FCC votes to approve a plan to allow for paid prioritization.

[Fraydog]

Allow me to make my argument in visual form.

[jamisonshaw125]

And now! A video. 

 

[JWMaloney]

And now! A video. 

 

 

I work for a software-as-a-service company. We host our own software in our own data center, and we pay two different providers for Internet connections. But we also have an offsite location for disaster recovery. We push a lot of backups offsite every day, and if we did it through the Internet, the offsite data center would charge us a hefty amount of money for the throughput we would require. We decided it was in our best interest financially to get a direct interconnection with that data center, so that's what we did. We now have a fat pipe to shove data through all day to our remote servers, and we cut out the middle man in the process.

 

And that's what happened with Netflix and Comcast. Netflix was purchasing a connection from Cogent, and Cogent's connection with Comcast was completely saturated. Cogent wanted Comcast to upgrade that connection, and Comcast refused, because they shouldn't have to pay to upgrade that interconnect just because Cogent wants to shove more data through it.

 

Interconnect agreements between Internet backbone providers are generally made based on the amount of traffic going in each direction. If the traffic is reciprocal (that is to say, the amount of traffic in both directions is approximately the same), they will generally make a free interconnect; but if the traffic tips more in one direction, the other provider will pay. The traffic flowing from Cogent to Comcast has steadily increased at a faster rate than the traffic in the other direction, and Cogent wants Comcast to pay to upgrade that interlink without revising the original agreement, even though it no longer applies since Cogent is shoving so much extra traffic through.

 

So Netflix went to Comcast and asked for a direct interconnect, because they decided it was in their best interest to cut out the middle-man who was the cause of the bottleneck. Except instead of paying Comcast for that connection like they do Cogent, Netflix wanted it for free. Netflix, as the leading streaming video provider, tried to use their position to strong-arm a free interconnect out of Comcast, even though if they were going through one of Comcast's existing interconnect partners instead, they would have to pay, and the partner would have to pay Comcast. And Comcast rightly said no.

 

I am all for Net Neutrality, but Netflix is not an ISP, and it would not at all apply to this situation. Comcast was right to deny free upgrades to Cogent and free interconnects to Netflix. Comcast is providing to Cogent exactly what their agreement states; Cogent wants to get more without paying. And Netflix wants to get something for nothing, which they think they can do since they're such a big player. Now they're trying to turn the public's misunderstanding of this in their favor.

[WiWavelength]

Interconnect agreements between Internet backbone providers are generally made based on the amount of traffic going in each direction. If the traffic is reciprocal (that is to say, the amount of traffic in both directions is approximately the same), they will generally make a free interconnect; but if the traffic tips more in one direction, the other provider will pay. The traffic flowing from Cogent to Comcast has steadily increased at a faster rate than the traffic in the other direction, and Cogent wants Comcast to pay to upgrade that interlink without revising the original agreement, even though it no longer applies since Cogent is shoving so much extra traffic through.

 

To cut to the chase, can you explain why this is not covered under the peering agreement between Cogent and Comcast?  If the traffic is that asymmetric, then Comcast should be receiving a positive cash flow from Cogent.  As I understand peering agreements, they are much like reciprocal wireless roaming agreements -- cash truly changes hands only as necessary.

 

I asked this question a few weeks ago.  I do not recall a definitive answer from you.  Why are you so apt to rationalize and/or defend Comcast?  It is justifiably one of, if not the most, hated companies in America.  Unless benefiting from a paycheck from Comcast or receiving philanthropic graft from Comcast, more or less no one likes Comcast.  Rather, they put up with Comcast for lack of a viable alternative.

 

And to be blatantly honest, if I ever met Brian Roberts -- Comcast family legacy CEO, for the uninformed -- I would tell him to his face that he is an "asshat."  He has the financial and technological might to do great good for this country.  Instead, he, his family, and their shareholders have assumed the mantle of the robber barons of a century ago.  Shame on them.

 

AJ

[dstar2002]

There is no upside to the consumer in all this, unless of course you like paying more money for what you already have.

 

When Netflix is 20 bucks a month to stream and your favorite video game goes from 60 to 100 to purchase, with a 10 dollar monthly online "fee", dont come here bitching about how unfair that is.

 

The isp companies got rich off tax dollars and exploding consumer buy in. The rapid rise in profits are now just steady, level revenue. That doesn't attract investors. This is their next way to get more profits and more investors, while sitting on their yacht, not giving a damn that the guy working 80 hours a week to even have Internet and food just wants to sit back, relax, and catch a Netflix movie with his wife who just worked an 80 week too.

 

Sent from my HTC M8

[lordsutch]

One thing lost in this debate is that the original peering arrangements that set up the Internet were based on the idea that traffic flows would be roughly symmetrical over the long term. Now that streaming audio and video services are a big part of the Internet, that's simply not the case; if my ISP peers with Netflix's ISP, the flows are going to be on the order of 1:99 (and a lot of that 1 is TCP/IP overhead like connection setup and ack packets).

 

The other point I'd make is that we're in a nasty regulatory hole between two extremes: ISPs aren't completely free of regulation, so their rents and other monopolistic behavior aren't high enough to attract competitors in the free market (except for companies like Google that have cash lying around and just want to spend it to make political points by depolying fiber in a few areas), but at the same time they aren't so highly regulated that they have to provide universal high-quality service either - for example, my mother lives in an urbanized area of a 1 million+ MSA, yet the ILEC doesn't even offer ADSL to her house. The FCC needs to find a regulatory policy that either incentivizes real competition by creating opportunities for profitable overbuilding (whether from profit-seeking companies, non-profit coops, public utilities, etc.) or needs to require universal broadband service from ILECs and cable franchise holders. The only winners from the current scheme are the ILECs and cablecos that make enough money from their position to be profitable but not enough to attract others to compete and grab a piece of the pie.

[WiWavelength]

One thing lost in this debate is that the original peering arrangements that set up the Internet were based on the idea that traffic flows would be roughly symmetrical over the long term. Now that streaming audio and video services are a big part of the Internet, that's simply not the case; if my ISP peers with Netflix's ISP, the flows are going to be on the order of 1:99 (and a lot of that 1 is TCP/IP overhead like connection setup and ack packets).

 

The counterargument to that, though, is Netflix is not just pushing traffic down, for example, Comcast's network.  Rather, Comcast's subscribers are using their broadband service and requesting those packets.  So, who is really to "blame"?  Netflix, Comcast, or Comcast's own subs?

 

AJ

[tybo31316]

The counterargument to that, though, is Netflix is not just pushing traffic down, for example, Comcast's network. Rather, Comcast's subscribers are using their broadband service and requesting those packets. So, who is really to "blame"? Netflix, Comcast, or Comcast's own subs?

 

AJ

That's the same thing I was thinking both companies have to maintain their networks in order for the customer to have a good experience on both ends.

[lordsutch]

The counterargument to that, though, is Netflix is not just pushing traffic down, for example, Comcast's network.  Rather, Comcast's subscribers are using their broadband service and requesting those packets.  So, who is really to "blame"?  Netflix, Comcast, or Comcast's own subs?

 

Well, ultimately Comcast's subs are going to pay for it either way, and understandably both Comcast and Netflix want the other company to pay.

[mozamcrew]

Interconnect agreements between Internet backbone providers are generally made based on the amount of traffic going in each direction. If the traffic is reciprocal (that is to say, the amount of traffic in both directions is approximately the same), they will generally make a free interconnect; but if the traffic tips more in one direction, the other provider will pay. The traffic flowing from Cogent to Comcast has steadily increased at a faster rate than the traffic in the other direction, and Cogent wants Comcast to pay to upgrade that interlink without revising the original agreement, even though it no longer applies since Cogent is shoving so much extra traffic through.

 

So Netflix went to Comcast and asked for a direct interconnect, because they decided it was in their best interest to cut out the middle-man who was the cause of the bottleneck. Except instead of paying Comcast for that connection like they do Cogent, Netflix wanted it for free. Netflix, as the leading streaming video provider, tried to use their position to strong-arm a free interconnect out of Comcast, even though if they were going through one of Comcast's existing interconnect partners instead, they would have to pay, and the partner would have to pay Comcast. And Comcast rightly said no.

 

I am all for Net Neutrality, but Netflix is not an ISP, and it would not at all apply to this situation. Comcast was right to deny free upgrades to Cogent and free interconnects to Netflix. Comcast is providing to Cogent exactly what their agreement states; Cogent wants to get more without paying. And Netflix wants to get something for nothing, which they think they can do since they're such a big player. Now they're trying to turn the public's misunderstanding of this in their favor.

 

You have it sort of correct, but you left out a detail. In most cases, Netflix solves this peering traffic imbalance by placing a Netflix "node" INSIDE the network of most of the major ISPs. This vastly reduced the amount of traffic flowing from Cogent to the ISP. Almost all of the other ISPs thought this was a fair solution because Netflix provides this hardware for free and it frees up their peering links for other traffic.

 

Comcast didn't want to alleviate the traffic and bring its peering arrangement into balance, what it wanted was to turn Netflix into a customer and charge it for more bandwidth. If Netflix/Cogent were smart, it would get into the cloud backup business to help balance out the traffic.

[JWMaloney]

You have it sort of correct, but you left out a detail. In most cases, Netflix solves this peering traffic imbalance by placing a Netflix "node" INSIDE the network of most of the major ISPs. This vastly reduced the amount of traffic flowing from Cogent to the ISP. Almost all of the other ISPs thought this was a fair solution because Netflix provides this hardware for free and it frees up their peering links for other traffic.

 

Comcast didn't want to alleviate the traffic and bring its peering arrangement into balance, what it wanted was to turn Netflix into a customer and charge it for more bandwidth. If Netflix/Cogent were smart, it would get into the cloud backup business to help balance out the traffic.

 

I lumped that into Netflix trying to strong-arm freebies because of their dominant market position. There's no reason anyone should be obligated to give them free colo and bandwidth. From Netflix's Open Connect page: "Open Connect is a single-purpose Content Distribution Network, and by shifting to Open Connect, from using third-party commercial CDNs, we are able to save money"

 

Everybody else pays millions building their CDNs; Netflix wants to do it for free.

[JWMaloney]

To cut to the chase, can you explain why this is not covered under the peering agreement between Cogent and Comcast?  If the traffic is that asymmetric, then Comcast should be receiving a positive cash flow from Cogent.  As I understand peering agreements, they are much like reciprocal wireless roaming agreements -- cash truly changes hands only as necessary.

No, because I don't have the agreement to reference. But if I had to guess, I would think an appropriate analogy would be wireless data abusers: Comcast and Cogent's peering agreement can only scale so far based on the physical hardware involved, and Comcast doesn't want to pay to upgrade the infrastructure to suit one big bandwidth hog when it would make more business sense to just interconnect directly with said hog.

 

I asked this question a few weeks ago.  I do not recall a definitive answer from you.  Why are you so apt to rationalize and/or defend Comcast?  It is justifiably one of, if not the most, hated companies in America.  Unless benefiting from a paycheck from Comcast or receiving philanthropic graft from Comcast, more or less no one likes Comcast.  Rather, they put up with Comcast for lack of a viable alternative.

Last time you asked me that question, I was defending a technology, not a company. But you find yourself defending one of the most hated wireless carriers in the country on a daily basis. You do it because your arguments are technically correct, and I do the same. I don't care what the public opinion of a company is, I'm not going to let that obscure the facts.

[WiWavelength]

Last time you asked me that question, I was defending a technology, not a company. But you find yourself defending one of the most hated wireless carriers in the country on a daily basis. You do it because your arguments are technically correct, and I do the same. I don't care what the public opinion of a company is, I'm not going to let that obscure the facts.

 

You need to take into account at least three things:

1. Comcast has massive scale over wired broadband in this country.  Wired and wireless are two different animals, but Sprint is not even close to Comcast level control of the latter.  And Comcast is currently pressing for even greater control of the former.
2. Comcast is inveterately using litigation, legislation, and regulatory capture to push an agenda that lines its pockets but damages this country's broadband future.  Sprint is not doing the same.  As in the first point, Sprint lacks the scale to do likewise.
3. This is S4GRU.  Consider where you are.  Sprint 4G Rollout Updates.  You implicitly accuse me of defending a "hated" Sprint?  Damn right.  What do you expect?  Unpaid S4GRU staff to just commiserate or throw in the towel?  If you want to sit at home in the dark about Network Vision and stew about its progress, well, you can do that almost anywhere else.

Consider those key differences.  If you cannot, I do not know what to say...

 

AJ

[JWMaloney]

This is S4GRU. Consider where you are. Sprint 4G Rollout Updates. You implicitly accuse me of defending a "hated" Sprint? Damn right. What do you expect? Unpaid S4GRU staff to just commiserate or throw in the towel? If you want to sit at home in the dark about Network Vision and stew about its progress, well, you can do that almost anywhere else.

The difference is that I won't try to call you out for being a shill or fanboy for doing it, because your arguments are sound.

 

The bottom line of my argument is that, regardless of anyone's moral opinion of Comcast, Netflix wants to use the same tactics to their advantage that everyone accuses Comcast of using. CDNs cost money, but Netflix wants a free ride. And Net Neutrality will not fix their problems. Both companies are trying to do what's best for their own bottom line.

[mozamcrew]

I lumped that into Netflix trying to strong-arm freebies because of their dominant market position. There's no reason anyone should be obligated to give them free colo and bandwidth. From Netflix's Open Connect page: "Open Connect is a single-purpose Content Distribution Network, and by shifting to Open Connect, from using third-party commercial CDNs, we are able to save money"

 

Everybody else pays millions building their CDNs; Netflix wants to do it for free.

 

According to the logic you are employing, BOTH parties in a peering agreement are somehow victims of the other. I mean each ISP is sending and receiving packets to the other ISP's customers and they aren't paying the other ISP any money. 

 

Netflix isn't getting its CDN for "free". It's attempting what business folks like to call a win-win. Netflix thinks it can build its CDN for less than what it costs to pay a third party CDN/ISP. It didn't have to "strong-arm" the ISPs to install Open Connect because it was a benefit both for Netflix and the ISP. Netflix pays for the hardware and the ISP hooks it up to its own data centers. If it is cheeper for Netflix and other ISPs to build this CDN, rather than using Cogent/CDNs, That's too bad for Cogent and the other CDNs that Netflix was paying, but I don't see how Netflix is strong-arming anyone.

 

I would prefer the FCC simply classify ISPs as common carriers and end this charade. When the infrastructure can support multiple services, we really shouldn't allow the company providing the infrastructure to be in the service business as well. I understand why we keep electrical utilities vertically integrated in many states, but that model makes less sense for ISPs. 

[gnoj]

I don't think y'all are reading the decision correctly. It does not allow a provider to purposely degrade the speed of certain content. In fact they said that any such action would be met by FCC action. I think this is a great thing if the FCC enforces the before mentioned part. Services like Netflix( Which I have spent countless hours avoiding studying on) account for about 30% of peak internet traffic. Fiber is costly to lay out and most providers have all but slowed to a stop when it comes to laying new fiber because they have to meet with increase demand on their existing lines and they cannot recoup the cost on new lines. Hopefully if a few big time users like Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube pay some for the amount of traffic they use the expansion of new fiber will pick up again, and the millions of americans without high-speed internet can get access. I know y'all most likely won't agree, but from and economic perspective this is a good step

 

1.) The aggregate capacity within an ISP's network at any given moment is fixed. If certain traffic is prioritized into a "fast lane", all other traffic is necessarily slowed to compensate. Either all traffic is treated equally or it's not.

 

2.) The extra cost to deploy FTTH rather than continuing to upgrade DOCSIS or only bringing fiber to the curb (e.g. U-Verse), while a worthwhile issue to explore, is not particularly relevant to the net neutrality debate. Capacity at the interconnect(s), not the last-mile, is the issue.

 

3.) Netflix, Google, etc. do pay for the traffic they use. They have ISPs they rely upon, just like the rest of us. If their ISP can't keep up with the traffic they're putting out, then it's on that ISP to upgrade their network or ask their customer to pay them more to do so.

 

4.) If you ask Facebook and others to pay a surcharge on top of their current bills to other ISPs to ensure QoS, they will inevitably pass that cost along to their customers, and the money will become a de-facto rate hike on their internet service, rather than being earmarked for expanding access. If universal access to broadband is viewed as being in the interest of the entire country, I would argue that it is more appropriate for that cost to be shared by all, and that the monies are accompanied by strict deployment deadlines with oversight, rather than vanishing into the pockets of companies that pretend LTE is suitable.

 

Netflix was purchasing a connection from Cogent, and Cogent's connection with Comcast was completely saturated. Cogent wanted Comcast to upgrade that connection, and Comcast refused, because they shouldn't have to pay to upgrade that interconnect just because Cogent wants to shove more data through it.

 

Interconnect agreements between Internet backbone providers are generally made based on the amount of traffic going in each direction. If the traffic is reciprocal (that is to say, the amount of traffic in both directions is approximately the same), they will generally make a free interconnect; but if the traffic tips more in one direction, the other provider will pay. The traffic flowing from Cogent to Comcast has steadily increased at a faster rate than the traffic in the other direction, and Cogent wants Comcast to pay to upgrade that interlink without revising the original agreement, even though it no longer applies since Cogent is shoving so much extra traffic through.

 

Cogent has offered to pay, and that seems to have done little to change Comcast's mind.

 

Also, whose fault is it that the traffic is asymmetrical? If the typical residential broadband tier has a download to upload ratio of 10:1 and discourages or outright prohibits server hosting, what do they expect? The consequences of such offerings on peering costs ought to be factored into the cost Comcast's customers pay every month for service.

 

IMHO, the state of broadband in this country would be much improved if the home broadband departments of the various MSOs were spun off from the pay-TV and content-distribution divisions. Given current margins on home broadband, they'd be quite profitable, and have no incentive to implement caps or allow their peering points to get saturated in order to discourage the so-called "cord cutters." If that were to happen, then I'd be fine with the Comcast-TWC and ATT-DirectTV mergers going through.

[Fraydog]

I am not going to defend Cogent - they really aren't paying enough to deal with the bandwidth constraints placed on cable providers. That said, Comcast's behavior is contemptible even when you factor in Cogent's role as a bad middleman. They are a horrible company that has some of the worst customer service of any company in America, their technology for video is horribly outdated, and they are milking customers for all they are worth with CSN Sports Networks and increased cable fees you pay for NBC networks even if, like me, you do not live in a Comcast region with Comcast data, video, or voice service. I am a Dish subscriber and I still have to pay Comcast indirectly.