THIS is why you want network neutrality.

[dsrtao]

Comcast has three business lines: video, phone, and internet.

Really, though, they all get delivered over the same networks, which they own and operate over various municipal rights-of-way.

Comcast is telling Level 3 (a major internet operating company) that if any of L3's customers want to send video over the internet to Comcast's customers, L3 will have to pay extra for that.

That's NOT "send video to our cable subscribers". That's Hulu and Vimeo and YouTube and ComedyCentral.com and your video-conferencing system and anything new that gets developed if they're an L3 customer. But what it mostly is, is NetFlix, who is definitely an L3 customer.

I'm not a huge fan of L3 (nor am I especially displeased with them.) I generally don't like Comcast. Take that as you will.

IF Comcast had said to L3 "we want to charge you for exchanging all traffic", I would shrug and leave them be.

Singling out a type of traffic is bad bad with a side order of wrongsauce. It leads to all sorts of evil shenanigans that eventually conclude with some bits being cheap and other bits being expensive, even though they are all bits. It can lead to the situation with airlines, where every seat on a plane may have cost differently, even though every seat is the same. I don't like that much.

Comcast certainly believes it will bring them more money.

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

It has brought them more money - L3's presser said they paid the ferryman, but now they are letting people know.

Interesting that Akamai didn't get the same treatment (or just quietly paid it).

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't talked to him personally, but my ex-boss at Akamai made comments on NANOG which I suspect mean that Comcast did not put the screws to them.

Remember that Akamai is founded on the idea of reducing the ISP-to-ISP bandwidth needed to support popular content. It would be hard for Comcast to keep a straight face while claiming that Akamai was costing them money rather than saving it for them... since they presumably accepted that rationale for letting AKAM in in the first place.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that L3 is really increasing the ISP-ISP bandwidth either, given their carry model.

In my bitter and cynical heart, I believe that in an Akamai/Comcast struggle, Comcast is the pitcher and Akamai the stone, but that L3/Comcast, Comcast is more of the stone.

[metageek.livejournal.com]

Probably Comcast will go after the backbones Akamai uses instead. Akamai has so many traffic agreements, which change so quickly (as these things go), that figuring out how much to charge them would be a pain.

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

It will bring them money because they are big enough to get away with it. To me it seems monopolistic and protectionist in intent. A congresscritter said something similar today; I wonder if anything will come of it.

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

Interesting... the plot thickens. This article:
http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/11/level-3-outbid-akamai-on-netflix-by-reselling-stolen-bandwidth/

says that Comcast is simply trying to enforce the peering agreement they have with Level3, and that Level3 is trying to steal the bandwidth the additional Netflix traffic will take.

[dsrtao]

George Ou is on my list of people not to believe without independent investigation. If he announces that water is wet, I'm going to head to a puddle to check it out.

In this case, his definition of theft is slightly more wrong than labelling copyright violators as pirates.

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

Fair enough - I don't really know the players in that game.