I posted this because frankly I don't understand the issues well enough and was hoping a few people in the community who understand networking and infrastructure better could respond to the points raised in this article.
I don't think this is a great resource for understanding the argument.
> Level 3 thinks Cogent should have to pay them, because the balance of traffic isn’t equal, but Level 3 doesn’t think it should have to pay Comcast, even though that traffic is also lopsided. Confused yet?
Someone seems to be. He's confusing a peering arrangement between two tier 1 providers with a dispute between a tier 1 and an ISP. The tier 1 providers have other ways of routing around each other, but there's only one way to get the bits a comcast-owned person requested to them: through comcast.
> The tier 1 providers have other ways of routing around each other, but there's only one way to get the bits a comcast-owned person requested to them: through comcast.
TL;DR Last-mile providers can extort anyone with bits to deliver. Who else as a consumer are you going to use?
I'm not generally in favor of government intervention, but it seems this is the perfect case for it - local governments granted Comcast regional monopolies, and they should now revoke them. The "captive eyeballs" concept sucks and will ruin the internet as fast as AT&T-style non-neutrality, exactly as we're seeing it play out.
I suspect the story is even more complicated that many people think.
For example, this article is comparing Netflix to Google, in terms of how they are delivering content. It implies that because Google has (apparently) figured out how to serve content (and videos) to Comcast customers, that Netflix must be doing something wrong because they can't (or won't) do the same thing.
Well, here's the thing... if a Comcast customer can't access Google, then "the Internet is broken", and that customer is likely to call Comcast customer service. Which costs Comcast money.
Plus, Google provides a lot of services that don't directly compete with Comcast's own offerings. I don't think anyone would consider Youtube to be a suitable replacement for watching TV.
However, Netflix is competing directly with one of Comcast's major offerings (regular TV and video-on-demand too). In fact, that's really all they do. So Comcast doesn't have much financial incentive to help Netflix, and a lot of incentives not to.
Ditto all of that for Yahoo and the other major sites. The only one that might also be in this boat is Amazon. But if people can't shop on Amazon, that is almost another "the Internet is broken" situation.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 15.0 ms ] thread> Level 3 thinks Cogent should have to pay them, because the balance of traffic isn’t equal, but Level 3 doesn’t think it should have to pay Comcast, even though that traffic is also lopsided. Confused yet?
Someone seems to be. He's confusing a peering arrangement between two tier 1 providers with a dispute between a tier 1 and an ISP. The tier 1 providers have other ways of routing around each other, but there's only one way to get the bits a comcast-owned person requested to them: through comcast.
TL;DR Last-mile providers can extort anyone with bits to deliver. Who else as a consumer are you going to use?
For example, this article is comparing Netflix to Google, in terms of how they are delivering content. It implies that because Google has (apparently) figured out how to serve content (and videos) to Comcast customers, that Netflix must be doing something wrong because they can't (or won't) do the same thing.
Well, here's the thing... if a Comcast customer can't access Google, then "the Internet is broken", and that customer is likely to call Comcast customer service. Which costs Comcast money.
Plus, Google provides a lot of services that don't directly compete with Comcast's own offerings. I don't think anyone would consider Youtube to be a suitable replacement for watching TV.
However, Netflix is competing directly with one of Comcast's major offerings (regular TV and video-on-demand too). In fact, that's really all they do. So Comcast doesn't have much financial incentive to help Netflix, and a lot of incentives not to.
Ditto all of that for Yahoo and the other major sites. The only one that might also be in this boat is Amazon. But if people can't shop on Amazon, that is almost another "the Internet is broken" situation.