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> (in this case, since Level3 is pushing more data, they would be the ones paying). That's the way the Internet works - since consumers are generally prohibit
by chimeracoder 12y ago
> (in this case, since Level3 is pushing more data, they would be the ones paying).
That's the way the Internet works - since consumers are generally prohibited from running servers (and even if they did, they wouldn't operate at the same scale), traffic from consumers is always going to be orders of magnitude less than traffic to consumers.
All of the data that Verizon is receiving from Level 3 is in response to a request that a Verizon customer has issued. Because the size of a request is much smaller than the size of the payload (response), the traffic will always have this pattern.
Do you have any evidence supporting that Level 3's contracts with Verizon require them to pay? This is the first I've ever heard that implied, and it would be very surprising, since it would be incredibly foolish on Level 3's part (they know that the traffic will always be shaped like this).
- sliverstorm 12y agoit would be incredibly foolish on Level 3's part (they know that the traffic will always be shaped like this) Not impossible though. I'd bet money that equal in/out contracts would be cheaper- maybe they just hoped no one would notice, or didn't anticipate the impact of Netflix on already-existing contracts?
- chimeracoder 12y ago> maybe they just hoped no one would notice, or didn't anticipate the impact of Netflix on already-existing contracts? It's not just Netflix - the entire Internet works this way. End-users send a request, and servers send a response. There are very few cases in which the response is not larger than the request. It doesn't matter what content you're serving - the raw traffic delivered to consumers is going to be greater than the raw traffic from them[0]. Saying that they didn't know that the traffic would be shaped this way is saying that Level 3 doesn't understand the way the Internet functions on a technical level, which I would say is impossible. [0] This is (sort of) why residential Internet speeds are usually quoted asymmetrically (e.g. 20 down/5 up). Consumers - well - consume more traffic than they produce, so networks are already optimized for delivering more traffic to consumers than they themselves generate. That said, all of the traffic is initiated by consumers; the traffic Netflix sense is only in response to the explicit request by a paying Verizon customer.
- mikecb 12y agoI guess the idea is that backbone providers will each have a similar number of ISPs (and content networks) to deliver traffic from and to. That's clearly not the case, especially with Verizon providing both a backbone and an ISP, and level 3 providing mostly content delivery. Maybe both should work on diversifying the clients that they serve.
- sliverstorm 12y agoYou seem to have segmented ISPs in your head. As if there were "Hosting" ISPs and "Client" ISPs. Level 3 provides service to customers of both varieties. You can't jsut look at Level 3 and say, "Well they are a Hosting ISP so they send more than they receive".
- regularfry 12y agoISPs are loosely segmented into "Hosting" and "Client", except they're usually called "content" and "eyeball".
- mcphage 12y ago> I'd bet money that equal in/out contracts would be cheaper- maybe they just hoped no one would notice, or didn't anticipate the impact of Netflix on already-existing contracts? You'd actually bet money, on the idea that Level 3—a major internet company—didn't understand a fact about internet traffic that's blatantly obvious to everybody? What?
- sliverstorm 12y agoMore like betting money that bureaucracy moves slowly and has lots of blind spots.