7 ms·

Transparency into the deals is nice, but doesn't change the fact that the deals have to exist in the first place. This seems in the same line of thinking with F

Transparency into the deals is nice, but doesn't change the fact that the deals have to exist in the first place. This seems in the same line of thinking with FCC's earlier "commercially reasonable" deals. "We'll give them fast lanes..but don't worry...the deals will be commercially reasonable...and now transparent, too". Somehow it doesn't make me feel much better about it.

MBCook 12y ago
I'm hoping this produces some good smoking guns. At least we'll know what's going on as opposed to having to infer it. I mean if Netflix is paying Comcast $2k/month to fix the issue that's stupid but not very bad. If it's $2m/month that's a huge problem.
- wmf 12y ago
  Netflix has "multiple terabits" of bandwidth to Comcast, so slightly under $1M/month wouldn't be a bad guess.
  - MBCook 12y ago
    I fully expect it to cost more than that amount of bandwidth normally would on the open market.
    - wmf 12y ago
      Except Netflix already said that Comcast is charging them less than market transit rates.
      - eggnet 12y ago
        I would hope so, Comcast isn't providing transit services.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      Why would Netflix pay more for single network peering than full transit? Presumably Netflix could, hire a better ISP than Cogent and actually get the capacity they're trying to buy.
      - diminoten 12y ago
        Cogent isn't the problem, from a technical standpoint. The issue is that the last-mile ISPs have hardware that gets overloaded by the responses to the requests their clients are making, e.g. Bob sends out 10 packets to Cogent, and Cogent sends 10 million packets in response. The last-mile ISP isn't prepared to deal with those 10 million packets all at once.
        msandford 12y ago
        Then the last mile ISP is fucking right up because they've advertised that they can. Full stop. http://www.comcast.com/internet-service.html http://www.comcast.com/internet-service.html If they advertise they can provide the service then they should be held accountable. If they say they can't provide the service, then they should not be allowed to advertise that they can. This is quite literally a "have a cake and eat it too" type of situation.
        jsz0 12y ago
        > This is quite literally a "have a cake and eat it too" type of situation. How is NetFlix any different? They make the choice to lower the cost to deliver their service by choosing a CDN with inadequate existing peering relationships with ISPs. They also severely limit client side functionality because it makes their service cheaper/easier to support on a wide range of devices. NetFlix collects this data about ISP performance so why don't they say 'oh hey sorry ISP X user. We can't let you sign up because you'll have poor performance!' -- instead they happily take the money.
        washadjeffmad 12y ago
        ISPs aren't stopping people from signing up for Netflix because they won't allow the maximum performance subscribers' service plans specify. Accepting pay for service isn't dishonest. Accepting pay for service you don't provide is. Netflix has Internet Connection Speed Recommendations (https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306). ISPs offer service plans that cost more for higher maximum speeds. Is it Netflix's responsibility to ensure particular subscribers receive particular qualities of content, without regard for the contents' source qualities, the subscriber's bandwidth, the policies of their ISP, or any other range of factors in the last mile? Netflix is offering content, not quality. It doesn't sell differently priced subscriptions based on "maximum video quality", it offers a range of bitrates at a flat rate and sends the one that allows the best experience for your bandwidth. Although, that's sort of the issue, isn't it? It's not "your" bandwidth that determines that now. It's not the plan you're paying your ISP for that's the limiting factor, it's the ISPs particular traffic shaping policies. Netflix isn't slowing its traffic down or decreasing video quality prejudicially based on your ISP or internet plan. It's the opposite, but they're being asked to pay, rightfully or not, so that some of their subscribers won't have their bandwidth throttled by their own ISPs.
- ColinDabritz 12y ago
  I don't care at all how much money is being paid. So long as content providers are paying any amount, it's unequal, and needs to stop. Net Neutrality would be a good step. Common carrier status would be better.
  - diminoten 12y ago
    Who the hell are you to tell me how and who I peer with? It's my network, you shouldn't be able to force me to peer with actors who will flood me.
    - wmf 12y ago
      I agree that nobody should be forced to peer. But if a content provider is "flooding" an ISP, refusing to peer will just cause those packets to arrive via more-expensive transit. How bad do you want to spite Netflix?
      - diminoten 12y ago
        Refusing to peer won't cause those packets to arrive at nearly the rate they were arriving previously, which means my network won't flood, which is less expensive for me. I don't want to spite Netflix at all, I just don't want my network flooded. (I probably also shouldn't have promised folks I could deliver all of these packets, either, but that's another issue)
        aaronblohowiak 12y ago
        >I don't want to spite Netflix at all, I just don't want my network flooded. You have different incentives than people trying to protect their transactional VOD content businesses.
    - msandford 12y ago
      You've got that backwards. From this very high level the Internet is PULL ONLY. Netflix doesn't start streaming data to customers just to waste bandwidth and fuck up your network with a flood. That's a DoS/DDoS attack. The "flood" is actually your paying customers who thought that you were telling the truth when you promised them X/Y internet service. They are trying to utilize the service they have paid for and you are preventing them from doing so. To not provide them with the service that was promised could be construed as fraud informally if not legally. I'm sure there is plenty of language in an ISPs retail contract that says that customers can fuck right off for any and all reasons and no matter what the ISP is not at fault. But while it might be legal it's definitely dishonest.
Spooky23 12y ago
This sounds like a pragmatic approach, and pragmatism has always driven internet engineering. From the ISPs perspective, Netflix's needs are diverging from a typical free peering arrangement. The issue is, what triggers the costs? There's no good definition of what threshold requires a content provider to connect to the ISP network. Because ISPs are consolidating so rapidly, there's a huge opportunity for abuse.
- msandford 12y ago
  "From the ISPs perspective, Netflix's needs are diverging from a typical free peering arrangement." I would argue that point. I pay for Internet access, not "All of the Internet MINUS Netflix" access. As a result my ISP SHOULD (doesn't mean they will) ensure that all it's peering connections are of sufficient capacity to provide me with whatever bandwidth I choose to use up until I run into the rate limits for the plan I'm on. My ISP sells me 25/5 I think so the idea that I can't get 3Mbps worth of Netflix is suspect. Of course you have to consider that when you're not saturating your last-mile connection it could be a bottleneck anywhere. If it's 15 hops from me to a server if any of those 15 hops is saturated, that's the limiting factor no matter how much capacity there is before or after. That's why closing a single lane on a freeway for as little as 10 feet can really screw up traffic. You have to merge down and deal with reduced capacity even though it's not miles and miles of lane closure. What we've been told via one of Netflix's backbone providers (Level 3) is that Netflix isn't the slowdown, the backbone provider isn't the slowdown, but the ISPs are the slowdown. How can they say this with certainty? Because they're peered with various ISPs, the connections are saturated, and the ISPs refuse to upgrade their side of the peering connection unless they're paid. http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-internet-middleman/ http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-inte... That might sound reasonable at first brush, the ISP will incur costs associated with upgrading the peering connection. BUT so will Level 3 incur costs. So on that front they should cancel out, Level 3 pays for their side, ISP pays for their side, upgrade gets done and peering connection gets un-saturated. Now wait, you might say, the backbone provider is pushing all this traffic on the ISP and it's not the ISP's fault that this deluge of data is headed it's way, but rather the backbone provider's fault. And there's some meat on those bones under one condition: the ISP doesn't have customers who are paying it for internet access. So that argument is not valid. The ISP's customers are the ones requesting the data that the ISP has promised to deliver and then the ISP wants to get paid twice. First by the customer for internet access, and again by the backbone provider for access to customers. If it's so painful to provide the product to your customers that you have promised to them, perhaps you need to sell the business and get into another one. That is what literally every other company in the world does: 1. Offer to sell a thing to a customer 2. Customer agrees to buy a thing 3. Provide the thing to the customer 4. Customer pays for a thing 5. Profit! These ISPs are so incompetent that they can't manage step 3 without getting paid extra, again, not just by a customer but also by their supplier. It boggles the mind!

MBCook 12y ago

I'm hoping this produces some good smoking guns. At least we'll know what's going on as opposed to having to infer it. I mean if Netflix is paying Comcast $2k/month to fix the issue that's stupid but not very bad. If it's $2m/month that's a huge problem.

wmf 12y ago
Netflix has "multiple terabits" of bandwidth to Comcast, so slightly under $1M/month wouldn't be a bad guess.
- MBCook 12y ago
  I fully expect it to cost more than that amount of bandwidth normally would on the open market.
  - wmf 12y ago
    Except Netflix already said that Comcast is charging them less than market transit rates.
    - eggnet 12y ago
      I would hope so, Comcast isn't providing transit services.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    Why would Netflix pay more for single network peering than full transit? Presumably Netflix could, hire a better ISP than Cogent and actually get the capacity they're trying to buy.
    - diminoten 12y ago
      Cogent isn't the problem, from a technical standpoint. The issue is that the last-mile ISPs have hardware that gets overloaded by the responses to the requests their clients are making, e.g. Bob sends out 10 packets to Cogent, and Cogent sends 10 million packets in response. The last-mile ISP isn't prepared to deal with those 10 million packets all at once.
      - msandford 12y ago
        Then the last mile ISP is fucking right up because they've advertised that they can. Full stop. http://www.comcast.com/internet-service.html http://www.comcast.com/internet-service.html If they advertise they can provide the service then they should be held accountable. If they say they can't provide the service, then they should not be allowed to advertise that they can. This is quite literally a "have a cake and eat it too" type of situation.
        jsz0 12y ago
        > This is quite literally a "have a cake and eat it too" type of situation. How is NetFlix any different? They make the choice to lower the cost to deliver their service by choosing a CDN with inadequate existing peering relationships with ISPs. They also severely limit client side functionality because it makes their service cheaper/easier to support on a wide range of devices. NetFlix collects this data about ISP performance so why don't they say 'oh hey sorry ISP X user. We can't let you sign up because you'll have poor performance!' -- instead they happily take the money.
        washadjeffmad 12y ago
        ISPs aren't stopping people from signing up for Netflix because they won't allow the maximum performance subscribers' service plans specify. Accepting pay for service isn't dishonest. Accepting pay for service you don't provide is. Netflix has Internet Connection Speed Recommendations (https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306). ISPs offer service plans that cost more for higher maximum speeds. Is it Netflix's responsibility to ensure particular subscribers receive particular qualities of content, without regard for the contents' source qualities, the subscriber's bandwidth, the policies of their ISP, or any other range of factors in the last mile? Netflix is offering content, not quality. It doesn't sell differently priced subscriptions based on "maximum video quality", it offers a range of bitrates at a flat rate and sends the one that allows the best experience for your bandwidth. Although, that's sort of the issue, isn't it? It's not "your" bandwidth that determines that now. It's not the plan you're paying your ISP for that's the limiting factor, it's the ISPs particular traffic shaping policies. Netflix isn't slowing its traffic down or decreasing video quality prejudicially based on your ISP or internet plan. It's the opposite, but they're being asked to pay, rightfully or not, so that some of their subscribers won't have their bandwidth throttled by their own ISPs.
ColinDabritz 12y ago
I don't care at all how much money is being paid. So long as content providers are paying any amount, it's unequal, and needs to stop. Net Neutrality would be a good step. Common carrier status would be better.
- diminoten 12y ago
  Who the hell are you to tell me how and who I peer with? It's my network, you shouldn't be able to force me to peer with actors who will flood me.
  - wmf 12y ago
    I agree that nobody should be forced to peer. But if a content provider is "flooding" an ISP, refusing to peer will just cause those packets to arrive via more-expensive transit. How bad do you want to spite Netflix?
    - diminoten 12y ago
      Refusing to peer won't cause those packets to arrive at nearly the rate they were arriving previously, which means my network won't flood, which is less expensive for me. I don't want to spite Netflix at all, I just don't want my network flooded. (I probably also shouldn't have promised folks I could deliver all of these packets, either, but that's another issue)
      - aaronblohowiak 12y ago
        >I don't want to spite Netflix at all, I just don't want my network flooded. You have different incentives than people trying to protect their transactional VOD content businesses.
  - msandford 12y ago
    You've got that backwards. From this very high level the Internet is PULL ONLY. Netflix doesn't start streaming data to customers just to waste bandwidth and fuck up your network with a flood. That's a DoS/DDoS attack. The "flood" is actually your paying customers who thought that you were telling the truth when you promised them X/Y internet service. They are trying to utilize the service they have paid for and you are preventing them from doing so. To not provide them with the service that was promised could be construed as fraud informally if not legally. I'm sure there is plenty of language in an ISPs retail contract that says that customers can fuck right off for any and all reasons and no matter what the ISP is not at fault. But while it might be legal it's definitely dishonest.

Spooky23 12y ago

This sounds like a pragmatic approach, and pragmatism has always driven internet engineering. From the ISPs perspective, Netflix's needs are diverging from a typical free peering arrangement. The issue is, what triggers the costs? There's no good definition of what threshold requires a content provider to connect to the ISP network. Because ISPs are consolidating so rapidly, there's a huge opportunity for abuse.

msandford 12y ago
"From the ISPs perspective, Netflix's needs are diverging from a typical free peering arrangement." I would argue that point. I pay for Internet access, not "All of the Internet MINUS Netflix" access. As a result my ISP SHOULD (doesn't mean they will) ensure that all it's peering connections are of sufficient capacity to provide me with whatever bandwidth I choose to use up until I run into the rate limits for the plan I'm on. My ISP sells me 25/5 I think so the idea that I can't get 3Mbps worth of Netflix is suspect. Of course you have to consider that when you're not saturating your last-mile connection it could be a bottleneck anywhere. If it's 15 hops from me to a server if any of those 15 hops is saturated, that's the limiting factor no matter how much capacity there is before or after. That's why closing a single lane on a freeway for as little as 10 feet can really screw up traffic. You have to merge down and deal with reduced capacity even though it's not miles and miles of lane closure. What we've been told via one of Netflix's backbone providers (Level 3) is that Netflix isn't the slowdown, the backbone provider isn't the slowdown, but the ISPs are the slowdown. How can they say this with certainty? Because they're peered with various ISPs, the connections are saturated, and the ISPs refuse to upgrade their side of the peering connection unless they're paid. http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-internet-middleman/ http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-inte... That might sound reasonable at first brush, the ISP will incur costs associated with upgrading the peering connection. BUT so will Level 3 incur costs. So on that front they should cancel out, Level 3 pays for their side, ISP pays for their side, upgrade gets done and peering connection gets un-saturated. Now wait, you might say, the backbone provider is pushing all this traffic on the ISP and it's not the ISP's fault that this deluge of data is headed it's way, but rather the backbone provider's fault. And there's some meat on those bones under one condition: the ISP doesn't have customers who are paying it for internet access. So that argument is not valid. The ISP's customers are the ones requesting the data that the ISP has promised to deliver and then the ISP wants to get paid twice. First by the customer for internet access, and again by the backbone provider for access to customers. If it's so painful to provide the product to your customers that you have promised to them, perhaps you need to sell the business and get into another one. That is what literally every other company in the world does: 1. Offer to sell a thing to a customer 2. Customer agrees to buy a thing 3. Provide the thing to the customer 4. Customer pays for a thing 5. Profit! These ISPs are so incompetent that they can't manage step 3 without getting paid extra, again, not just by a customer but also by their supplier. It boggles the mind!