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They could purchase transit from someone that isn't Cogent. It would be more expensive than what they're paying the ISPs, but I rather doubt they'd be talking a

by cheald 13y ago

They could purchase transit from someone that isn't Cogent. It would be more expensive than what they're paying the ISPs, but I rather doubt they'd be talking about "tolls" in that case, because everyone that originates traffic on the internet pays for transit. That's been one of my primary issues with Netflix's behavior in this whole thing. They've presented this false dichotemy of "we pay the ISPs protection money, or we can't deliver our bits to you :(", and it's just...not true. Here's a list of everyone that peers with Comcast. You might notice that the list is larger than "Cogent and Netflix": http://bgp.he.net/AS7922#_peers http://bgp.he.net/AS7922#_peers

wmf 13y ago
Do you think that would help? I don't. When Netflix was using Tata, the Tata-Comcast links also got congested. Even if Netflix spread their traffic across all the backbones, I suspect Comcast would just refuse to upgrade all those transit connections.
- cheald 13y ago
  Yes, actually, I do think it would help. Perhaps not in the short term, but let me explain what I mean. Comcast isn't specifically throttling Netflix, they're just not providing sufficient link capacity for primetime delivery of traffic (including Netflix) via some routes. Netflix could provide traffic across alternate (or multiple alternate) routes; as those saturate (particularly with the emergence of 4k streaming), Comcast's service as a whole would suffer. Anyone who was delivering traffic via Cogent to Comcast could attest to how awful their delivery was during primetime; if that were happening on multiple links, it wouldn't just be Netflix and a few other services that were slow, it would be the entire internet, from the perspective of the Comcast customer. This would serve to exert pressure on Comcast to upgrade those links. It's not a pretty solution, but the issue isn't "Netflix is throttled", the issue is "Comcast is a shitty ISP", and Netflix peering with them directly does nothing to solve that. Degrading multiple routes will exert more pressure on Comcast to improve than just about anything short of Google Fiber moving in next door.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    > Degrading multiple routes will exert more pressure on Comcast to improve than just about anything short of Google Fiber moving in next door. Google Fiber could move in next door and Comcast would still do nothing to improve.
    - cheald 13y ago
      Why do you say that? If Google Fiber moved in next door, and your customers could get a better value for their money, Comcast's options would be to compete or to have the vast majority of their business stolen from them. They may be evil, but they aren't stupid.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
Google pays for transit? https://peering.google.com/about/ https://peering.google.com/about/ https://www.techpolicyinstitute.org/files/amkinternetpeeringandtransit.pdf https://www.techpolicyinstitute.org/files/amkinternetpeering... "Some of the largest content providers have, in effect, created networks equivalent to those of Tier-1 ISPs. Google has the most extensive set of peering points, covering every continent, but Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon and Facebook also have extensive peering. TeleGeography, citing Arbor Networks, indicates that “Google has boosted its share of traffic exchanged via peering links from 40 percent in 2008 to 60 percent in 2010.”
- cheald 13y ago
  They pay for that 40% of traffic that isn't peered, absolutely. Peered traffic isn't free, though, either - the infrastructure build-out and maintenance costs can be substantial. There are economies of scale at play here, though - once you hit a certain point, it's more cost-effective to build and maintain your own network than to rent someone else's. If deals like the Netflix/Comcast deal were made illegal, this would only tilt things further in favor of the existing big players, because if you have the kind of scale available that you can build out your own peering networks (like Google), then you can deliver your content for pennies on the dollar as compared to your competition. Transit is expensive. Paid peering allows companies like Netflix - miniscule compared to someone like Google - to achieve effective transit rates that are much closer to what Google can achieve than they could otherwise.
  - wmf 13y ago
    Isn't Netflix the same size as Google or larger? In general, in a world where the only choices are transit or free peering, smaller players could buy CDN services from CDNs that are large enough to qualify for free peering and multiple competing CDNs would drive prices down. It has already been observed that CDN pricing is about the same as transit pricing even though CDNs add value through locality.
    - cheald 13y ago
      In terms of bandwidth? I actually kind of doubt it. Netflix sees tremendous primetime usage, but Google's bandwidth usage is likely to be substantial throughout the entire day, and it's global, whereas Netflix tends to be much more regional. In terms of financial resources? Not even close. Google utterly dwarfs them in terms of capability to build out and maintain networks. I would love some info on CDN vs transit pricing. In particular, it seems somewhat apples-to-oranges, since CDN pricing is generally per GB delivered, whereas transit pricing is generally per Mbit of capacity. You can approximate a conversion between the two, but you'd have to be careful when comparing them that the comparison is valid.
lern_too_spel 13y ago
Nonsense. You're just moving who is paying the protection money to a middle man. That doesn't solve the underlying problem, which is that nobody should be paying that protection money to the racketeers.
- Touche 13y ago
  It's been happening for the entirety of the internet.
  - lern_too_spel 13y ago
    It hasn't. In the past, service providers have paid for transit to the internet at large, not to connect to specific ISPs offering competing services. It used to be up to the ISP to make sure they had sufficient connectivity to the data that their customers wanted.

by cheald 13y ago

wmf 13y ago

Do you think that would help? I don't. When Netflix was using Tata, the Tata-Comcast links also got congested. Even if Netflix spread their traffic across all the backbones, I suspect Comcast would just refuse to upgrade all those transit connections.

cheald 13y ago
Yes, actually, I do think it would help. Perhaps not in the short term, but let me explain what I mean. Comcast isn't specifically throttling Netflix, they're just not providing sufficient link capacity for primetime delivery of traffic (including Netflix) via some routes. Netflix could provide traffic across alternate (or multiple alternate) routes; as those saturate (particularly with the emergence of 4k streaming), Comcast's service as a whole would suffer. Anyone who was delivering traffic via Cogent to Comcast could attest to how awful their delivery was during primetime; if that were happening on multiple links, it wouldn't just be Netflix and a few other services that were slow, it would be the entire internet, from the perspective of the Comcast customer. This would serve to exert pressure on Comcast to upgrade those links. It's not a pretty solution, but the issue isn't "Netflix is throttled", the issue is "Comcast is a shitty ISP", and Netflix peering with them directly does nothing to solve that. Degrading multiple routes will exert more pressure on Comcast to improve than just about anything short of Google Fiber moving in next door.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  > Degrading multiple routes will exert more pressure on Comcast to improve than just about anything short of Google Fiber moving in next door. Google Fiber could move in next door and Comcast would still do nothing to improve.
  - cheald 13y ago
    Why do you say that? If Google Fiber moved in next door, and your customers could get a better value for their money, Comcast's options would be to compete or to have the vast majority of their business stolen from them. They may be evil, but they aren't stupid.

toomuchtodo 13y ago

Google pays for transit? https://peering.google.com/about/ https://peering.google.com/about/ https://www.techpolicyinstitute.org/files/amkinternetpeeringandtransit.pdf https://www.techpolicyinstitute.org/files/amkinternetpeering... "Some of the largest content providers have, in effect, created networks equivalent to those of Tier-1 ISPs. Google has the most extensive set of peering points, covering every continent, but Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon and Facebook also have extensive peering. TeleGeography, citing Arbor Networks, indicates that “Google has boosted its share of traffic exchanged via peering links from 40 percent in 2008 to 60 percent in 2010.”

cheald 13y ago
They pay for that 40% of traffic that isn't peered, absolutely. Peered traffic isn't free, though, either - the infrastructure build-out and maintenance costs can be substantial. There are economies of scale at play here, though - once you hit a certain point, it's more cost-effective to build and maintain your own network than to rent someone else's. If deals like the Netflix/Comcast deal were made illegal, this would only tilt things further in favor of the existing big players, because if you have the kind of scale available that you can build out your own peering networks (like Google), then you can deliver your content for pennies on the dollar as compared to your competition. Transit is expensive. Paid peering allows companies like Netflix - miniscule compared to someone like Google - to achieve effective transit rates that are much closer to what Google can achieve than they could otherwise.
- wmf 13y ago
  Isn't Netflix the same size as Google or larger? In general, in a world where the only choices are transit or free peering, smaller players could buy CDN services from CDNs that are large enough to qualify for free peering and multiple competing CDNs would drive prices down. It has already been observed that CDN pricing is about the same as transit pricing even though CDNs add value through locality.
  - cheald 13y ago
    In terms of bandwidth? I actually kind of doubt it. Netflix sees tremendous primetime usage, but Google's bandwidth usage is likely to be substantial throughout the entire day, and it's global, whereas Netflix tends to be much more regional. In terms of financial resources? Not even close. Google utterly dwarfs them in terms of capability to build out and maintain networks. I would love some info on CDN vs transit pricing. In particular, it seems somewhat apples-to-oranges, since CDN pricing is generally per GB delivered, whereas transit pricing is generally per Mbit of capacity. You can approximate a conversion between the two, but you'd have to be careful when comparing them that the comparison is valid.

lern_too_spel 13y ago

Nonsense. You're just moving who is paying the protection money to a middle man. That doesn't solve the underlying problem, which is that nobody should be paying that protection money to the racketeers.

Touche 13y ago
It's been happening for the entirety of the internet.
- lern_too_spel 13y ago
  It hasn't. In the past, service providers have paid for transit to the internet at large, not to connect to specific ISPs offering competing services. It used to be up to the ISP to make sure they had sufficient connectivity to the data that their customers wanted.