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What I don't understand is: if I am paying Comcast and Netflix is paying Comcast, then why does Netflix traffic count against me? Comcast is already getting pai

What I don't understand is: if I am paying Comcast and Netflix is paying Comcast, then why does Netflix traffic count against me? Comcast is already getting paid twice!

sliverstorm 12y ago
Comcast is already getting paid twice! Number of payments by itself is hardly meaningful... Have you never received a parcel with insufficient postage, and been asked to pay the remainder (else it be returned to sender)? How evil of the postal service, demanding to be paid twice (nevermind that they weren't paid in full the first time)!
- dubcanada 12y ago
  You seem to be implying that people who have comcast are either not paying their bill or not paying enough. That seems to be more of a comcast issue.
- FfejL 12y ago
  No, Its as if the Post Office agreed to delivery my mail at .43 a letter, but then asked me for more money when my Mom started send me 10 letters a day with the proper postage. I (and millions of others) pay Comcast a certain rate for a certain data plan. In my case, about $50/month for 50Mb down, 2Mb up, capped at 250GB per month. So if I want to watch 250G of movies in a month, at those data rates, why should I or anyone else have to pay more? I've already contracted with Comcast for that much bandwidth. The reality, of course, is that Comcast (and all other ISPs) MASSIVELY oversubscribe their own network. They don't have any where near the capacity to actually support what they sell. And they want Netflix to foot the bill for the buildout required to provide the capacity they claim they sold me.
- click170 12y ago
  I don't think this is a fair analogy. You don't pay the post office a flat fee for the ability to receive all packages, but from my perspective that's exactly what I pay my ISP for. Granted you do pay the post office in the form of taxes, but IMO that situation is different enough to make for a very poor analogy.
click170 12y ago
This is part of why people are so peeved about this whole situation, most companies who try to double-dip like this get called out on it but for some reason when an ISP does it it's in some kind of grey area.
- frandroid 12y ago
  It's not a grey area: people are calling them out on it, but since Comcast et al. are monopolies, they can just ignore it, until the regulators come a-knocking... This is the story here.
0x0 12y ago
On the other hand, if your entire business idea revolves around pumping several orders of magnitude more data than anyone else normally does, is it still reasonable to assume others will foot the bill building the infrastructure? If someone told you in 2001 that they would start a service based on delivering millions of full HD video streams concurrently over the internet, would you be able to take them seriously?
- wdewind 12y ago
  > On the other hand, if your entire business idea revolves around pumping several orders of magnitude more data than anyone else normally does, is it still reasonable to assume others will foot the bill building the infrastructure? Except Netflix is not pumping data anywhere. This data has already been paid for and is being requested by Comcast's network. They also are not asking anyone to "foot the bill" - they've offered to pay for it entirely.
  - 0x0 12y ago
    It's a reality that consumer internet is heavily oversubscribed, and sold with the assumption that the average load is much much lower than 100% per costumer. You can claim that the data is already paid for because you are paying for X mbps, but the real price for sustained X mbps 100% is much higher. The alternatives are charging a helluva lot more per customer to actually cover costs (business-level pricing) or a much much lower mbps limit.
    - skorgu 12y ago
      shrug that's business. You pays your money and takes your chances. Comcast (et al) gambled on some level of oversubscription and that's not working for them in reality. It's hard to argue that Netflix is somehow at fault for any of this and it's only the monopoly power of the last-mile ISPs in the US that's making this even a consideration.
- delecti 12y ago
  How many Verizon customers would I, as an ATT customer, have to call/text on a regular basis before you would find it reasonable for Verizon to start charging me? Also, what was feasible in 2001 is a really poor indicator of what's a reasonable business model today.
rayiner 12y ago
What does "getting paid twice" mean? When they built the Silver Line in Northern VA, Fairfax County created a special tax district for the commercial properties benefited by the new line. So they get "paid twice": once through fares of people who use the train, and again from the businesses that people travel to using the train. What's wrong with this arrangement?
- frandroid 12y ago
  Comcast gets paid at both ends of the data transfer: from Netflix to send the data, and for users to receive it. But the data is only sent once.
  - harryh 12y ago
    Netflix is paying half the cost, you're paying the other half.
    - pas 12y ago
      The marginal cost is close to zero. So it's not an issue who pays it. It's not even about reciprocity of used bandwidth (that is used to be taken as the basis for free peering), but the provided value from the traffic flows. And since there's an asymmetry in value (the request data from Comcast's customers is much more valuable for Netflix than for Comcast, and with the added local monopoly of Comcast, there's no real value for Comcast in those reverse flows, because it doesn't help its business position, market share, and just means net upkeep costs) both Netflix and the end-user ends up playing more to Comcast than what'd be reasonable in competitive market.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    How is that different than the example I just gave? Riders pay to get to businesses near Silver Line Metro stations, and those businesses near the stations also pay. Data might only be sent once, but every internet transaction has two sides that benefit from the underlying infrastructure. Why is it wrong for the company who builds the infrastructure to charge both parties who benefit from it?

What I don't understand is: if I am paying Comcast and Netflix is paying Comcast, then why does Netflix traffic count against me? Comcast is already getting paid twice!

sliverstorm 12y ago

Comcast is already getting paid twice! Number of payments by itself is hardly meaningful... Have you never received a parcel with insufficient postage, and been asked to pay the remainder (else it be returned to sender)? How evil of the postal service, demanding to be paid twice (nevermind that they weren't paid in full the first time)!

dubcanada 12y ago
You seem to be implying that people who have comcast are either not paying their bill or not paying enough. That seems to be more of a comcast issue.
FfejL 12y ago
No, Its as if the Post Office agreed to delivery my mail at .43 a letter, but then asked me for more money when my Mom started send me 10 letters a day with the proper postage. I (and millions of others) pay Comcast a certain rate for a certain data plan. In my case, about $50/month for 50Mb down, 2Mb up, capped at 250GB per month. So if I want to watch 250G of movies in a month, at those data rates, why should I or anyone else have to pay more? I've already contracted with Comcast for that much bandwidth. The reality, of course, is that Comcast (and all other ISPs) MASSIVELY oversubscribe their own network. They don't have any where near the capacity to actually support what they sell. And they want Netflix to foot the bill for the buildout required to provide the capacity they claim they sold me.
click170 12y ago
I don't think this is a fair analogy. You don't pay the post office a flat fee for the ability to receive all packages, but from my perspective that's exactly what I pay my ISP for. Granted you do pay the post office in the form of taxes, but IMO that situation is different enough to make for a very poor analogy.

click170 12y ago

This is part of why people are so peeved about this whole situation, most companies who try to double-dip like this get called out on it but for some reason when an ISP does it it's in some kind of grey area.

frandroid 12y ago
It's not a grey area: people are calling them out on it, but since Comcast et al. are monopolies, they can just ignore it, until the regulators come a-knocking... This is the story here.

0x0 12y ago

On the other hand, if your entire business idea revolves around pumping several orders of magnitude more data than anyone else normally does, is it still reasonable to assume others will foot the bill building the infrastructure? If someone told you in 2001 that they would start a service based on delivering millions of full HD video streams concurrently over the internet, would you be able to take them seriously?

wdewind 12y ago
> On the other hand, if your entire business idea revolves around pumping several orders of magnitude more data than anyone else normally does, is it still reasonable to assume others will foot the bill building the infrastructure? Except Netflix is not pumping data anywhere. This data has already been paid for and is being requested by Comcast's network. They also are not asking anyone to "foot the bill" - they've offered to pay for it entirely.
- 0x0 12y ago
  It's a reality that consumer internet is heavily oversubscribed, and sold with the assumption that the average load is much much lower than 100% per costumer. You can claim that the data is already paid for because you are paying for X mbps, but the real price for sustained X mbps 100% is much higher. The alternatives are charging a helluva lot more per customer to actually cover costs (business-level pricing) or a much much lower mbps limit.
  - skorgu 12y ago
    shrug that's business. You pays your money and takes your chances. Comcast (et al) gambled on some level of oversubscription and that's not working for them in reality. It's hard to argue that Netflix is somehow at fault for any of this and it's only the monopoly power of the last-mile ISPs in the US that's making this even a consideration.
delecti 12y ago
How many Verizon customers would I, as an ATT customer, have to call/text on a regular basis before you would find it reasonable for Verizon to start charging me? Also, what was feasible in 2001 is a really poor indicator of what's a reasonable business model today.

rayiner 12y ago

What does "getting paid twice" mean? When they built the Silver Line in Northern VA, Fairfax County created a special tax district for the commercial properties benefited by the new line. So they get "paid twice": once through fares of people who use the train, and again from the businesses that people travel to using the train. What's wrong with this arrangement?

frandroid 12y ago
Comcast gets paid at both ends of the data transfer: from Netflix to send the data, and for users to receive it. But the data is only sent once.
- harryh 12y ago
  Netflix is paying half the cost, you're paying the other half.
  - pas 12y ago
    The marginal cost is close to zero. So it's not an issue who pays it. It's not even about reciprocity of used bandwidth (that is used to be taken as the basis for free peering), but the provided value from the traffic flows. And since there's an asymmetry in value (the request data from Comcast's customers is much more valuable for Netflix than for Comcast, and with the added local monopoly of Comcast, there's no real value for Comcast in those reverse flows, because it doesn't help its business position, market share, and just means net upkeep costs) both Netflix and the end-user ends up playing more to Comcast than what'd be reasonable in competitive market.
- rayiner 12y ago
  How is that different than the example I just gave? Riders pay to get to businesses near Silver Line Metro stations, and those businesses near the stations also pay. Data might only be sent once, but every internet transaction has two sides that benefit from the underlying infrastructure. Why is it wrong for the company who builds the infrastructure to charge both parties who benefit from it?