" for certain services) and the provider-provider relationship (i.e. should Comcast allow other providers to get direct connection into their backbone?) The agreements between Comcast and Netflix fall into the latter, but because people only think of Netflix as 'a bunch of servers connected to the internet', many don't realize that Netflix/Cogent has stuff inside the backbone, which is a different discussion. A (shitty) analogy would be the difference between the post office charging me more in stamps depending on who I was when I want to send a letter (net neutrality), and the USPS charging me for the right to be able to have my own stuff inside the post-offices themselves and dropping stuff directly into the trucks.
curiouscat321 12y ago
How are we supposed to believe them when they say that "there is no need for us to engage in a point-counterpoint with Netflix" If you won't challenge Netflix's argument, then it's your word against theirs. And one of those two companies isn't trying to become the largest ISP in the country.
srj 12y ago
"Internet interconnection has nothing to do with net neutrality; it’s all about Netflix wanting to unfairly shift its costs from its customers to all Internet customers, regardless of whether they subscribe to Netflix or not." Really it's Comcast's customers who are using Netflix and those customers are paying them for an X Mbps connection. I don't see what difference it makes if the data comes from Netflix or some other source. It sounds like what Comcast really wants are data caps for their users but those don't do well with consumers. Instead they're targeting the largest content suppliers.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  No it's not like that. You're sort of implying that Netflix/Cogent should get free peering with Comcast because subscribers want to access Netflix. With this logic, why should anyone have to pay for hosting bandwidth?
  - djcapelis 12y ago
    Honestly, maybe they shouldn't. The people hosting services offer the content Comcast's customers pay them to receive.
  - wmf 12y ago
    If you're willing to hand off traffic to Comcast at any and all points of their choosing (aka cold-potato routing), then I'd say you should get free peering because you're doing Comcast such a favor.
  - AnthonyMouse 12y ago
    > With this logic, why should anyone have to pay for hosting bandwidth? Because you still have to get the traffic from the datacenter to the peering point. That's what you're buying when you pay for hosting bandwidth -- transit. You're paying somebody to get the traffic to all the networks in the whole world. The last mile provider isn't providing transit. You peer with them at their facility. The connection from their customers to their facility was paid for by their customers. The connection from their facility to yours is provided by you (or by the actual transit provider you paid). So what would you be paying them for? It's nothing but a monopoly rent you have to pay because there is no other way to reach their customers.
rchowe 12y ago
I'm not too versed in this argument, so could someone please explain why Netflix's activities aren't covered by the normal peering agreements that make the "internet backbone" work? Doesn't Netflix pay it's ISP appropriately which gets disseminated by the other ISPs the traffic gets routed through?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- betterunix 12y ago
  It is actually rather simple: * Netflix cannot make money if individual Internet users cannot connect to Netflix and stream their movies. Netflix brings in a lot of revenue from its customers, and even after the cost of its own Internet connection manages to turn a handsome profit. * ISPs stand between Netflix and their users. Many ISPs, such as Comcast, are also involved in the business of selling subscriptions to TV channels (usually with plans that require people to pay for hundreds of channels they do not watch) -- a business that is dying because of Internet streaming. Since Netflix relies on ISPs to have customers at all, ISPs want to demand money from Netflix (as well as from their customers). * Somewhere in there are the actual users of Netflix, who have no particular say in any of this. Most of those users would have been happier with BitTorrent, but are too terrified of lawsuits (and even if they did turn to torrents, certain ISPs -- i.e. Comcast -- have been known to deliberately interfere with their customers' traffic to thwart torrents). If your reading of this is, "ISPs are greedy and want to double-dip," well, yeah, that's what is happening here.
- giovannibajo1 12y ago
  Netflix doesn't have a "primary ISP", they are a network. They would like to freely peer to networks and ISPs that they can physically reach (e.g.: US ISPs), and they are happy to pay carriers for transit, that is bringing their traffic elsewhere in the world where they don't have a physical presence. Most large ISPs won't freely peer with Netflix though; that's actually an industry standard, because peering is usually regulated by some kind of traffic balance between packets entering and exiting the network; e.g.: network A will peer with network B is they both exchange similar amounts of traffic in both directions. In Netflix case, it's obvious that this is impossible. In those cases, Netflix would rely on paying the transit service; that is, they pay Cogent to bring their traffic into Comcast, because Comcast and Cogent already have some (secret) agreement in place (either feee or paid peer, who knows); Netflix would be happy to just pay Cogent to reach Comcast users. They would call it "a compromise" because their best option would be to freely peer with Comcast, but again, it's been an industry standard forever that peering is not only a factor of physical connection, but also of commercial power and quantity of packets sent and received (who needs to send more is the one that has to pay). Netflix is now saying that Comcast is deliberately letting their peering with Cogent saturate and refusing to upgrade it (or offering economic conditions that Cogent won't accept, which is the same). This way, Netflix must enter a direct (paid) peering agreement with Comcast, to be able to offer good quality to Comcast users; in that agreement, Comcast will let Netflix pay whatever they see fit to reach their users. The peering here would obviously be paid and not free, since (again) there is a strong disproportion between packets going in/out the network.
fredmin 12y ago
I wrote a comment on this site: " I call BS Comcast, You had larger transit networks in place and refused to activate them until Netflix paid. That has nothing to do with costs to consumers. They are just murdering your antiquated business model and you keep crying foul. Fios is a much better product than anything you offer." It is currently being moderated by "Comcast Voices", lets see how much they support a Open Internet.
pedrocr 12y ago
The quoted AT&T piece is quite interesting: http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-for-netflix/ http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-fo... Particularly because the comments on the AT&T page by its own customers completely demolish the argument. These ISPs are seriously arguing that the cost to upgrade their own networks to deliver the content their own customers are requesting should fall on the other side of the link. They're arguing this apparently even after Netflix/Akamai/etc have build CDNs to deliver the content right next to their subscribers. They're not even having to build a backbone.
steinnes 12y ago
Another reason to do business with your local small business ISP.
- jkelsey 12y ago
  Ha! Good one.
JaggedJax 12y ago
The Comcast argument that "Netflix [...] try to make all Internet users pay for its costs of doing business" reads to me like, "We can't actually offer everyone the bandwidth we have sold them so we either have to raise our rates or charge the largest content providers in order to keep our profit margins." There may be one, but this isn't a very compelling argument as to why large content providers should need to pay Comcast.
clavalle 12y ago
I am surprised AT&T left the comment section open in their Public Policy Blog that this Comcast response links to: http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-for-netflix/ http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-fo... They get raked over the coals (and rightly so, IMHO), by people pointing out that they already pay for their bandwidth, so why should they pay twice (once through AT&T and once through the costs Netflix would have to pass through to them). It really seems like AT&T and Comcast are complaining that people are actually starting to demand the full service that they pay for. It is really hard to take that argument seriously.
- hanley 12y ago
  Looks like Comcast left their comment section open too, although you have to scroll past the 2 large paragraphs of legal matters to get to the comments. I thought it was interesting that they have more legal content than actual content on the post.
  - zxexz 12y ago
    Funny - it now appears that there are 0 comments on the Comcast page.
    - ncallaway 12y ago
      It appears the comments are moderated. I attempted to post a comment and it's now in the moderation queue. Presumably "0 comments" is simply the number of comments that portray Comcast in a reasonable light?
  - pdonis 12y ago
    > you have to scroll past the 2 large paragraphs of legal matters Yeah, I love the fact that the boilerplate disclaimers are well over twice the length of the actual post.
chasingtheflow 12y ago
Interesting how the legalese was longer than the response.
vonklaus 12y ago
Comcast gets paid IN 3 WAYS FOR THE SAME CONTENT, AT LEAST. 1. They get tax money to subsidize their infrastructure costs. 2. They sell the utility their infrastructure provides. 3. They sell the ability for content creators to create content, that they again sell to their users. They get paid to build a distribution channel, and then charge people the ability to create and distribute content through their stream, then charge for the content. Also, they have no competitors.
conroe64 12y ago
Comcast's stock is up over 250% over the last few years and has made me a lot of money... so whatever they've been doing has been working and IMO they should keep at it. It's a dirty game and no one is completely clean, so we should all come down from our high horse. Fluid and evolving business strategies are not the devil's spawn that people make them out to be.
- conroe64 12y ago
  The sheep have neighed.. er down voted
- betterunix 12y ago
  "Evolving business strategies" like fighting new technologies to maintain a decades-old business model? Interesting perspective you have there...
  - conroe64 12y ago
    These weird political fights are in the wrong arena. I'm not going to try to argue with you about what it means to fight a new technology and whether a decades old business model is valid or not, because it's just silly. Regardless of how you and I feel whether a company is doing the right thing, it's there and it's surviving, and in this case, thriving, in its niche. It might feel good to bad mouth giant corporations and swear that you'll never invite them to the next family BBQ because of some negotiation spat they have with each other, but, in reality, all successful big corporations get down in the mud like everyone else. If you don't like what they do, try and get the law changed. But please stop with this whiny horseshit... it's like crying to your mom over Billy eating your desert from your packed lunch. It's sad and pathetic and no matter how many of you all bleigh the same memes and buzzwords over and over again, it won't have any lasting effect.
    - ncallaway 12y ago
      In general I agree with the sentiment behind this post. Except, I disagree with one sentence that's key to the context in the case of Comcast: "If you don't like what they do, try and get the law changed." I think this needs to be appended with "and do not buy goods and/or services from them." Unfortunately, in my case with Comcast, as with many high speed ISPs around the country, there is 0 competition. In order to get speeds higher than 5Mbps in my area, the only option I have is Comcast. In an anti-competitive / monopoly market, I lose the ability to vote with my wallet by finding a competitor whose practices I agree with.
pedrocr 12y ago
Here's a suggestion on how to implement a fair interconnect market. The world's regulators designate a few physical locations as public interchange points governed by the following rules: 1) If you are an ISP you need to be present in all the interchange points of the geographical areas where you are licensed to operate in. 2) Any ISP can connect to any other ISP at those points with no charge. 3) Whenever an ISPs link is above 90% peak usage for X days he has to upgrade. That way everyone pays their own way. If suddenly Comcast customers sign up for Netflix in droves both Netflix and Comcast need to invest to upgrade the links on their side of the interchange, Netflix because they're being paid for the streaming service, Comcast because they're being paid for internet service. If you can come to some other arrangement with interchange at some other point, more power to you, but to be an ISP you are obligated to interchange freely with anyone at these points. What am I missing?
- wmf 12y ago
  Consider a local ISP in Dallas TX. Since all major backbones run through Dallas, the local ISP can now connect to all the backbones for free and essentially pay nothing? I think your rule #3 might be enough on its own. Let Comcast choose whether to peer with Netflix or receive their traffic via transit, as long as there is no congestion. Given that transit costs money, this will bring Comcast to the negotiating table.
  - pedrocr 12y ago
    >Consider a local ISP in Dallas TX. Since all major backbones run through Dallas, the local ISP can now connect to all the backbones for free and essentially pay nothing? The backbones are not included. You're only forced to link at the interchange point if you are providing service to end-users, be they residential or servers. The point of the interchange points is to enforce net neutrality at the local level and then let the market deal with transit between them. The CDNs and transit providers would sell service to connect ISPs to exchange points they're not directly peered at. >I think your rule #3 might be enough on its own. Let Comcast choose whether to peer with Netflix or receive their traffic via transit, as long as there is no congestion. Given that transit costs money, this will bring Comcast to the negotiating table. That wouldn't work if the provider is willing to drop them completely. The rule would have to be "You have to be able to reach 100% of the internet and none of your peering points can be above X% peak utilization".
rtpg 12y ago
http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-response-to-netflixs-opposition-to-time-warner-cable-transaction http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-response... This (the first link in the article) actually enumerates the points of its argument and is more informative on the position.
mavrc 12y ago
With Stephen Colbert changing shows next year, Comedy Central should consider hiring the writer of this to run a new show. Though something leads me to believe the writer doesn't know it's satire.
knodi 12y ago
So I pay for 40Mbs downloads but comcast creates clogs where it "can't" provide me full 40Mbs on my netflix stream? Fix your shit crapcast.
knodi 12y ago
Fuck crapcast.
vxNsr 12y ago
I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but Netflix said recently that they will be raising their prices... and amazon did the same thing, it's odd that if this really wouldn't be passed on to the consumer as Comcast is claiming that right after netflix signed a deal with them Netflix would suddenly feel the need to raise prices. I know, I know, correlation doesn't mean causation, but c'mon!
gregd 12y ago
I'm sorry Comcast but you aren't a simple "industry observer"...you are The Industry(tm).
rartichoke 12y ago
I wish Netflix would just deny access to every Comcast subscriber. Maybe that will knock Comcast into reality after like 20% of their subscribers instantly cancel their account.

94 points by itafroma 12y ago

massappeal 12y ago

its funny to me that two companies that hate each other so much have to do business together

jhawk28 12y ago
Apple/Samsung are another example.
knodi 12y ago
Well if Comcast refused to do business with Netflix it would be a pretty good reason to take them to court over anti-trust.

krebby 12y ago

Disappointed there weren't more House of Cards puns.

click170 12y ago

You lost me at "No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast" I'm sorry Comcast but if you can't fullfil our agreement (Internet access) then you aren't an ISP in my mind. I pay you for an Internet connection, not for the ability to send packets at someone else -- they get to respond to me as well, that's part of our deal.

MichaelGG 12y ago
And is Comcast supposed to wire up every server for free? If I stick up a box and slap on a 1Gbps uplink to some hosting company that only bought 100Mbps from Comcast, should Comcast now give my and my hoster free access because you decided to download a video file from my server?
- dangrossman 12y ago
  That's not what's expected. What's expected is that you get what you pay for, whether you're a customer on the hosting end or the residential end. If you're paying your data center for 1Gbps, then they ought to have at least 1Gbps capacity to the major residential ISPs. If you're paying your residential ISP for 15Mbps, then they ought to have at least 15Mbps capacity to their peers. If there are 100 people trying to use 15Mbps at once at peak hours, they need at least 1500Mbps of capacity to provide the level of service they sold. What Comcast is being chastised for, the thing that forced Netflix to transit with them directly, is being paid by its customers to connect to the internet, then refusing to use that money to buy a pipe large enough to deliver that. It wasn't Netflix that wasn't buying a large enough pipe to send its own bits. If Comcast had resolved its disputes with Cogent and widened the pipe to meet the customer demand it's being paid by those customers to meet, I'm sure Netflix would've been happy to stick with its ISP.
  - sbd 12y ago
    Unfortunately you don't buy an always open 15 Mbps pipe, you buy "15 Mbps peak speeds", or at least that's how it is worded for me. Which means at peak usage times you expect to get lower than 15 Mbps.
    - dangrossman 12y ago
      It's hard for customers to buy that when the YouTube and Netflix videos they're watching only need a few hundred Kbps, but they can't get one good stream going on an otherwise unutilized connection. It's not a capacity crunch near the edges of Comcast's network, where lines are still shared in neighborhoods and upgrades cost the most; it's just greed, fattening already healthy profit margins by refusing to increase peering capacity and demanding peers pay more for bits customers are already paying for.
    - Aloha 12y ago
      Which means deciding what an acceptable QoS is for those peak times - many of us think they decided too low - I personally think you should be able to get between 1/3 and 2/3rds (ideally around half) of 'peak' speeds on a sustained level at any time for any amount of time. It's just like the telephone network of yore, no single trunk was ever capacitied to mothers day call traffic - there were reroutes, and more than one path to any large point, so you'd get a lower quality of service, but the traffic would still get thru.
betterunix 12y ago
Yeah I stopped reading at that point. An ISP with a history of interfering with certain traffic and lobbying against net neutrality is not a supporter of an open Internet at all, let alone the "strongest."
ndesaulniers 12y ago
I was just about to post that exact same comment. I nearly spit out my drink reading that line!
el_benhameen 12y ago
That's what's really bothered me about this whole thing--Comcast and the likes have already mastered their phrasing, and that bodes poorly for public perception of the issue. I've heard the term Open Internet used in that context several times in the last few days, and I think it's a part of a concerted effort to paint preferential traffic treatment as making the internet more "open for business". The hope is that rosy phrasing will "help" Joe Shmoe decide that the FCC's proposal is pro-consumer and pro-openness. They're not using the term in some cynical attempt to say that it ain't so, they're trying to actively re-define and capture it to form a cohesive narrative.
schackbrian 12y ago
Myth: "No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast[.]" Fact: "Comcast spent the most money of any organization in support of the Stop Online Piracy and PROTECT IP bills, spending roughly $5 million to lobby for their passage." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast#Lobbying_and_electoral_fundraising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comcast#Lobbying_and_electoral_...
jankins 12y ago
Agreed, I just came to comment on that sentence as well. It's presented with no argument or references so it's just hyperbole.

togasystems 12y ago

What are other examples of companies that have agreements with Comcast?

wmf 12y ago
Probably other CDNs like Akamai. The lack of transparency here is a big part of the problem, because it's hard to tell what is or is not a common industry practice if everything is covered in NDAs.
naviwins 12y ago
Google, Microsoft, Twitch, all directly peer with Comcast. They are willing to do this because the transit providers can not handle their traffic efficiently. So why is Netflix complaining?
- lern_too_spel 12y ago
  Netflix isn't complaining about peering directly. That's exactly what they want. They're complaining because according to anybody with common sense, that peering should be settlement-free.
  - naviwins 12y ago
    Why would it be settlement free? Its just like any other peering agreement, If the data was symmetrical it would be free, but its not. Netflix is sending way more than its receiving. If you were an ISP would you provide free transit to everyone? If you did, you would be out of business.
    - ncallaway 12y ago
      There's a difference between providing interchange transit, and transit to your end users. ISPs are being paid for transit to their end users _by their end users_.
      - 12y ago

jebblue 12y ago

Cry me a river Comcast and you actually quoted AT&T, laughable. Piss off.

ENGNR 12y ago

Where's the actual response, there's more disclaimer than content there

charonn0 12y ago
Yeah! ---- Certain statements in this communication regarding the alleged superfluity of disclaimers, including any statements regarding the expected length of such disclaimers, benefits and synergies of the disclaimers, future opportunities for the more disclaimers, and any other statements regarding future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, financial conditions, assumptions or future events or performance that are not historical facts are statements made within the meaning of RFC 1438.
Patrick_Devine 12y ago
I loved that the disclaimer was 2X the length of the blog post. Oh, and that they try to cram this into their anti-Netflix tweets by including the URL http://imprtnt.info http://imprtnt.info which has a pdf of the same disclaimer.

sfall 12y ago

ok lets not decide if the att link is valid, no one at comcast thought you know who we should align ourselves with att. Another ISP and telecom company that made the consumerist quarterfinals for worst company in america 2013

micahjames 12y ago

> Comcast has a multiplicity of other agreements just like the one Netflix approached us to negotiate, and so has every other Internet service provider for the last two decades. I may just be ignorant here, but in what sense is Netflix an "Internet service provider?"

muaddirac 12y ago
I think it's a misplaced modifier: "Comcast, as well as every other ISP for the last two decades, has a multiplicity of agreements just like the one Netflix approached Comcast to negotiate."
- micahjames 12y ago
  Ah, that would make sense. Thanks!

sergiotapia 12y ago

Additional discussion: http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/23mdhx/netflix_officially_comes_out_against_the/ http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/23mdhx/netflix_officia...

mariusz79 12y ago

The sentence "While it’s understandable for Netflix to try to make all Internet users pay for its costs of doing business" should probably end with "we would like to shift some of our cost of doing business back to Netflix"

deleted 12y ago

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sytelus 12y ago

What angers me most is FCC and Comcast both are spinning this whole thing as "improving" net-neutrality while in reality is is plain, simple and naked "net anti-neutrality". They are obviously behind this push as lobbyist. Do they think people are complete idiot to buy off statements like charging content providers actually reduces their cost?

dylan604 12y ago
Yes, I believe that this is exactly what these corporations believe. They assume that the general public is too unaware of "how the sausage is made" to even know they are being duped. The average American, HN readers are not average, just want to come home from work to relax by not thinking. It's the same thing that happens when a network goes nuclear by pulling their content off of Comcast/DirecTV/etc. They count on the fact that average Americans just want the issue to go away so they can get back to watching Kardashians do what ever it is they do that make people want to watch.

rexreed 12y ago

In summary: NetFlix argument: Comcast is using its bully position to extra a toll from service providers and service subscribers. A Comcast-TwC merger would make it worse for Netflix and everyone else. Comcast argument: Netflix is wrong. We bully all the content providers, not just Netflix. So, er, yeah, they're wrong.

blazespin 12y ago

TLDR - Netflix abused net neutrality to their benefit so therefore we get to kill net neutrality.

scrabble 12y ago

So Netflix is wrong, because? I really didn't see a single counterpoint in that response.

rtpg 12y ago
The counterpoint is more in the first link than the actual article, but it is that the Comcast/Netflix relationship is not a website-ISP sort of relationship (the one where net neutrality comes into play), but an ISP-ISP peering relationship. In that relationship, ISPs have paid for peering agreements since the dawn of time. Netflix chose to go down the route of basically becoming the backbone but isn't willing to accept that if they're an infrastructure provider they have to pay for infrastructure costs. This is what I got from the argument at least.
- scrabble 12y ago
  I could agree with that, but later they say that it's not fair that Comcast customers without Netflix pay for the bandwidth of Netflix users. I understand that Netflix uses a lot of bandwidth, but what about heavy P2P users that have their traffic subsidized by other customers -- or any other site that is not used by all customers. That's how it works. Everyone pays for access for everyone (except there is tiered access so you are explicitly paying more if you are a heavy user), it's the same way health care works in Canada for the most part.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    The problem (on both sides of the argument) is that there's conflation of the website-ISP relationship (i.e. should Comcast be allowed to throttle services/make "fast lanes" for certain services) and the provider-provider relationship (i.e. should Comcast allow other providers to get direct connection into their backbone?) The agreements between Comcast and Netflix fall into the latter, but because people only think of Netflix as 'a bunch of servers connected to the internet', many don't realize that Netflix/Cogent has stuff inside the backbone, which is a different discussion. A (shitty) analogy would be the difference between the post office charging me more in stamps depending on who I was when I want to send a letter (net neutrality), and the USPS charging me for the right to be able to have my own stuff inside the post-offices themselves and dropping stuff directly into the trucks.

curiouscat321 12y ago

How are we supposed to believe them when they say that "there is no need for us to engage in a point-counterpoint with Netflix" If you won't challenge Netflix's argument, then it's your word against theirs. And one of those two companies isn't trying to become the largest ISP in the country.

srj 12y ago

"Internet interconnection has nothing to do with net neutrality; it’s all about Netflix wanting to unfairly shift its costs from its customers to all Internet customers, regardless of whether they subscribe to Netflix or not." Really it's Comcast's customers who are using Netflix and those customers are paying them for an X Mbps connection. I don't see what difference it makes if the data comes from Netflix or some other source. It sounds like what Comcast really wants are data caps for their users but those don't do well with consumers. Instead they're targeting the largest content suppliers.

MichaelGG 12y ago
No it's not like that. You're sort of implying that Netflix/Cogent should get free peering with Comcast because subscribers want to access Netflix. With this logic, why should anyone have to pay for hosting bandwidth?
- djcapelis 12y ago
  Honestly, maybe they shouldn't. The people hosting services offer the content Comcast's customers pay them to receive.
- wmf 12y ago
  If you're willing to hand off traffic to Comcast at any and all points of their choosing (aka cold-potato routing), then I'd say you should get free peering because you're doing Comcast such a favor.
- AnthonyMouse 12y ago
  > With this logic, why should anyone have to pay for hosting bandwidth? Because you still have to get the traffic from the datacenter to the peering point. That's what you're buying when you pay for hosting bandwidth -- transit. You're paying somebody to get the traffic to all the networks in the whole world. The last mile provider isn't providing transit. You peer with them at their facility. The connection from their customers to their facility was paid for by their customers. The connection from their facility to yours is provided by you (or by the actual transit provider you paid). So what would you be paying them for? It's nothing but a monopoly rent you have to pay because there is no other way to reach their customers.

rchowe 12y ago

I'm not too versed in this argument, so could someone please explain why Netflix's activities aren't covered by the normal peering agreements that make the "internet backbone" work? Doesn't Netflix pay it's ISP appropriately which gets disseminated by the other ISPs the traffic gets routed through?

deleted 12y ago
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betterunix 12y ago
It is actually rather simple: * Netflix cannot make money if individual Internet users cannot connect to Netflix and stream their movies. Netflix brings in a lot of revenue from its customers, and even after the cost of its own Internet connection manages to turn a handsome profit. * ISPs stand between Netflix and their users. Many ISPs, such as Comcast, are also involved in the business of selling subscriptions to TV channels (usually with plans that require people to pay for hundreds of channels they do not watch) -- a business that is dying because of Internet streaming. Since Netflix relies on ISPs to have customers at all, ISPs want to demand money from Netflix (as well as from their customers). * Somewhere in there are the actual users of Netflix, who have no particular say in any of this. Most of those users would have been happier with BitTorrent, but are too terrified of lawsuits (and even if they did turn to torrents, certain ISPs -- i.e. Comcast -- have been known to deliberately interfere with their customers' traffic to thwart torrents). If your reading of this is, "ISPs are greedy and want to double-dip," well, yeah, that's what is happening here.
giovannibajo1 12y ago
Netflix doesn't have a "primary ISP", they are a network. They would like to freely peer to networks and ISPs that they can physically reach (e.g.: US ISPs), and they are happy to pay carriers for transit, that is bringing their traffic elsewhere in the world where they don't have a physical presence. Most large ISPs won't freely peer with Netflix though; that's actually an industry standard, because peering is usually regulated by some kind of traffic balance between packets entering and exiting the network; e.g.: network A will peer with network B is they both exchange similar amounts of traffic in both directions. In Netflix case, it's obvious that this is impossible. In those cases, Netflix would rely on paying the transit service; that is, they pay Cogent to bring their traffic into Comcast, because Comcast and Cogent already have some (secret) agreement in place (either feee or paid peer, who knows); Netflix would be happy to just pay Cogent to reach Comcast users. They would call it "a compromise" because their best option would be to freely peer with Comcast, but again, it's been an industry standard forever that peering is not only a factor of physical connection, but also of commercial power and quantity of packets sent and received (who needs to send more is the one that has to pay). Netflix is now saying that Comcast is deliberately letting their peering with Cogent saturate and refusing to upgrade it (or offering economic conditions that Cogent won't accept, which is the same). This way, Netflix must enter a direct (paid) peering agreement with Comcast, to be able to offer good quality to Comcast users; in that agreement, Comcast will let Netflix pay whatever they see fit to reach their users. The peering here would obviously be paid and not free, since (again) there is a strong disproportion between packets going in/out the network.

fredmin 12y ago

I wrote a comment on this site: " I call BS Comcast, You had larger transit networks in place and refused to activate them until Netflix paid. That has nothing to do with costs to consumers. They are just murdering your antiquated business model and you keep crying foul. Fios is a much better product than anything you offer." It is currently being moderated by "Comcast Voices", lets see how much they support a Open Internet.

pedrocr 12y ago

The quoted AT&T piece is quite interesting: http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-for-netflix/ http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-fo... Particularly because the comments on the AT&T page by its own customers completely demolish the argument. These ISPs are seriously arguing that the cost to upgrade their own networks to deliver the content their own customers are requesting should fall on the other side of the link. They're arguing this apparently even after Netflix/Akamai/etc have build CDNs to deliver the content right next to their subscribers. They're not even having to build a backbone.

steinnes 12y ago

Another reason to do business with your local small business ISP.

jkelsey 12y ago
Ha! Good one.

JaggedJax 12y ago

The Comcast argument that "Netflix [...] try to make all Internet users pay for its costs of doing business" reads to me like, "We can't actually offer everyone the bandwidth we have sold them so we either have to raise our rates or charge the largest content providers in order to keep our profit margins." There may be one, but this isn't a very compelling argument as to why large content providers should need to pay Comcast.

clavalle 12y ago

I am surprised AT&T left the comment section open in their Public Policy Blog that this Comcast response links to: http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-for-netflix/ http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-fo... They get raked over the coals (and rightly so, IMHO), by people pointing out that they already pay for their bandwidth, so why should they pay twice (once through AT&T and once through the costs Netflix would have to pass through to them). It really seems like AT&T and Comcast are complaining that people are actually starting to demand the full service that they pay for. It is really hard to take that argument seriously.

hanley 12y ago
Looks like Comcast left their comment section open too, although you have to scroll past the 2 large paragraphs of legal matters to get to the comments. I thought it was interesting that they have more legal content than actual content on the post.
- zxexz 12y ago
  Funny - it now appears that there are 0 comments on the Comcast page.
  - ncallaway 12y ago
    It appears the comments are moderated. I attempted to post a comment and it's now in the moderation queue. Presumably "0 comments" is simply the number of comments that portray Comcast in a reasonable light?
- pdonis 12y ago
  > you have to scroll past the 2 large paragraphs of legal matters Yeah, I love the fact that the boilerplate disclaimers are well over twice the length of the actual post.

chasingtheflow 12y ago

Interesting how the legalese was longer than the response.

vonklaus 12y ago

Comcast gets paid IN 3 WAYS FOR THE SAME CONTENT, AT LEAST. 1. They get tax money to subsidize their infrastructure costs. 2. They sell the utility their infrastructure provides. 3. They sell the ability for content creators to create content, that they again sell to their users. They get paid to build a distribution channel, and then charge people the ability to create and distribute content through their stream, then charge for the content. Also, they have no competitors.

conroe64 12y ago

Comcast's stock is up over 250% over the last few years and has made me a lot of money... so whatever they've been doing has been working and IMO they should keep at it. It's a dirty game and no one is completely clean, so we should all come down from our high horse. Fluid and evolving business strategies are not the devil's spawn that people make them out to be.

conroe64 12y ago
The sheep have neighed.. er down voted
betterunix 12y ago
"Evolving business strategies" like fighting new technologies to maintain a decades-old business model? Interesting perspective you have there...
- conroe64 12y ago
  These weird political fights are in the wrong arena. I'm not going to try to argue with you about what it means to fight a new technology and whether a decades old business model is valid or not, because it's just silly. Regardless of how you and I feel whether a company is doing the right thing, it's there and it's surviving, and in this case, thriving, in its niche. It might feel good to bad mouth giant corporations and swear that you'll never invite them to the next family BBQ because of some negotiation spat they have with each other, but, in reality, all successful big corporations get down in the mud like everyone else. If you don't like what they do, try and get the law changed. But please stop with this whiny horseshit... it's like crying to your mom over Billy eating your desert from your packed lunch. It's sad and pathetic and no matter how many of you all bleigh the same memes and buzzwords over and over again, it won't have any lasting effect.
  - ncallaway 12y ago
    In general I agree with the sentiment behind this post. Except, I disagree with one sentence that's key to the context in the case of Comcast: "If you don't like what they do, try and get the law changed." I think this needs to be appended with "and do not buy goods and/or services from them." Unfortunately, in my case with Comcast, as with many high speed ISPs around the country, there is 0 competition. In order to get speeds higher than 5Mbps in my area, the only option I have is Comcast. In an anti-competitive / monopoly market, I lose the ability to vote with my wallet by finding a competitor whose practices I agree with.

pedrocr 12y ago

Here's a suggestion on how to implement a fair interconnect market. The world's regulators designate a few physical locations as public interchange points governed by the following rules: 1) If you are an ISP you need to be present in all the interchange points of the geographical areas where you are licensed to operate in. 2) Any ISP can connect to any other ISP at those points with no charge. 3) Whenever an ISPs link is above 90% peak usage for X days he has to upgrade. That way everyone pays their own way. If suddenly Comcast customers sign up for Netflix in droves both Netflix and Comcast need to invest to upgrade the links on their side of the interchange, Netflix because they're being paid for the streaming service, Comcast because they're being paid for internet service. If you can come to some other arrangement with interchange at some other point, more power to you, but to be an ISP you are obligated to interchange freely with anyone at these points. What am I missing?

wmf 12y ago
Consider a local ISP in Dallas TX. Since all major backbones run through Dallas, the local ISP can now connect to all the backbones for free and essentially pay nothing? I think your rule #3 might be enough on its own. Let Comcast choose whether to peer with Netflix or receive their traffic via transit, as long as there is no congestion. Given that transit costs money, this will bring Comcast to the negotiating table.
- pedrocr 12y ago
  >Consider a local ISP in Dallas TX. Since all major backbones run through Dallas, the local ISP can now connect to all the backbones for free and essentially pay nothing? The backbones are not included. You're only forced to link at the interchange point if you are providing service to end-users, be they residential or servers. The point of the interchange points is to enforce net neutrality at the local level and then let the market deal with transit between them. The CDNs and transit providers would sell service to connect ISPs to exchange points they're not directly peered at. >I think your rule #3 might be enough on its own. Let Comcast choose whether to peer with Netflix or receive their traffic via transit, as long as there is no congestion. Given that transit costs money, this will bring Comcast to the negotiating table. That wouldn't work if the provider is willing to drop them completely. The rule would have to be "You have to be able to reach 100% of the internet and none of your peering points can be above X% peak utilization".

rtpg 12y ago

http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-response-to-netflixs-opposition-to-time-warner-cable-transaction http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-response... This (the first link in the article) actually enumerates the points of its argument and is more informative on the position.

mavrc 12y ago

With Stephen Colbert changing shows next year, Comedy Central should consider hiring the writer of this to run a new show. Though something leads me to believe the writer doesn't know it's satire.

knodi 12y ago

So I pay for 40Mbs downloads but comcast creates clogs where it "can't" provide me full 40Mbs on my netflix stream? Fix your shit crapcast.

knodi 12y ago

Fuck crapcast.

vxNsr 12y ago

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but Netflix said recently that they will be raising their prices... and amazon did the same thing, it's odd that if this really wouldn't be passed on to the consumer as Comcast is claiming that right after netflix signed a deal with them Netflix would suddenly feel the need to raise prices. I know, I know, correlation doesn't mean causation, but c'mon!

gregd 12y ago

I'm sorry Comcast but you aren't a simple "industry observer"...you are The Industry(tm).

rartichoke 12y ago

I wish Netflix would just deny access to every Comcast subscriber. Maybe that will knock Comcast into reality after like 20% of their subscribers instantly cancel their account.