Re:Verizon Throttles Netflix Subscribers in Test It Doesn't ...
by jerkstate on Monday July 24, 2017 @01:39PM
(#14840714)
My understanding is that Comcast offered Netflix commercially reasonable terms for colo and cross-connect and Netflix opted for public interconnect via an exchange, which alleviated the bandwidth constraints caused by Cogent taking Netflix's money and then refusing to comply with their cost-sharing peering agreement with Comcast. Calling the Netflix CDN boxes "free" is totally misleading because Comcast would still need to pay for the router ports to carry the traffic internally, space & power, and management assistance. That deal works for a small ISP that pays for most of its bandwidth but not a large ISP that uses significant amounts of shared-cost peering. If Comcast is required to host those boxes "for free" what of every other CDN that they previously had agreements with?
I agree that Comcast marketing "up to X megabits" is misleading and those chickens have come home to roost with people thinking that their last mile means they should get that speed to every point on the Internet 24 hours a day. I have been negotiating commercial bandwidth agreements for years and even from a tier 1 you can't get that guarantee in a contract.
Re:Verizon Throttles Netflix Subscribers in Test It Doesn't ...
by Karunamon on Monday July 24, 2017 @02:14PM
(#14841120)
Calling the Netflix CDN boxes "free" is totally misleading because Comcast would still need to pay for the router ports to carry the traffic internally, space & power, and management assistance.
Which is still less than the cost of doing a proper interconnect - they chose instead to let it degrade and play semantic games instead. It also puts the lie to their complaint that it was ever about congestion. The correct response to people requesting a lot of traffic from X is to ensure that traffic is delivered efficiently. That is why their customers pay them.
That, alone, tells me that this is not a congestion or a cost problem, it is a bull-headedness for the purpose of rent seeking problem.
And as to the "last mile" costs, those are what Comcast subscribers are paying Comcast for. They act like this traffic is unsolicited noise, when in reality it's why they're being paid anything by anyone. I say don't charge people for x megabits down if you don't intend on them using it.