4 ms·

You're not as far off as you think. It seems very few commenters to this thread understand how the internet actually operates from a business perspective. When

You're not as far off as you think. It seems very few commenters to this thread understand how the internet actually operates from a business perspective. When you install a server in a colo, you don't get free transit. You find a transit provider (like Level3, Cogent, or NTT) and you pay them for bandwidth. You can understand this very intuitively as most hosting services (like AWS) will charge you for bandwidth. As a service provider (like Weebly), you are paying your own transit provider for a certain amount of bandwidth, and they are covering the costs of delivering that bandwidth to (usually) anybody globally and the costs of maintaining their network. If a network gets large enough, they may often negotiate peering agreements with other networks. So Level3 and Cogent may have a peering agreement, or Level3 and Comcast may have a peering agreement. These are generally set up when two networks deliver roughly the same amount of traffic to each other, or it's considered beneficial to both parties to get the networks closer, and it simplifies the working relationship. These peering agreements can often become contentious when they become imbalanced. Very early on, I remember a fight Cogent and France Telecom had over peering -- FT felt like they were getting the raw end of the deal, and de-peered with Cogent. Cogent refused to pay another transit provider for access to FT's network and so traffic from the Cogent network to FT would drop. They resolved about a week later, with lots of unhappy customers caught in the middle. As you can see, it's simply not the case that (a) service providers never pay for bandwidth because the end-user already pays for bandwidth and (b) peering / free transit is guaranteed. Maybe I'm not understanding the nuances here, but it seems to me like Netflix is taking an ideological stance to hide behind the fact that they are trying to negotiate a better business agreement for themselves.

whoopdedo 12y ago
If there is imbalance between the traffic Comcast is sending to other networks versus what they receive that's because of the policy to forbid residential customers from hosting their own servers. Comcast created this situation because they wanted to force the internet to behave more like television.
- hga 12y ago
  Exactly. The "equal traffic" concept totally fails for consumer last mile providers. In fact, it's technically more expensive for them to provide symmetrical service due to head end noise, but it also fits with their "you're supposed to consume content, especially ours, not supply it" attitude. The latter is something that more people ought to be thinking about, consumers using Netflix are not just consuming more peak bandwidth, they're competing with the video offerings of all of the big last mile providers. Although. AT&T doesn't actually offer U-verse video service to very many of their subscribers; don't know about Verizon's FiOS vs. plain DSL offerings (except that they're shedding small population states and markets as fast as they can), but the others are cable companies so they obviously do.
josh2600 12y ago
This is also kind of relevant given that Cogent bears Netflix's bits and Cisco benefits from that bearing: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-1019435.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-1019435.html
randomfool 12y ago
If Netflix is paying Level3 enough to send the data to users, but Verizon is not paying Level3 enough to get the data on behalf of their users then it sounds like Verizon's fault. Peering agreements should be about saving costs on both sides, but if Netflix is willing to pay Level3 for sufficient bandwidth then Verizon should have the ability to handle that for their users.
- drusenko 12y ago
  Verizon doesn't pay Level3 for the traffic, the person sending the traffic always pays, unless there is a peering agreement. That's how it's always worked. These fights and skirmishes over peering agreements happen often. That's the reality of how things have always been up until today, it's not a change in the status quo.
netcan 12y ago
It's probably both. Having an incentive and an ideological position that align doesn't automatically invalidate the ideological position. I don't think that the net neutrality position is nonsensical, personally so I'm glad to have companies with an interest in it champion it. I also think that there these peerage agreement create an untruthful dynamic with their customers, the point about transparency is valid. People think they are buying "internet" access at a certain speed, not different speeds for different sites. If Verizon thinks it's OK for the speed of their customers' connection to be dependant upon "interconnect agreements" or whatever, then letting their customers know about this isn't defamation. If they do have a problem with their customers knowing, then maybe they should be making sure their customers get what they expect (or expect what they get). In any case, I don't see how this is foul play on Netflix' part. As long as the message they display is true, why should't they be able to display it? Even if the message openly advised their customers to switch away from Verizon, I don't see a foul.

whoopdedo 12y ago

If there is imbalance between the traffic Comcast is sending to other networks versus what they receive that's because of the policy to forbid residential customers from hosting their own servers. Comcast created this situation because they wanted to force the internet to behave more like television.

hga 12y ago
Exactly. The "equal traffic" concept totally fails for consumer last mile providers. In fact, it's technically more expensive for them to provide symmetrical service due to head end noise, but it also fits with their "you're supposed to consume content, especially ours, not supply it" attitude. The latter is something that more people ought to be thinking about, consumers using Netflix are not just consuming more peak bandwidth, they're competing with the video offerings of all of the big last mile providers. Although. AT&T doesn't actually offer U-verse video service to very many of their subscribers; don't know about Verizon's FiOS vs. plain DSL offerings (except that they're shedding small population states and markets as fast as they can), but the others are cable companies so they obviously do.

josh2600 12y ago

This is also kind of relevant given that Cogent bears Netflix's bits and Cisco benefits from that bearing: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-1019435.html http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-1019435.html

randomfool 12y ago

If Netflix is paying Level3 enough to send the data to users, but Verizon is not paying Level3 enough to get the data on behalf of their users then it sounds like Verizon's fault. Peering agreements should be about saving costs on both sides, but if Netflix is willing to pay Level3 for sufficient bandwidth then Verizon should have the ability to handle that for their users.

drusenko 12y ago
Verizon doesn't pay Level3 for the traffic, the person sending the traffic always pays, unless there is a peering agreement. That's how it's always worked. These fights and skirmishes over peering agreements happen often. That's the reality of how things have always been up until today, it's not a change in the status quo.

netcan 12y ago

It's probably both. Having an incentive and an ideological position that align doesn't automatically invalidate the ideological position. I don't think that the net neutrality position is nonsensical, personally so I'm glad to have companies with an interest in it champion it. I also think that there these peerage agreement create an untruthful dynamic with their customers, the point about transparency is valid. People think they are buying "internet" access at a certain speed, not different speeds for different sites. If Verizon thinks it's OK for the speed of their customers' connection to be dependant upon "interconnect agreements" or whatever, then letting their customers know about this isn't defamation. If they do have a problem with their customers knowing, then maybe they should be making sure their customers get what they expect (or expect what they get). In any case, I don't see how this is foul play on Netflix' part. As long as the message they display is true, why should't they be able to display it? Even if the message openly advised their customers to switch away from Verizon, I don't see a foul.