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OK, I want to send you XX mbps and you want to receive it. You pay Comcast. Am I now entitled to a free connection? It seems that the real complication is the

OK, I want to send you XX mbps and you want to receive it. You pay Comcast. Am I now entitled to a free connection? It seems that the real complication is the Comcast has such a huge marketshare that they don't need to be competitive on peering. Whereas if they had real competition, then subscribers would drop Comcast and go with an ISP that peers better.

wmf 12y ago
In that situation Comcast has two choices: they can receive that traffic via free peering or they can buy transit to receive it.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Cool, so you buy 1Gbps from Comcast. Then request 1Gbps from 10 different networks, each day, for a month. So you're saying Comcast should setup free peering on the order of 300Gbps just to service you? And buying transit is even cooler! Let's do this, you go signup for 1Mbps from Comcast, then I'll put a server on my own ISP and you can go force Comcast to buy from me. I charge $1000/Kbps.
  - wmf 12y ago
    There are many ISPs that offer transit, so Comcast can choose which one(s) to buy from. The Comcast/Netflix intentional congestion thing actually happened and caused actual harm, so I'm not sure why you're responding with trolling.
    - MichaelGG 12y ago
      I know. So why is Comcast obligated to connect to discount ISPs like Cogent? Just because Netflix decided to buy connectivity from them? What's stopping Netflix from buying connectivity from MyISP (who only has a single FastE connection to L3), then demanding Comcast peer or pay with me? What's so special about Cogent, or HE?
      - wmf 12y ago
        I don't think Comcast should be obligated to connect to any particular ISP. But every ISP along the chain needs to provision enough capacity that there isn't congestion.
eck 12y ago
> I want to send you XX mbps and you want to receive it. You pay Comcast. Am I now entitled to a free connection? Yes, provided you deliver it to the designated IX for my location and pay whatever applicable meet-me-room fees. Realistically only CDNs are going to do that for the O(100s) of locations in the country. The alternative is to "negotiate" with Comcast. Since your BATNA is losing access to a huge fraction of Internet subscribers, Comcast is going to calculate your business's profit per megabyte and demand 90% of that. They know what Netflix costs. They know how much bandwidth the average Netflix customer uses. A peer connection in the same city as the subscriber is literally the cheapest traffic for Comcast's network to handle. If their rates don't cover bandwidth to that, they should raise their rates.

wmf 12y ago

In that situation Comcast has two choices: they can receive that traffic via free peering or they can buy transit to receive it.

MichaelGG 12y ago
Cool, so you buy 1Gbps from Comcast. Then request 1Gbps from 10 different networks, each day, for a month. So you're saying Comcast should setup free peering on the order of 300Gbps just to service you? And buying transit is even cooler! Let's do this, you go signup for 1Mbps from Comcast, then I'll put a server on my own ISP and you can go force Comcast to buy from me. I charge $1000/Kbps.
- wmf 12y ago
  There are many ISPs that offer transit, so Comcast can choose which one(s) to buy from. The Comcast/Netflix intentional congestion thing actually happened and caused actual harm, so I'm not sure why you're responding with trolling.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    I know. So why is Comcast obligated to connect to discount ISPs like Cogent? Just because Netflix decided to buy connectivity from them? What's stopping Netflix from buying connectivity from MyISP (who only has a single FastE connection to L3), then demanding Comcast peer or pay with me? What's so special about Cogent, or HE?
    - wmf 12y ago
      I don't think Comcast should be obligated to connect to any particular ISP. But every ISP along the chain needs to provision enough capacity that there isn't congestion.

eck 12y ago

> I want to send you XX mbps and you want to receive it. You pay Comcast. Am I now entitled to a free connection? Yes, provided you deliver it to the designated IX for my location and pay whatever applicable meet-me-room fees. Realistically only CDNs are going to do that for the O(100s) of locations in the country. The alternative is to "negotiate" with Comcast. Since your BATNA is losing access to a huge fraction of Internet subscribers, Comcast is going to calculate your business's profit per megabyte and demand 90% of that. They know what Netflix costs. They know how much bandwidth the average Netflix customer uses. A peer connection in the same city as the subscriber is literally the cheapest traffic for Comcast's network to handle. If their rates don't cover bandwidth to that, they should raise their rates.