4 ms·

Netflix was having to make back market deals (with companies with conflicts of interest) to have the isp's customers (who were paying for access to) have access

Netflix was having to make back market deals (with companies with conflicts of interest) to have the isp's customers (who were paying for access to) have access to their service. How was this "not broken"?

cheald 12y ago
No, they didn't. Netflix had plenty of options for transit to Comcast - they didn't have to use Cogent. But it would have cost them a lot more. Cogent is famous for both cut-rate transit and peering disputes with last-mile providers. The fact that they bought from Comcast rather than someone like Level3 or XO should tell you that they rate they got from Comcast was better than what they'd have gotten from another transit provider. If you serve content on the internet, you have to buy transit from someone. Edit: Would the downvoters like to point out what's wrong about my assertion?
- mackal 12y ago
  Netflix does use Level 3. At least for their connections to Verizon FiOS customers. Who also observe shit performance.
  - cheald 12y ago
    The Verizon/Level3 Netflix performance issue is also the consequence of a peering dispute between Level3 and Verizon, by admission of both Verizon and Level3 - not a consequence of Verizon specifically throttling Netflix traffic. It's very important that the distinction be made between saturated interlinks and throttling of specific origins; many people seem to think that it's the latter that's been done here, when the issue is consistently interlink capacity disputes between last-mile ISPs and T1 providers. To put it another way, unless these new rules require that ISPs hook up as much interlink as their T1 peers ask for, these rules won't fix shitty Netflix performance on last-mile networks who are engaged in peering disputes with Netflix's transit providers.
    - malchow 12y ago
      "To put it another way, unless these new rules require that ISPs hook up as much interlink as their T1 peers ask for, these rules won't fix shitty Netflix performance on last-mile networks who are engaged in peering disputes with Netflix's transit providers." 100% agree. But it isn't really "as much as peers ask for;" it's more like: as much as consumers demand, keeping peak link utilization at 50% or some industry standard figure.
- malchow 12y ago
  Netflix didn't buy transit from Comcast; they paid Comcast some large fee to upgrade links to one or more transit providers that Comcast would in the ordinary and traditional course of business done itself, so as to continue delivering its traditional unrestricted internet product to customers. Netflix can't reach every Comcast node around the country, so it couldn't have 'bought transit' from Comcast. It did try the next best thing: colocating, at its own expense, servers at Comcast POPs with cached Netflix content. Comcast said no thanks to that one. Netflix also tried buying extra capacity from other transit providers (Tata and some others.) I think -- but am not certain -- that, when Comcast learned that that deal had happened, it began failing to upgrade those links, too. It's hard to think of an explanation for these peering disputes between CDNs/transit providers and consumer ISPs that doesn't imply ISP hostage-taking. (Where the consumer is hostage.) These consumer ISPs have an easy job: keep these links to the middle networks and backbone networks up to date. And keep the copper in decent shape.
  - cheald 12y ago
    > they paid Comcast some large fee to upgrade links to one or more transit providers Do you have a link for that? I was unaware of any of that happening. It was my understanding that Netflix is engaging in paid peering directly with Comcast now (http://bgp.he.net/AS2906#_peers http://bgp.he.net/AS2906#_peers). You're right that Netflix isn't technically buying transit from Comcast, but they replaced their transit purchased from Cogent with paid peering purchased from Comcast; the net effect is the same. > It's hard to think of an explanation for these peering disputes between CDNs/transit providers and consumer ISPs that doesn't imply ISP hostage-taking. I think that's exactly what's happening here, but it's done as a bargaining chip in the never-ending peering wars, rather than Comcast specifically engaging in rent-seeking from Netflix. The history of settlement-free peering is long and sordid, and last-mile providers have been at odds with the T1s for decades. Netflix massively amplified that dispute simply by virtue of the amount of bandwidth they consume.
stass 12y ago
Is it necesseraly bad? Netflix making deals with ISPs is exactly what market self-regulation is.
- Goronmon 12y ago
  That's a nice video streaming service you have there. It would be a shame if it were to suffer from sudden 'congestion' issues.
  - cheald 12y ago
    Is there any evidence of that actually happening? By that I mean Netflix being specifically throttled. To date, we've yet to see any evidence that Netflix-originated traffic has been targeted. The interlink capacity has been under dispute, but all traffic carried by those interlinks is subject to congestion, not just Netflix.
    - Zigurd 12y ago
      > Is there any evidence of that actually happening? Yes. People are buying VPN service to get adequate NetFlix performance. SPs are running a protection racket.
      - cheald 12y ago
        All that demonstrates is that interlink between the ISP and other transit providers isn't saturated. By using a VPN you change the routing of your request, you don't just mask the endpoint. A VPN'd request that gets carried over a saturated interlink would suck just as much as a non-VPN'd request.
- malchow 12y ago
  Not if the ISP is a roll up of municipal and state created monopolies. Which incidentally is a general argument for laissez faire capitalism. And in the particular, here, is an argument for regulation.
mudil 12y ago
Two companies making a deal between each other: what an unusual concept! We need to fix it with 700 pages of gov't regulations! Are you ready for decency (and political) standards?
mudil 12y ago
Two companies making a deal between each other: what an unusual concept!

cheald 12y ago

No, they didn't. Netflix had plenty of options for transit to Comcast - they didn't have to use Cogent. But it would have cost them a lot more. Cogent is famous for both cut-rate transit and peering disputes with last-mile providers. The fact that they bought from Comcast rather than someone like Level3 or XO should tell you that they rate they got from Comcast was better than what they'd have gotten from another transit provider. If you serve content on the internet, you have to buy transit from someone. Edit: Would the downvoters like to point out what's wrong about my assertion?

mackal 12y ago
Netflix does use Level 3. At least for their connections to Verizon FiOS customers. Who also observe shit performance.
- cheald 12y ago
  The Verizon/Level3 Netflix performance issue is also the consequence of a peering dispute between Level3 and Verizon, by admission of both Verizon and Level3 - not a consequence of Verizon specifically throttling Netflix traffic. It's very important that the distinction be made between saturated interlinks and throttling of specific origins; many people seem to think that it's the latter that's been done here, when the issue is consistently interlink capacity disputes between last-mile ISPs and T1 providers. To put it another way, unless these new rules require that ISPs hook up as much interlink as their T1 peers ask for, these rules won't fix shitty Netflix performance on last-mile networks who are engaged in peering disputes with Netflix's transit providers.
  - malchow 12y ago
    "To put it another way, unless these new rules require that ISPs hook up as much interlink as their T1 peers ask for, these rules won't fix shitty Netflix performance on last-mile networks who are engaged in peering disputes with Netflix's transit providers." 100% agree. But it isn't really "as much as peers ask for;" it's more like: as much as consumers demand, keeping peak link utilization at 50% or some industry standard figure.
malchow 12y ago
Netflix didn't buy transit from Comcast; they paid Comcast some large fee to upgrade links to one or more transit providers that Comcast would in the ordinary and traditional course of business done itself, so as to continue delivering its traditional unrestricted internet product to customers. Netflix can't reach every Comcast node around the country, so it couldn't have 'bought transit' from Comcast. It did try the next best thing: colocating, at its own expense, servers at Comcast POPs with cached Netflix content. Comcast said no thanks to that one. Netflix also tried buying extra capacity from other transit providers (Tata and some others.) I think -- but am not certain -- that, when Comcast learned that that deal had happened, it began failing to upgrade those links, too. It's hard to think of an explanation for these peering disputes between CDNs/transit providers and consumer ISPs that doesn't imply ISP hostage-taking. (Where the consumer is hostage.) These consumer ISPs have an easy job: keep these links to the middle networks and backbone networks up to date. And keep the copper in decent shape.
- cheald 12y ago
  > they paid Comcast some large fee to upgrade links to one or more transit providers Do you have a link for that? I was unaware of any of that happening. It was my understanding that Netflix is engaging in paid peering directly with Comcast now (http://bgp.he.net/AS2906#_peers http://bgp.he.net/AS2906#_peers). You're right that Netflix isn't technically buying transit from Comcast, but they replaced their transit purchased from Cogent with paid peering purchased from Comcast; the net effect is the same. > It's hard to think of an explanation for these peering disputes between CDNs/transit providers and consumer ISPs that doesn't imply ISP hostage-taking. I think that's exactly what's happening here, but it's done as a bargaining chip in the never-ending peering wars, rather than Comcast specifically engaging in rent-seeking from Netflix. The history of settlement-free peering is long and sordid, and last-mile providers have been at odds with the T1s for decades. Netflix massively amplified that dispute simply by virtue of the amount of bandwidth they consume.

stass 12y ago

Is it necesseraly bad? Netflix making deals with ISPs is exactly what market self-regulation is.

Goronmon 12y ago
That's a nice video streaming service you have there. It would be a shame if it were to suffer from sudden 'congestion' issues.
- cheald 12y ago
  Is there any evidence of that actually happening? By that I mean Netflix being specifically throttled. To date, we've yet to see any evidence that Netflix-originated traffic has been targeted. The interlink capacity has been under dispute, but all traffic carried by those interlinks is subject to congestion, not just Netflix.
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    > Is there any evidence of that actually happening? Yes. People are buying VPN service to get adequate NetFlix performance. SPs are running a protection racket.
    - cheald 12y ago
      All that demonstrates is that interlink between the ISP and other transit providers isn't saturated. By using a VPN you change the routing of your request, you don't just mask the endpoint. A VPN'd request that gets carried over a saturated interlink would suck just as much as a non-VPN'd request.
malchow 12y ago
Not if the ISP is a roll up of municipal and state created monopolies. Which incidentally is a general argument for laissez faire capitalism. And in the particular, here, is an argument for regulation.

mudil 12y ago

Two companies making a deal between each other: what an unusual concept! We need to fix it with 700 pages of gov't regulations! Are you ready for decency (and political) standards?

mudil 12y ago

Two companies making a deal between each other: what an unusual concept!