Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Thu, Dec 02, 2010 at 05:49:53PM -0500, Christopher Morrow wrote: On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Matthew Petach mpet...@netflight.com wrote: fair game for reverse billing. ?If it does, it's going to completely eliminate transit as a commercial offering; instead, we'll all be stuck doing settlements in every direction for traffic...and that's just *way* too much paperwork. ?^_^; oh! that's the LD network.. that worked out so darned well, can we do it again? and can we have the ITU manage it for us? please? please? please? :) Obviously, that's what (3) and GLBX want back. Perhps they are feeling nostalgic. -- RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
I took some time to actually read Comcast's response to the FCC. In hindsight it does not appear to me that Comcast is trying to capitalize on L3's Netflix deal, rather, wants to be compensated for an emergency installation of 270 Gbps of peering that now has them looking more like a transit customer than a settlement free peer. Jeff On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 9:28 AM, William Allen Simpson william.allen.simp...@gmail.com wrote: [Changed long CC list to BCC] On 12/2/10 12:49 AM, Frank Bulk wrote: George Ou touches on a similar point at the end of his article: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/11/level-3-outbid-akamai-on-netflix-by-re selling-stolen-bandwidth/ The Ou article makes no sense at all! It's based on the premise that Level 3 and Comcast are peering, and that traffic should be symmetric. Everywhere else, the articles and pundits indicate that Comcast is a transit customer of Level 3. All actual network operators know that traffic isn't symmetric! Ou's hit piece reads more like a pseudo-libertarian rant. In fact, other Ou posts listed there have titles that read like an ultra-conservative cum social-conservative rant: * Wrong On The Internet » Another Net Neutrality ‘violation’ debunked * Why Viacom and others justified in blocking Google TV * Wrong On The Internet » Genachowski pushing ahead with Net Neutrality during lame duck * Google hypocrisy on content blocking * Hijacking the Internet is trivial today You have to consider the source. If Ou doesn't understand contracts, peering, and/or transit, just take his posts with a grain of salt. -- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications - AS32421 First and Leading in DDoS Protection Solutions
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Then ignore Ou's post and focus on the point I tried to make: that Level3 has a vested interest in making sure the Comcast users have a good Netflix experience. =) Frank -Original Message- From: William Allen Simpson [mailto:william.allen.simp...@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 8:28 AM To: NANOG list Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions [Changed long CC list to BCC] On 12/2/10 12:49 AM, Frank Bulk wrote: George Ou touches on a similar point at the end of his article: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/11/level-3-outbid-akamai-on-netflix-by-re selling-stolen-bandwidth/ The Ou article makes no sense at all! It's based on the premise that Level 3 and Comcast are peering, and that traffic should be symmetric. Everywhere else, the articles and pundits indicate that Comcast is a transit customer of Level 3. All actual network operators know that traffic isn't symmetric! Ou's hit piece reads more like a pseudo-libertarian rant. In fact, other Ou posts listed there have titles that read like an ultra-conservative cum social-conservative rant: * Wrong On The Internet Another Net Neutrality 'violation' debunked * Why Viacom and others justified in blocking Google TV * Wrong On The Internet Genachowski pushing ahead with Net Neutrality during lame duck * Google hypocrisy on content blocking * Hijacking the Internet is trivial today You have to consider the source. If Ou doesn't understand contracts, peering, and/or transit, just take his posts with a grain of salt.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 6:28 AM, William Allen Simpson william.allen.simp...@gmail.com wrote: [Changed long CC list to BCC] ... The Ou article makes no sense at all! It's based on the premise that Level 3 and Comcast are peering, and that traffic should be symmetric. Everywhere else, the articles and pundits indicate that Comcast is a transit customer of Level 3. So, one wonders why Level3 didn't just say look, I'm the vendor, you're the customer; the customer pays the vendor for service, period. If you don't like the current contract, you can request a renegotiation, or your can submit your notice to terminate, based on the termination clauses listed in the contract (including whatever penalties are included for early termination). I've never seen another case of a customer trying to bill their upstream provider, without being summarily laughed at. I hope this doesn't set a precedent, where customers of transit providers can turn around and decide that transit only means outbound bit transit, and inbound bits are fair game for reverse billing. If it does, it's going to completely eliminate transit as a commercial offering; instead, we'll all be stuck doing settlements in every direction for traffic...and that's just *way* too much paperwork. ^_^; Matt (speaking only for the small pile of lint that accumulated under my head after falling asleep under my desk while trying to write this message many hours ago, and certainly not for any employer, ever)
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 5:10 PM, Matthew Petach mpet...@netflight.com wrote: fair game for reverse billing. If it does, it's going to completely eliminate transit as a commercial offering; instead, we'll all be stuck doing settlements in every direction for traffic...and that's just *way* too much paperwork. ^_^; oh! that's the LD network.. that worked out so darned well, can we do it again? and can we have the ITU manage it for us? please? please? please? :) -chris
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Thu, 2 Dec 2010, Matthew Petach wrote: So, one wonders why Level3 didn't just say look, I'm the vendor, you're the customer; the customer pays the vendor for service, period. There's no wonder here at all. It's not at all hard to imagine the conversation: Level3: I'm the vendor, you're the customer; the customer pays the vendor for service, period. Comcast: Okay vendor, we aren't going to pay you any more. Go ahead and shut down our circuits. We'll go ahead and pay you the early termination penalties or whatever, but keep in mind that the Level3 network has no way to reach Comcast through any other path thanks to our clever routing tricks, so your customers, including Netflix, won't be able to reach our customers. Level3: But, but, but, you are the customer! Comcast: Go ahead, shut us down, we dare you. Perhaps you'll want to find someone to buy transit from that CAN reach us? I have to say, it's not that hard to imagine because it's exactly what I would have done in their position. If I were them, I would then proceed to do the exact same thing to every other vendor that they have until they are a transit free network. Then I might even start demanding payments from my peers. Why not? Comcast has all the power. It's exactly what the government has incentivized them to do by allowing them to have all of those cable monopolies around the country. That's right, government is the real problem here, Comcast is simply acting in their own best interest. Now where did I put that CMCS stock... -- Brandon Ross AIM: BrandonNRoss ICQ: 2269442 Skype: brandonross Yahoo: BrandonNRoss
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Well, I don't work for the NBN, but I do live here and follow the politics with interest. So far the 'experiment' is on track. The political parties who support the NBN are the majority by a slim margin (2 or 3 seats) and the project seems to be going forward. Most recently legislation passed that creates the NBN as a corporation among other things. If you're truly interested: http://australianpolitics.com/downloads/10-11-24_nbn-co-business-case-summary.pdf jy On 01/12/2010, at 12:56 AM, William Allen Simpson wrote: I've read through the entire thread thus far, and there are several very interesting points. I'd like to know more about the Australian experiment? But there were a couple of disparate comments that seem highly related, so I'll reply to them jointly here: On 11/30/10 2:59 AM, JC Dill wrote: What is happening now between L3 and Comcast also reminds me of the dial-tone settlement deals in the 1990s. The big telcos thought they could push small telcos out by making it more expensive to place calls (paying a fee to the telco that terminates the call) and less expensive to receive calls (receiving the termination fee). They mistakenly thought the startup telcos would go after consumers (who typically place more calls than they receive) and they didn't think about startup telcos going after ISP dial-up services (which receive more calls than they place) and then being forced to pay those startups settlement fees for all the calls their consumer customers made into the startup telco's ISP customer's modem banks. But I remember what happened next. BellSouth refused to pay their settlements. The CLECs sued and went bankrupt. BellSouth had deeper pockets and more lawyers. We don't have an interstate telephone settlement system or PUC to decide what the rules will be for settlements between content providers and eyeball providers. I believe that in the end it will come down to market forces and which group can better marshal customer angst to their side when packets don't flow freely between these two types of networks. Maybe. But I'm hoping the consumer angst gives us a better FCC. The market hasn't worked before, and isn't working in this case. So, maybe there isn't a market after all On 11/30/10 2:47 AM, Kevin Blackham wrote: I'm not convinced. Either I'm calculating something wrong, or greed is at work. Greed. Reminder: Comcast drastically raised their rates a few years back, saying to local cable commissions that they needed to invest in digital infrastructure. Instead, they took the massive profits and invested in NBC/Universal. When a cable node is an entire neighborhood of 500+ homes, because Comcast never bothered to split the nodes down to a reasonable networking size (as opposed to CATV-sized), then it's a Comcast greed problem A half year ago or so, talking with a Google manager about a certain fiber project, we ended up arguing about the size of cable nodes. He seemed to think everywhere was like Mountain View. I was trying not to embarrass him; just let it stand at -- as you drive, you don't look overhead at the cable infrastructure much, do you? (He admitted he doesn't.) On 11/29/10 11:27 PM, Jared Mauch wrote: The issue here is cost of infrastructure. The last mile generally is more valuable than the long-distance part. Everyone can build a nationwide network for a nominal amount of money. All the carriers can provide circuits at the same IXPs where you can public/private peer. The question does become, who is in those smaller and mid-markets. Not everyone is going to build fiber in Akron, Eugene, nor Madison. It gets even more interesting if you look at what happened with Fairpoint in the northeast IMHO. Verizon realized they would not make money there and sold it off. The promises and costs consumed them and forced bankruptcy. I'm not saying that will happen to Comcast, but it may cause them to divest the unprofitable parts as well, leaving some parts of the country worse-off than we would be today. Or in this case, invest in something else more profitable, NBC/Universal; and then try to leverage their customer base to gouge their CDN competitors. I'd like to see Level 3 pull a Disney/ABC or a Murdock/Fox, and publicly announce that they expect Comcast to share *their* revenue. And be willing to pull the plug! (Admittedly, I thought Disney/ABC and Murdock/Fox are evil, too. That model was only reasonable as the CATV channels had no advertising. All we have left now is Turner Classic Movies. A pox on *all* their houses!) It's really time for some anti-trust legislation/regulation. The last mile market has failed. PGP.sig Description: This is a digitally signed message part
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Makes we wonder if Level3's contract with Netflix has certain performance requirements that would preclude Level3 sending Netflix traffic to Comcast the long way around. http://seekingalpha.com/article/235645-akamai-to-lose-netflix-as-a-customer- level-3-and-limelight-pick-up-the-business If there is one thing Netflix is good at, probably the best in the industry, it's measuring the quality of their streaming. They constantly send out emails asking customers to rank the quality of the video they just watched and they have so much data on what works and what doesn't. So when they choose one provider over another, they really have the data to back it up. George Ou touches on a similar point at the end of his article: http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/11/level-3-outbid-akamai-on-netflix-by-re selling-stolen-bandwidth/ Frank -Original Message- From: Ryan Finnesey [mailto:ryan.finne...@harrierinvestments.com] Sent: Tuesday, November 30, 2010 5:54 AM To: Thomas Donnelly; Rettke, Brian; Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list; Guerra, Ruben Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions It may have something to do with that Level3 is now hosting all the streaming content for Netflixs. Cheers Ryan -Original Message- From: Thomas Donnelly [mailto:tad1...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:52 PM To: Rettke, Brian; Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list; Guerra, Ruben Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions On November 19, 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 that, for the first time, it will demand a recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content. If the issue is bandwidth, then why not charge for bandwidth? Picking a specific service says we are trying to squash the competition. On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:48:06 -0600, Guerra, Ruben ruben.gue...@arrisi.com wrote: I'd have to agree with Brian. There is no simple answer to this one... If the ultimate cause is the abuse of bandwidth, I can understand this... BUT if the underlying motive is to squash competition then shame on you! -Original Message- From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:41 PM To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort of collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations I fear no one will like the result. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services -Original Message- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statemen t-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick -- Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
No matter what, Comcast is the loser. If subscribers can't access content they will be calling Comcast customer service. Only a small fraction of those subscribers will have any clue who L3 is or why that's important and even fewer will be understanding of Comcast's position. They're not in the position of power. L3 knows it and took the opportunity to make them look foolish. Either they're greedy or their price model is broken. Regardless, it's remains a Comcast problem. Jeff On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:47 AM, Kevin Blackham black...@gmail.com wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 15:57, William Warren hescomins...@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com wrote: I think Karl Denninger has this one called right: http://market-ticker.org/post=173522 I don't think so. Let's do a little math exercise: Comcast charges me $75/mo for my pipe, but let's discount that for bundling, promos and lower tier services. $30-40 avg ok? For that money I get 250GB a month. Let's assume I actually use it - which I never do, even with Netflix, other VOD, and many habits common to eyeballs - but for the sake of a number to work with, I do. That's less than 1Mbps average per month. I'm not factoring in deviation from avg to peak, so I am going to assume 1Mbps per sub is peak per sub and 250GB is not the average for the user base. That is at least $40/Mbps paid by the eyeballs... or if I am very wrong, $20/Mbps. This is unsustainable and requires income at both ends for a healthy business model? I'm not convinced. Either I'm calculating something wrong, or greed is at work. -- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications - AS32421 First and Leading in DDoS Protection Solutions
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
* Seth Mattinen: On 11/29/2010 14:49, Aaron Wendel wrote: A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. But then Comcast might have to raise prices on their customers. This way they don't. Level 3 could do some routing tomography and make sure that Comcast receives the traffic in the most inconvenient way. -- Florian Weimerfwei...@bfk.de BFK edv-consulting GmbH http://www.bfk.de/ Kriegsstraße 100 tel: +49-721-96201-1 D-76133 Karlsruhe fax: +49-721-96201-99
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 30/11/2010, at 6:17 PM, Kevin Blackham wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 15:57, William Warren hescomins...@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com wrote: I think Karl Denninger has this one called right: http://market-ticker.org/post=173522 I don't think so. Let's do a little math exercise: Comcast charges me $75/mo for my pipe, but let's discount that for bundling, promos and lower tier services. $30-40 avg ok? For that money I get 250GB a month. Let's assume I actually use it - which I never do, even with Netflix, other VOD, and many habits common to eyeballs - but for the sake of a number to work with, I do. That's less than 1Mbps average per month. I'm not factoring in deviation from avg to peak, so I am going to assume 1Mbps per sub is peak per sub and 250GB is not the average for the user base. Average is easy - but the not factoring in the deviation from avg to peak is basically ignoring the actual meat of the problem. The human being using a network wants a quite large instantaneous peak during, say, 5pm to 11pm week nights.If you're doing network dimensioning and look at the 5min/avg and assume that's enough then you're wrong and will see packet loss. The more customers the smoother the curve, but at the far edge of the network near the last mile where aggregation starts the difference in cost to cope with this starts to add up when you start doing it cookie cutter style over hundreds/thousands or more sites. Especially if these sites are remote and have power/size restrictions. MMC
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 30/11/2010, at 9:28 AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick So in this particular game of chicken, Comcast wins. Shame that L3 agreed to this, sets a bad precedent. I have to imagine that Comcast would have been the worse for wear, their phone lines would have lit up like a Christmas tree -- why can't I access...? jy -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.14 (Darwin) iF4EAREIAAYFAkz04QkACgkQxvthcni5E2+LwgD+NAie3r+r1dniJNRPMVKAJEj7 BQIympMzCXji7NveWicA/ReSLZgW92LT4cY/yMnsw3EkrD8mL1rkhAzicifOoCwe =GPm+ -END PGP SIGNATURE-
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Bret Clark wrote: Okay's let's say L3 gives in to Comcast and pays them. L3 then turns around and charges us (providers) more to cover the additional money they have to pay Comcast now. Why don't you, and other providers, demand L3 give you the same settlement-free peering they want from Comcast? Then you won't need to pay L3 anything because of L3's deal with Comcast? Oh, what? You say that L3 won't peer with you on a settlement-free basis, L3 wants you to pay them? Or why don't you build a network to places that Comcast peers at; and bypass L3 completely and negotiate a peering relationship directly with Comcast? Peering battles are so much fun because every side can think up all sorts of reasons why they should or should not pay or be paid. There is no right or wrong answer.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 11:20 PM, Leo Bicknell bickn...@ufp.org wrote: I will be the first to advocate the government use minimal to no regulation where there is active competition and consumer choice, and thus folks can vote with their dollars. Broadband in the US is not in that boat. Too many consumers have a choice of a single provider. The vast majority of the rest have the choice of two providers. We make these monopoly or I believe regulation of peering among the largest networks in the U.S. is a question of when and how, not if. The more these incidents make it into the news and attract the attention of public policy-makers, the closer that when may become. Comcast is either very clever, or very stupid, for timing this in such a way that it has been spun into an issue of who is streaming what into their customers' living rooms. -- Jeff S Wheeler j...@inconcepts.biz
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/30/2010 07:59 AM, Sean Donelan wrote: Or why don't you build a network to places that Comcast peers at; and bypass L3 completely and negotiate a peering relationship directly with Comcast? We tried Comcast wouldn't peer with us because they considered us a compeititor. Seriously this has nothing to do with L3 but more with Netflix...it's clear that the Netflix business model is eating into Comcast VoD business and so they are strong arming other providers to affect Netflix's business model. But as others have stated what would happen if Comcast starts coming after every service provider's hosting services that Comcast doesn't like? Bret
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Bret Clark wrote: Or why don't you build a network to places that Comcast peers at; and bypass L3 completely and negotiate a peering relationship directly with Comcast? We tried Comcast wouldn't peer with us because they considered us a compeititor. Seriously this has nothing to do with L3 but more with Netflix...it's clear that the Netflix business model is eating into Comcast VoD business and so they are strong arming other providers to affect Netflix's business model. But as others have stated what would happen if Comcast starts coming after every service provider's hosting services that Comcast doesn't like? Comcast claims it offered Level3 the same CDN deal it has with other Netflix CDN competitors. Level3 didn't want the same deal. According to Comcast, Level 3 wants a 'special' deal. Of course, Level 3 spins it the other way and claims that it offered Comcast a settlement-free deal, but Comcast didn't want it now. Level 3 has been trying to strong arm other providers for a decade. MCI, Sprint, ANS, UUNET, and others lost in history, have been doing it even longer. As BBN showed with the WORLDCOM/MCI/UUNET merger, now is an opportune time for Level 3 to obtain concessions from Comcast. Its always fun watching one long time toll-booth operator (Level 3) complain when someone new sets up another toll-booth (Comcast).
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/30/2010 6:33 AM, Jeff Young wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 30/11/2010, at 9:28 AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick So in this particular game of chicken, Comcast wins. Shame that L3 agreed to this, sets a bad precedent. I have to imagine that Comcast would have been the worse for wear, their phone lines would have lit up like a Christmas tree -- why can't I access...? jy -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.14 (Darwin) iF4EAREIAAYFAkz04QkACgkQxvthcni5E2+LwgD+NAie3r+r1dniJNRPMVKAJEj7 BQIympMzCXji7NveWicA/ReSLZgW92LT4cY/yMnsw3EkrD8mL1rkhAzicifOoCwe =GPm+ -END PGP SIGNATURE- This whole mess concerns me about the future of the internet. If the traffic can't get to the clients by routing around a depeering..is the internet really working as designed? I don't think so. Peering has become the gateway to the ultimate in network control...while it's the provider's prerogative who access their network..peering has become a club for access and has become the instrument of removing the basic design wins of the internet.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
William, Why be concerned? Operators have pulled this trick several times over the course of history and each time the good guys prevail. It proves that the system works. Jeff On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 10:06 AM, William Warren hescomins...@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com wrote: On 11/30/2010 6:33 AM, Jeff Young wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 On 30/11/2010, at 9:28 AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick So in this particular game of chicken, Comcast wins. Shame that L3 agreed to this, sets a bad precedent. I have to imagine that Comcast would have been the worse for wear, their phone lines would have lit up like a Christmas tree -- why can't I access...? jy -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.14 (Darwin) iF4EAREIAAYFAkz04QkACgkQxvthcni5E2+LwgD+NAie3r+r1dniJNRPMVKAJEj7 BQIympMzCXji7NveWicA/ReSLZgW92LT4cY/yMnsw3EkrD8mL1rkhAzicifOoCwe =GPm+ -END PGP SIGNATURE- This whole mess concerns me about the future of the internet. If the traffic can't get to the clients by routing around a depeering..is the internet really working as designed? I don't think so. Peering has become the gateway to the ultimate in network control...while it's the provider's prerogative who access their network..peering has become a club for access and has become the instrument of removing the basic design wins of the internet. -- Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net Black Lotus Communications - AS32421 First and Leading in DDoS Protection Solutions
Telstra Breakup (Was Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions)
In a message written on Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 08:56:10AM -0500, William Allen Simpson wrote: I've read through the entire thread thus far, and there are several very interesting points. I'd like to know more about the Australian experiment? For those not watching the news: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/86782/20101130/telstra-nbn-deal-set-to-reshape-australia-s-telecommunication-industry.htm http://www.theage.com.au/national/parliament-approves-telstra-split-20101129-18dy0.html The summary is that Australian Parliament just voted to break up Telstra (which is partially state owned) into two parts. At a high level it is supposed to be a split between wholesale (wires in the ground) and retain (services on top). The idea is to enable better retail competition. I've not seen any reporting with enough details to figure out yet exactly how this is going to work, and thus if this has a chance of working. Still, it makes sense. Infrastructure in the ground is expensive, and should be done once. I have one power feed to my house, one water line, one telephone line, one cable TV line. They are all provided by or regulated by the government. The Internet will get to the same point one day, fiber to the home will be standard and able to offer all the services a residential user needs. I think this is why the telcos and cable cos fight municipal broadband networks so strongly, they know they cannot compete (as well) in that market. Anyway, I think we should all keep an eye on Australia. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgpNo7ECsab6H.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/30/2010 9:06 AM, William Warren wrote: This whole mess concerns me about the future of the internet. If the traffic can't get to the clients by routing around a depeering..is the internet really working as designed? I don't think so. Peering has become the gateway to the ultimate in network control...while it's the provider's prerogative who access their network..peering has become a club for access and has become the instrument of removing the basic design wins of the internet. For a home user, it means knowledge and ability to setup a tunnel to somewhere else to receive the traffic. For netflix, you could setup a v6 tunnel and stream it via ipv6.netflix.com. Jack
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Seth Mattinen wrote: On 11/29/10 3:59 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote: But this isn't a technology problem, or a ratio problem. Comcast's blog specifically mentions unbalanced ratios as an issue. They're an eyes network. What do they expect? Look at typical traffic profiles for home users. They send out tiny requests, and receive big packets of data (web pages, images, streaming media). I find it ironic that when we were an eyes network of dial-up users, we bought transit to bring traffic in for our customers. Now that we're a hosting network and our transit bandwidth is lopsided the other direction, the big eyes networks are saying we should pay them to deliver the traffic their customers request. -- Jon Lewis, MCP :) | I route Senior Network Engineer | therefore you are Atlantic Net| _ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Having been involved with a few peering spats in the past I know what is said publically rarely matches the reality behind the scenes. In this particular case my spidy sense tells me there is absolutely something interesting behind the scenes, but the question is what. I'd never really paid attention to how Netflix delivers its content. It's obviously a lot of bandwidth, and likely part of the issue here so I thought I would investigate. Apparently Akamai has been the primary Netflix streaming source since March. LimeLight Networks has been a secondary provider, and it would appear those two make up the vast majority of Netflix's actual streaming traffic. I can't tell if Netflix does any streaming out of their own ASN, but if they do it appears to be minor. Here's a reference from the business side of things: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/11/11/netflix-takes-streaming-to-a-new-level.aspx This is also part of the reason I went back to the very first message in this thread to reply: In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 05:28:18PM -0500, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Patrick works for Akamai, it seems likely he might know more about what is going on. Likely he can't discuss the details, but wanted to seed a discussion. I'd say that worked well. I happen to be a Comcast cable modem customer. Gooling for people who had issues getting to Netflix streaming turned up plenty of forum posts with traceroutes to Netflix servers on Akamai and Limelight. I did traceroutes to about 20 of them from my cable modem, and it's clear Comcast and Akamai and Comcast and Limelight are interconnected quite well. Akamai does not sell IP Transit, and I'm thinking it is extremely unlikely that Comcast is buying transit from Limelight. I will thus conclude that these are either peering relationships, or that they have cut some sort of special CDN Interconnect deal with Comcast. But what about Level 3? One of my friends I was chatting with on AIM said they thought Comcast was a Level 3 customer, at least at one time. Google to the rescue again. Level 3 provides fiber to Comcast (20 year deal in 2004): http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/voip/level-3-and-comcast.asp Level 3 provides voice services/support to Comcast: http://cable.tmcnet.com/news/2005/jul/1168088.htm Perhaps the most interesting though is looking up an IP on Comcast's local network here in my city in L3's looking glass: http://lg.level3.net/bgp/bgp.cgi?site=sjo1target=68.86.240.141 Slightly reformatting for your viewing pleasure, along with my comments: Community: North_America Lclprf_100 Level3_Customer # Level 3 thinks they are a customer United_States San_Jose EU_Suppress_to_Peers Suppress_to_AS174 # Cogent Suppress_to_AS1239# Sprint Suppress_to_AS1280# ISC Suppress_to_AS1299# Telia Suppress_to_AS1668# AOL Suppress_to_AS2828# XO Suppress_to_AS2914# NTT Suppress_to_AS3257# TiNet Suppress_to_AS3320# DTAG Suppress_to_AS3549# GBLX Suppress_to_AS3561# Savvis Suppress_to_AS3786# LG DACOM Suppress_to_AS4637# Reach Suppress_to_AS5511# OpenTransit Suppress_to_AS6453# Tata Suppress_to_AS6461# AboveNet Suppress_to_AS6762# Seabone Suppress_to_AS7018# ATT Suppress_to_AS7132# ATT (ex SBC) So it would appear Comcast is a transit customer of Level 3 (along with buying a lot of other services from them). I'm going to speculate that the list of supressed ASN's are peers of both Level 3 and Comcast, and Comcast is going that so those peers can't send some traffic through Level 3 in attempt to game the ratios on their direct connections to Comcast. Now a more interesting picture emerges. Let me emphasize that this is AN EDUCATED GUESS on my part, and I can't prove any of it. Level 3 starts talking to Netflix, and offers them a sweetheart deal to move traffic from Akamai to Level 3. Part of the reason they are willing to go so low on the price to Netflix is they will get to double dip by charging Netflix for the bits and charging Comcast for the bits, since Comcast is a customer! But wait, they also get to triple dip, they provide the long haul fiber to Comcast, so when Comcast needs more capacity to get to the peering points to move the traffic that money also goes back to Level 3! Patrick, from Akamai, is
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Maybe I am oversimplifying this a bit, but the way I see this situation is this: 1. L3 is carrying traffic for a popular service 2. Comcast customers want that service. 3. Comcast and L3 peer with each other (i.e. very little cost for either) (So, Comcast is paying very little to get that data into their network) 5. Comcast wants L3 to pay them for the traffic (WTF?) Nobody pays me for bandwidth that *I* request and use. That is just ridiculous. I wonder how Comcast would feel if L3 said screw it, and sent all the traffic a different route. If it routed through a different provider (lets say ProviderX), would Comcast try to get ProviderX to pay for traffic it was sending? -Randy -- | Randy Carpenter | Vice President, IT Services | Red Hat Certified Engineer | First Network Group, Inc. | (419)739-9240, x1
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 6:27 AM, Sean Donelan s...@donelan.com wrote:
On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Bret Clark wrote:
...
Seriously this has nothing to do with L3 but more with Netflix...it's
clear that the Netflix business model is eating into Comcast VoD business
and so they are strong arming other providers to affect Netflix's business
model. But as others have stated what would happen if Comcast starts coming
after every service provider's hosting services that Comcast doesn't like?
Comcast claims it offered Level3 the same CDN deal it has with other Netflix
CDN competitors. Level3 didn't want the same deal. According to
Comcast, Level 3 wants a 'special' deal. Of course, Level 3 spins it the
other way and claims that it offered Comcast a settlement-free deal, but
Comcast didn't want it now.
Keep in mind that the previous CDN deal that Comcast had was
*charging* Akamai to host servers within the Comcast network, at
least according to the scuttlebutt from the grapevine. Long-time
listeners will recall that Patrick had long been talking about how
Akamai doesn't run a backbone. Don't know if that's still true or not.
Level3 _does_ run a backbone, and their normal model for handling
traffic is to carry it along the backbone, and exchange it at major
exchange locations; building racks in someone else's datacenter
probably isn't their normal mode of operation, so it could be somewhat
understandable as to why they might not have been as excited as
Akamai was to pay for space, power, and bandwidth inside of
Comcast's datacenters.
I'm not sure I like the idea of pushing the Internet in the direction of
putting copies of popular web sites into every eyeball network; if we're
going to move in that direction, why not have the websites just email
disks with content to the end users, and bypass the last mile network
entirely?
(oh, right, Netflix already had that model)
Or, we could build a series of private networks, and depending on which
network you chose to connect to, you can only access the content
housed within the walls of that network. Get on NBC/Universal/Comcast,
and you can only view their HuluPlus video streams.
(oh, right--we had that too, with Prodigy/AOL/Compuserv)
It really looks like someone is trying to wind back the clock, stuff
the genie back in the bottle, and put the model for the internet back
the way it was in the good old days of the walled gardens. It will be
interesting to see whether the rest of the community feels like the
good old days really were a better model for the Internet or not.
*fetches popcorn, and kicks back to watch history {refold|unfold further}*
Matt
(speaking only for myself, with no true knowledge of the inside situations
at any of these companies; everything mentioned here is pure hearsay,
with no basis in established fact or reality. All opinions are mine, and
mine alone; if my employer wants them, they'll have to pay extra for them,
and I rather doubt they'd want them that badly.)
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Does build it, and they will come now become a business liability? Yes, a business should stake out appropriate agreements in order to ensure relevant product delivery, but they also shouldn't be punished (for lack of a better word) for not foreseeing the success of said product- perhaps a share the wealth mentality is in effect here?
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
A follow on to my post, because it's got me thinking about Network Neutrality. What we have is old world scenarios not matching the new world order. Let's do some diagrams. The way things used to be, scenario #1: Segment ASegment B Segment C Segment D | | | Server--- ---ISP #1--- ---ISP #2--- ---Client Back in the day, the server operator paid for segments A and B, the client paid for segments C and D. The peering between the two ISP's was about making sure the costs of Segment B and Segment C were approximately the same, in the aggregate. The first evolution of this was for the folks running the servers to merge with ISP #1, creating a generation of data center based content ISP's, typically located in or near major US exchange points. In essence this made the picture look like scenario #2: Segment B Segment C Segment D | | Server ISP--- ---ISP #2--- ---Client This made a lot of folks like ISP #2 unhappy. Their segment C costs remained the same, but by consolidating and shrinking the costs of segments A and B into a much shorter B the server side folks were seen as not taking their fair share of the costs. This lead to peering friction between these folks. The server folks cried foul, after all it cost millions to build out infrastructure in all of these locations, so while their backbone cost was not as high, they were eating a lot of cost in space and power and servers. The second evolution though was the CDN, which in fact didn't do a backbone at all. They said rather than buy colo space, or build our own colos all of which is expensive, we'll take the money we would have spent on colo and give it directly to ISP #2, for space and power very near the end users. This gives us scenario #3. Segment B Segment C Segment D | | Rest of the Internet--- ---ISP #2+-- ---Client | +-- ---Server The ISP #2 guys loved this, finally a way for them to cut backbone costs, and in fact the server folks were willing to pay them for the privilege. Now, what does this have to do with network neutrality? Well, I've never seen a good definition of what the term really means, but there seems to generally be a feeling that folks should be able to gain access to consumers (the Clients) on more or less a fair and level playing field. That sounds like a great concept, but the problem comes when you look at the reality of scenarios #1, #2, and #3 above. I don't want Network Neutrality to come at the expense of making one or more of these scenarios impossible. We don't want to say you can never do #3 just so everything is fair. However the costs of these three scenarios are neither the same intotal, nor are they divided the same. If my speculation is right here what various business folks have gone and done in the Comcast/Level 3 situation is to replumb a scenario #3 setup into a scenario #1 setup, effectively rolling the clock back to a previous time. This will cost everyone more money, as more bits move further. Strangely, in may in fact be more fair in that both sides pay more similar costs, but they are in fact, higher costs. In essence Comcast/LimelightAkamai had figured out how to do this for a $1 cost to Comcast and a $1 cost to Akamai, and now Level 3 is doing it in a way that costs them $2 and Comcast $2. Level 3 says it is fair because they pay the same cost, Comcast says it is not because their costs are raised. Comcast offers Level 3 the $1 solution, but it's not L3's business model so it would cost them $3 to go set that up, and they think that is unfair. This situation thus finally allows me to articulate something that has been rambling around in my head for years, but only now makes sense. The only way you can create a network neutrality model that is fair to all players is to regulate the market into a single scenario. If you picked any one of the above and forced everyone into it, then you could also enforce that anyone could play for the same price. However, as long as we allow the different scenarios it can never be fair, someone in scenario #1 will always have different costs than in scenario #2 or #3. It's a sort of separate but equal that never turns out to be equal. The funny thing about peering to me has always been that everyone keeps their dealings as secret as possible. They don't want to disclose costs, interconnect locations, speeds or other details. Everyone wants to believe they are getting a better deal than the next guy due to their amazing negotiations, and they don't want to give up that advantage. The reality is though that all parties are using the secrecy of these dealings to hide the myriad of ways they screw each other and their competitors because they don't know there are better
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Great detective work and it feels very probable that you are largely correct. The pieces together quite nicely. Love the L3 LG part. I dont think they were out to get Comcast specifically but the whole internet, L3 is a large global player and sell lots of transit bits. More bits to sell and peering agreement ratios that is affected by a move like this. If large parts of the internet pays to get to your network why not get more of the internet to give to them? makes perfect sense. /Christian Karlsson Teknikmejeriet Sweden On 2010-11-30 19:02, Leo Bicknell wrote: Having been involved with a few peering spats in the past I know what is said publically rarely matches the reality behind the scenes. In this particular case my spidy sense tells me there is absolutely something interesting behind the scenes, but the question is what. I'd never really paid attention to how Netflix delivers its content. It's obviously a lot of bandwidth, and likely part of the issue here so I thought I would investigate. Apparently Akamai has been the primary Netflix streaming source since March. LimeLight Networks has been a secondary provider, and it would appear those two make up the vast majority of Netflix's actual streaming traffic. I can't tell if Netflix does any streaming out of their own ASN, but if they do it appears to be minor. Here's a reference from the business side of things: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/11/11/netflix-takes-streaming-to-a-new-level.aspx This is also part of the reason I went back to the very first message in this thread to reply: In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 05:28:18PM -0500, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Patrick works for Akamai, it seems likely he might know more about what is going on. Likely he can't discuss the details, but wanted to seed a discussion. I'd say that worked well. I happen to be a Comcast cable modem customer. Gooling for people who had issues getting to Netflix streaming turned up plenty of forum posts with traceroutes to Netflix servers on Akamai and Limelight. I did traceroutes to about 20 of them from my cable modem, and it's clear Comcast and Akamai and Comcast and Limelight are interconnected quite well. Akamai does not sell IP Transit, and I'm thinking it is extremely unlikely that Comcast is buying transit from Limelight. I will thus conclude that these are either peering relationships, or that they have cut some sort of special CDN Interconnect deal with Comcast. But what about Level 3? One of my friends I was chatting with on AIM said they thought Comcast was a Level 3 customer, at least at one time. Google to the rescue again. Level 3 provides fiber to Comcast (20 year deal in 2004): http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/voip/level-3-and-comcast.asp Level 3 provides voice services/support to Comcast: http://cable.tmcnet.com/news/2005/jul/1168088.htm Perhaps the most interesting though is looking up an IP on Comcast's local network here in my city in L3's looking glass: http://lg.level3.net/bgp/bgp.cgi?site=sjo1target=68.86.240.141 Slightly reformatting for your viewing pleasure, along with my comments: Community: North_America Lclprf_100 Level3_Customer # Level 3 thinks they are a customer United_States San_Jose EU_Suppress_to_Peers Suppress_to_AS174 # Cogent Suppress_to_AS1239# Sprint Suppress_to_AS1280# ISC Suppress_to_AS1299# Telia Suppress_to_AS1668# AOL Suppress_to_AS2828# XO Suppress_to_AS2914# NTT Suppress_to_AS3257# TiNet Suppress_to_AS3320# DTAG Suppress_to_AS3549# GBLX Suppress_to_AS3561# Savvis Suppress_to_AS3786# LG DACOM Suppress_to_AS4637# Reach Suppress_to_AS5511# OpenTransit Suppress_to_AS6453# Tata Suppress_to_AS6461# AboveNet Suppress_to_AS6762# Seabone Suppress_to_AS7018# ATT Suppress_to_AS7132# ATT (ex SBC) So it would appear Comcast is a transit customer of Level 3 (along with buying a lot of other services from them). I'm going to speculate that the list of supressed ASN's are peers of both Level 3 and Comcast, and Comcast is going that so those peers can't send some traffic through Level 3 in attempt to game the ratios on their direct connections to Comcast. Now a more interesting picture emerges. Let me emphasize that this is AN EDUCATED
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
GigaOm has begin tracking this story: http://gigaom.com/2010/11/30/a-play-by-play-on-the-comcast-and-level-3-spat On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 1:02 PM, Leo Bicknell bickn...@ufp.org wrote: Having been involved with a few peering spats in the past I know what is said publically rarely matches the reality behind the scenes. In this particular case my spidy sense tells me there is absolutely something interesting behind the scenes, but the question is what. I'd never really paid attention to how Netflix delivers its content. It's obviously a lot of bandwidth, and likely part of the issue here so I thought I would investigate. Apparently Akamai has been the primary Netflix streaming source since March. LimeLight Networks has been a secondary provider, and it would appear those two make up the vast majority of Netflix's actual streaming traffic. I can't tell if Netflix does any streaming out of their own ASN, but if they do it appears to be minor. Here's a reference from the business side of things: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/11/11/netflix-takes-streaming-to-a-new-level.aspx This is also part of the reason I went back to the very first message in this thread to reply: In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 05:28:18PM -0500, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Patrick works for Akamai, it seems likely he might know more about what is going on. Likely he can't discuss the details, but wanted to seed a discussion. I'd say that worked well. I happen to be a Comcast cable modem customer. Gooling for people who had issues getting to Netflix streaming turned up plenty of forum posts with traceroutes to Netflix servers on Akamai and Limelight. I did traceroutes to about 20 of them from my cable modem, and it's clear Comcast and Akamai and Comcast and Limelight are interconnected quite well. Akamai does not sell IP Transit, and I'm thinking it is extremely unlikely that Comcast is buying transit from Limelight. I will thus conclude that these are either peering relationships, or that they have cut some sort of special CDN Interconnect deal with Comcast. But what about Level 3? One of my friends I was chatting with on AIM said they thought Comcast was a Level 3 customer, at least at one time. Google to the rescue again. Level 3 provides fiber to Comcast (20 year deal in 2004): http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/voip/level-3-and-comcast.asp Level 3 provides voice services/support to Comcast: http://cable.tmcnet.com/news/2005/jul/1168088.htm Perhaps the most interesting though is looking up an IP on Comcast's local network here in my city in L3's looking glass: http://lg.level3.net/bgp/bgp.cgi?site=sjo1target=68.86.240.141 Slightly reformatting for your viewing pleasure, along with my comments: Community: North_America Lclprf_100 Level3_Customer # Level 3 thinks they are a customer United_States San_Jose EU_Suppress_to_Peers Suppress_to_AS174 # Cogent Suppress_to_AS1239 # Sprint Suppress_to_AS1280 # ISC Suppress_to_AS1299 # Telia Suppress_to_AS1668 # AOL Suppress_to_AS2828 # XO Suppress_to_AS2914 # NTT Suppress_to_AS3257 # TiNet Suppress_to_AS3320 # DTAG Suppress_to_AS3549 # GBLX Suppress_to_AS3561 # Savvis Suppress_to_AS3786 # LG DACOM Suppress_to_AS4637 # Reach Suppress_to_AS5511 # OpenTransit Suppress_to_AS6453 # Tata Suppress_to_AS6461 # AboveNet Suppress_to_AS6762 # Seabone Suppress_to_AS7018 # ATT Suppress_to_AS7132 # ATT (ex SBC) So it would appear Comcast is a transit customer of Level 3 (along with buying a lot of other services from them). I'm going to speculate that the list of supressed ASN's are peers of both Level 3 and Comcast, and Comcast is going that so those peers can't send some traffic through Level 3 in attempt to game the ratios on their direct connections to Comcast. Now a more interesting picture emerges. Let me emphasize that this is AN EDUCATED GUESS on my part, and I can't prove any of it. Level 3 starts talking to Netflix, and offers them a sweetheart deal to move traffic from Akamai to Level 3. Part of the reason they are willing to go so low on the price to Netflix is they will get to double dip by charging Netflix for the bits and charging Comcast for the bits, since Comcast is a customer!
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort of collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations I fear no one will like the result. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services -Original Message- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to: ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net neutrality making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to complain... Not the worse angle we've seen
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
I'd have to agree with Brian. There is no simple answer to this one... If the ultimate cause is the abuse of bandwidth, I can understand this... BUT if the underlying motive is to squash competition then shame on you! -Original Message- From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:41 PM To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort of collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations I fear no one will like the result. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services -Original Message- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. I think it sets a very bad precedent that Level3 agreed to their terms. How long would it have lasted with Comcast subscribers asking why they couldn't download their movies? Aaron From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:41 PM To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort of collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations I fear no one will like the result. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services -Original Message- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-co ncerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick _ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1170 / Virus Database: 426/3287 - Release Date: 11/29/10
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Mark Wall ospfisi...@gmail.com wrote: Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to: ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net neutrality making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to complain... Not the worse angle we've seen Is L3 really pushing more streaming traffic than LLNW? Is ending settlement-free peering with Google (Youtube) coming down the pipeline? -- Brandon Galbraith US Voice: 630.492.0464
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On November 19, 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 that, for the first time, it will demand a recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content. If the issue is bandwidth, then why not charge for bandwidth? Picking a specific service says we are trying to squash the competition. On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:48:06 -0600, Guerra, Ruben ruben.gue...@arrisi.com wrote: I'd have to agree with Brian. There is no simple answer to this one... If the ultimate cause is the abuse of bandwidth, I can understand this... BUT if the underlying motive is to squash competition then shame on you! -Original Message- From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:41 PM To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort of collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations I fear no one will like the result. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services -Original Message- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick -- Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 5:46 PM, Mark Wall wrote: Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to: ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net neutrality making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to complain... Not the worse angle we've seen I think Karl Denninger has this one called right: http://market-ticker.org/post=173522
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 14:40, Rettke, Brian wrote: Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. Is Level3 the content provider though? Or did Comcast just decide they don't want to do the settlement free peering thing anymore for traffic transiting via Level 3? ~Seth
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 14:49, Aaron Wendel wrote: A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. But then Comcast might have to raise prices on their customers. This way they don't. ~Seth
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 04:49:48PM -0600, Aaron Wendel wrote: A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. s/Comcast/Level3/ I think it sets a very bad precedent that Level3 agreed to their terms. How long would it have lasted with Comcast subscribers asking why they couldn't download their movies? Considering L3 was recently skating the border of the pink sheets, it should be no wonder that it is a very different response than the one given to Cogent, for example. Then again, who blinked first there? It is amusing that the once-disruptive L3 is seeking to defend its position in the so-called tier 1 carte^Wcabal by running to the regulators. I wonder how its fellow members of the club will like the idea of feds poking into their business when both sides of the equation are examined... -- RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 4:57 PM, William Warren hescomins...@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com wrote: On 11/29/2010 5:46 PM, Mark Wall wrote: Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to: ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net neutrality making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to complain... Not the worse angle we've seen I think Karl Denninger has this one called right: http://market-ticker.org/post=173522 I'd have to disagree with his viewpoint. If customer is using resource X and you're not able to remain profitable, than you're not charging customer enough for the resource in question. This is just a backdoor attempt to raise the cost to the customer without them seeing it. If Comcast were to raise the price to the customer directly, I think you'd see defection to other services (if available in the area, like DSL or Clearwire). Doesn't Verizon FIOS provide 50-150Mb/s to the home now for the same cost as Comcast? Exhorting a carrier of content to your customer can't be a good business decision. -- Brandon Galbraith US Voice: 630.492.0464
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Unless I am missing something, Level3 is just the transit provider. Level 3 (via one of their acquisition a few years back) does have a very popular CDN product, but even if they are the source from an IP perspective, they still do not own the content, that is still primarily the networks and studios. Also as to GoogleTV, from what I have seen so far they are simply providing an interface (via an OS for 3rd party hardware) to access already available content, so yes they would be affected. -Scott -Original Message- From: Seth Mattinen [mailto:se...@rollernet.us] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 6:02 PM To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions On 11/29/2010 14:40, Rettke, Brian wrote: Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. Is Level3 the content provider though? Or did Comcast just decide they don't want to do the settlement free peering thing anymore for traffic transiting via Level 3? ~Seth
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote: A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. I'd change this to A customer pays for SHARED access to the Internet. Unless your customer is paying for a direct fiber or internet circuit (~$500 - $10,000 per month) they aren't paying for independent and sole access to the internet. It's another term that I think has lost its actual meaning, Unlimited access. I don't have a problem, as a customer or as a Service Provider, passing along the bill to the top 5% that are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. I can see the Internet reaching a fair-use model, as opposed to a free-use model that is unsustainable, as was previously said. Here's one specific example I can think of to discuss: Netflix uses about a third of Internet bandwidth, in some cases going over the HTTP traffic use for most customers. Netflix charges customers a fee to use their service, but they don't pay the providers required to supply the bandwidth for the customer leg. I don't think ISPs charging Netflix is a sustainable model either. A mutual endeavor involving shared interconnect costs and intelligent placement of proxies would be something I could think of to make the process beneficial for all parties. The end goal would be that the Shared Media Customer has no idea what we are doing, but does not see performance degradation in their HTTP or Netflix traffic, and that it does not pass along additional cost to them. After all, to both Netflix and the ISP, it is in their best interests to keep that customer a happy and paying customer. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services -Original Message- From: Jack Bates [mailto:jba...@brightok.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:11 PM To: Aaron Wendel Cc: Rettke, Brian; 'Patrick W. Gilmore'; 'NANOG list' Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote: A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. I agree. This type of maneuver is no different than ESPN3 charging the ISP for the ISP customers to access the content. Both are unscalable models that threaten the foundation of an open Internet. As an ISP, I could care less what is in the packets my customers send and receive. The exception to this, of course, is malicious packets but they keep refusing to set the evil bit. Jack
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Is L3 hosting content for Netflix? Netflix has become a large source of traffic going to end users. L3 likely could have held out on this one if the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers, but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of things. Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it along to their customers. I think they probably just took a stab and L3 complied. Phil On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore patr...@ianai.net wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement- concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote: A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. I agree. This type of maneuver is no different than ESPN3 charging the ISP for the ISP customers to access the content. Both are unscalable models that threaten the foundation of an open Internet. As an ISP, I could care less what is in the packets my customers send and receive. The exception to this, of course, is malicious packets but they keep refusing to set the evil bit. Jack
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 15:24, Phil Bedard wrote: Is L3 hosting content for Netflix? Netflix has become a large source of traffic going to end users. L3 likely could have held out on this one if the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers, but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of things. Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it along to their customers. I think they probably just took a stab and L3 complied. My take on this is that settlement free peering only remains free as long as it is beneficial to both sides, i.e. equal amounts of traffic exchanged. If it becomes wildly lopsided in one direction, then it becomes more like paying for transit. Perhaps this is the cost of acquisitions and mergers, like acquiring a CDN product that dramatically screws with your peering ratios. ~Seth
RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Netflix pays someone to get access to the internet and that someone has some sort of relationship with Comcast, or gets to Comcast through a third party who has that relationship. No one is getting anything for free. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect customers to bear the cost of their provider doing business. If that business calls for the buildout of additional infrastructure to remain competitive then so be it. Comcast customers pay their provider, Netflix pays its provider. I think what this really boils down to is an effect of shoddy marketing. Access providers want to offer unlimited everything and don't want to have to go back to their customer base and say, oh, sorry, we didn't really mean unlimited. We didn't think you'd really use that much. So they are looking for ways of making up for the increased costs without having to look like idiots to their customers. My problem is, what happens if this becomes the new model? What if Comcast comes to me and says, Oh, we've noticed X Mbits originating from your network coming through ours. Here's the bill of $X per bit. What happens when I counter with, Ok, and I see X bits originating from your network. Here's my bill, too. Do they agree to an exchange of money for an exchange of bits or do I get an F you. Pay your bill to us and we're not giving you crap. Aaron From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:21 PM To: Jack Bates; Aaron Wendel Cc: 'Patrick W. Gilmore'; 'NANOG list' Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote: A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. I'd change this to A customer pays for SHARED access to the Internet. Unless your customer is paying for a direct fiber or internet circuit (~$500 - $10,000 per month) they aren't paying for independent and sole access to the internet. It's another term that I think has lost its actual meaning, Unlimited access. I don't have a problem, as a customer or as a Service Provider, passing along the bill to the top 5% that are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. I can see the Internet reaching a fair-use model, as opposed to a free-use model that is unsustainable, as was previously said. Here's one specific example I can think of to discuss: Netflix uses about a third of Internet bandwidth, in some cases going over the HTTP traffic use for most customers. Netflix charges customers a fee to use their service, but they don't pay the providers required to supply the bandwidth for the customer leg. I don't think ISPs charging Netflix is a sustainable model either. A mutual endeavor involving shared interconnect costs and intelligent placement of proxies would be something I could think of to make the process beneficial for all parties. The end goal would be that the Shared Media Customer has no idea what we are doing, but does not see performance degradation in their HTTP or Netflix traffic, and that it does not pass along additional cost to them. After all, to both Netflix and the ISP, it is in their best interests to keep that customer a happy and paying customer. Sincerely, Brian A . Rettke RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services -Original Message- From: Jack Bates [mailto:jba...@brightok.net] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:11 PM To: Aaron Wendel Cc: Rettke, Brian; 'Patrick W. Gilmore'; 'NANOG list' Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote: A customer pays them for access to the Internet. If that access demands more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and pass on the costs to the customers demanding it. I agree. This type of maneuver is no different than ESPN3 charging the ISP for the ISP customers to access the content. Both are unscalable models that threaten the foundation of an open Internet. As an ISP, I could care less what is in the packets my customers send and receive. The exception to this, of course, is malicious packets but they keep refusing to set the evil bit. Jack _ No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 10.0.1170 / Virus Database: 426/3287 - Release Date: 11/29/10
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
As a Comcast customer, I find it very interesting that they think they have the right to reject bits from other providers I may request them from. The first time I encounter Comcast actually blocking bits I want as a result of this policy, it will result in a technical support call. If the bits don't start flowing within a reasonable time after that call, you can bet that I will be pursuing regulatory and judicial relief. Ordinarily, I would simply vote with my feet and switch to another broadband provider, but, if you want more than 1.5Mbps/384kbps in my neighborhood, Comcast is currently the only game in town. I encourage other Comcast customers to make it clear to Comcast that this attempt to extort money from other providers at the potential cost of degraded service to Comcast's own customers is deplorable and certainly violates the spirit if not the letter of the service agreements for their high speed internet service products. Owen On Nov 29, 2010, at 3:42 PM, Guerra, Ruben wrote: It seems that Comcast(AS7922) peers directly with Netflix(AS2906)? -Original Message- From: Phil Bedard [mailto:bedard.p...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:24 PM To: NANOG list Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions Is L3 hosting content for Netflix? Netflix has become a large source of traffic going to end users. L3 likely could have held out on this one if the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers, but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of things. Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it along to their customers. I think they probably just took a stab and L3 complied. Phil On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore patr...@ianai.net wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement- concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 03:34:52PM -0800, Seth Mattinen wrote: My take on this is that settlement free peering only remains free as long as it is beneficial to both sides, i.e. equal amounts of traffic exchanged. If it becomes wildly lopsided in one direction, then it becomes more like paying for transit. When you have users and no content how can the traffic be equal? When you have content and no users how can the traffic be equal? Ratio is horribly outdated. Cable and DSL providers enforce out of ratio at the edge with technology and policy. My cable modem is 8 down 2 up, yet my traffic profile is supposed to be equal? I can't host any servers by my TOS, but aggregated up the ratio is supposed to be 1:1? No one will ever be in ratio compliance with an eyeball dominant network. Ever. Period. It's not possible via technology and TOS. Enforcing it as an eyeball network just forces content providers to aquire eyeballs, e.g. compete with you. That's bad business. But this isn't a technology problem, or a ratio problem. Peering spats like this are ego problems. It's one VP/SVP/CTO/CFO deciding that my sandbox is more important than your sandbox, or I'm going to get revenue even if the world hates me for it and I'm going to burn all my bridges in the process. If they actually wanted to equalize the costs, they could do that. Decide on better peering locations, use cold potato routing, locate caching/cdn things inside the other network, etc. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgpkS4JPwFRWX.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 5:59 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote: No one will ever be in ratio compliance with an eyeball dominant network. Ever. Period. It's not possible via technology and TOS. Enforcing it as an eyeball network just forces content providers to aquire eyeballs, e.g. compete with you. That's bad business. The NSPs generally don't do non-transit peering unless traffic loads are high enough to justify it. That said, CDNs are the same. Google doesn't want to peer privately with someone who doesn't do enough traffic to justify the cost of the port, haul, support, etc. The ratio of which way bits are flying are really irrelevant when peering, and as you say, tends to be more ego than anything. The key, and what everyone wants is Someone paying me talks to someone I don't have to pay. Doesn't matter if it's CDN talking transit to an eyeball network or eyeballs paying for transit to access a privately peered CDN. What you don't want is 2 entities talking to one another through you without you making a dime. Jack
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Now we know what Xfinity means :-) Jeff
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 2:40 PM, Rettke, Brian wrote: Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I find it helpful to distinguish participant neutrality from service neutrality. The first says that you and I pay the same rate. The second says the my email costs the same as my voip. As described, it appears that Level3 is being singled out, which makes for participant non-neutrality. On the other hand, if Comcast were charging itself for xfinity traffic, this might qualify as service non-neutrality (assuming there is a plausible meaning to charging itself... d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKER d...@dcrocker.net wrote: On 11/29/2010 2:40 PM, Rettke, Brian wrote: Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I find it helpful to distinguish participant neutrality from service neutrality. The first says that you and I pay the same rate. The second says the my email costs the same as my voip. As described, it appears that Level3 is being singled out, which makes for participant non-neutrality. On the other hand, if Comcast were charging itself for xfinity traffic, this might qualify as service non-neutrality (assuming there is a plausible meaning to charging itself... d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:34:52 PST, Seth Mattinen said: My take on this is that settlement free peering only remains free as long as it is beneficial to both sides, i.e. equal amounts of traffic exchanged. Equal *value* of traffic exchanged. A network that has a lot of eyeballs may be willing to accept some imbalance to connect to a popular source of content, and that content source is equally motivated to cut some slack on the ratio to get good access to more eyeballs. pgpN8fOa4M3Dm.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:11:18 CST, Jack Bates said: I agree. This type of maneuver is no different than ESPN3 charging the ISP for the ISP customers to access the content. Both are unscalable models that threaten the foundation of an open Internet. Oddly enough, cable channels like ESPN asking for a per-subscriber fee from cable delivery networks like Comcast has been a mostly-scalable model for the cable-TV arena for three or four decades now pgpsungHgYxus.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 07:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote: http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKERd...@dcrocker.net wrote: Okay's let's say L3 gives in to Comcast and pays them. L3 then turns around and charges us (providers) more to cover the additional money they have to pay Comcast now. In the meantime Comcast continues to undercut the market it sells into making it harder for me as a service provider to compete...that just isn't right. Maybe Comcast should raise their prices to their customers to cover the cost of upgrading there network, but then they wouldn't be able to undercut me anymore...monopolies are a dangerous thing!
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, 2010-11-29 at 20:02 -0500, Bret Clark wrote: On 11/29/2010 07:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote: http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKERd...@dcrocker.net wrote: Okay's let's say L3 gives in to Comcast and pays them. L3 gave into Comcast and paid them already according to a press release they issued. William.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
In summary: Level3 is crying foul while their CDN competitors have quietly bought into Comcast's racket. I applaud Level3 for calling attention to this matter. Owen (Speaking strictly for myself) On Nov 29, 2010, at 4:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote: http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKER d...@dcrocker.net wrote: On 11/29/2010 2:40 PM, Rettke, Brian wrote: Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding Net Neutrality, which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining. I find it helpful to distinguish participant neutrality from service neutrality. The first says that you and I pay the same rate. The second says the my email costs the same as my voip. As described, it appears that Level3 is being singled out, which makes for participant non-neutrality. On the other hand, if Comcast were charging itself for xfinity traffic, this might qualify as service non-neutrality (assuming there is a plausible meaning to charging itself... d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/2010 6:45 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote: I think what this really boils down to is an effect of shoddy marketing. Access providers want to offer unlimited everything and don't want to have to go back to their customer base and say, oh, sorry, we didn't really mean unlimited. We didn't think you'd really use that much. So they are looking for ways of making up for the increased costs without having to look like idiots to their customers. Unlimited access is already NOT unlimited access. A transfer cap isn't unlimited..while Comcast has a generous cap..it's still a transfer cap. My problem is, what happens if this becomes the new model? What if Comcast comes to me and says, Oh, we've noticed X Mbits originating from your network coming through ours. Here's the bill of $X per bit. What happens when I counter with, Ok, and I see X bits originating from your network. Here's my bill, too. Do they agree to an exchange of money for an exchange of bits or do I get an F you. Pay your bill to us and we're not giving you crap.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 11/29/10 3:59 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote: But this isn't a technology problem, or a ratio problem. Comcast's blog specifically mentions unbalanced ratios as an issue. ~Seth
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote: Is L3 hosting content for Netflix? You bet. http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/ • NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally Regards Marshall Netflix has become a large source of traffic going to end users. L3 likely could have held out on this one if the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers, but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of things. Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it along to their customers. I think they probably just took a stab and L3 complied. Phil On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore patr...@ianai.net wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement- concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
Trying to follow this - so, if I have followed it correctly, L3 hosts high-bandwitdh services (namely NetFlix) to which an abundance of Comcast users subscribe? And Comcast is crying foul, and claiming a portion of L3's revenue is rightfully theirs, for being last mile to a significant portion of the CDN/NetFlix customer base? Does L3 even service a home user market, in the same vein as Comcast or Verizon? On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Marshall Eubanks t...@americafree.tvwrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote: Is L3 hosting content for Netflix? You bet. http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/ • NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally Regards Marshall Netflix has become a large source of traffic going to end users. L3 likely could have held out on this one if the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers, but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of things. Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it along to their customers. I think they probably just took a stab and L3 complied. Phil On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore patr...@ianai.net wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement- concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has content as well. I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering tomorrow. (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a toll booth on the Internet, would they?) -- TTFN, patrick -- To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore patr...@ianai.net wrote: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational aspects of the 'Net. Patrick, The way I explain it to folks is this: It's a question of double-dipping. If company A has a customer B who pays A for a particular service, company C should not be able to pay company A to meaningfully change the character of B's service. Such a pay-to-play interference in A's contract with B is unfair to customer B at a very fundamental level. Now, you guys have to get paid. There is no acceptable end result where C comes along, busts your oversubscription model and blows you a raspberry. But you can't do it by double-billing the service. That's usually unethical and in many forms of commerce it's illegal too. IMO, Comcast is cruising for a bruising here. So try something else. Maybe you'll openly peer with all comers but only at 100 mbps in any single location. You'll open as many locations deep in the network as they want, but it's the peer's problem to connect there. Naturally you'll sell a convenience service to backhaul all those connection points to a convenient location for the peers... or they can make their own arrangements but either way they don't get to massively consume your backbone for free. There's probably enough separation there between what you sell customer B and what you sell customer C to eke over to the good side of the ethics line. And by the way an open peering policy with those parameters would make you the Chamber of Commerce's new best friend, enabling small business to vend innovative products directly to your customers (and then pay you for the convenience of aggregation once they build up a customer base). Or maybe you'll just enforce the oversubscription ratio. X bandwidth for the light users. The same X bandwidth for the heavy users. If you're in the top 2% you're grouped with the heavy users. But oh by the way you can buy the Video package for $10 more and we'll put you in group Y instead where you have a clear shot at Netflix that consumes a different channel. If the remainder of your usage is outside the top 2% you can go back to the light users group. Netflix can't pay us for that; it would interfere with our contract with you. But you can pay us. I don't know the final answer here, but it isn't some kind of ethically-challenged double-dipping the till. Regards, Bill Herrin P.S. I'll see your off-topic politics and raise you an ethics lecture. -- William D. Herrin her...@dirtside.com b...@herrin.us 3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: http://bill.herrin.us/ Falls Church, VA 22042-3004
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html says: Now, Level 3 proposes to send traffic to Comcast at a 5:1 ratio over what Comcast sends to Level 3, so Comcast is proposing the same type of commercial solution endorsed by Level 3. So, Comcast users like other provider's content 5 times more than the rest of the world cares for Comcast's content...? Jeff
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Leo Bicknell bickn...@ufp.org wrote: No one will ever be in ratio compliance with an eyeball dominant network. Ever. Period. It's not possible via technology and TOS. Enforcing it as an eyeball network just forces content providers to aquire eyeballs, e.g. compete with you. That's bad business. see craig's report from nanog47: http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog47/presentations/Monday/Labovitz_ObserveReport_N47_Mon.pdf not for a time has Comcast been solely an 'eye-ball' network... or so they think. -chris (I don't disagree with leo's stance, though I'm not a peering person so I really try never to know how all of that magic works)
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
OK...as I was driving up and back on I-95 through Connecticut up toward Boston, I noticed that at all the rest/gas-up stops, there was a single restaurant - McDonalds. No Burger Kings, Wendy, etc...just McDonalds. Now I'm relatively certain that McD's had to pony up significant coin to be the restaurant of choice for the I-95 corridor through Connecticut. That commercial agreement was made with the owners of the infrastructure (in the case, the state of Connecticut) prior to McDonald establishing a presence on the highway. It would be bad form, IMO, for the state to come back to Mc'D's and say hey...you guys are doing a thriving business here...we want a bigger cut, and if we don't get it, we'll barracade the exits and you'll do NO business in these shops you've stood up. Furthermore, we don't care if our customers (drivers on the highway) have bought the McD's meal plan for their frequent trips up and down the road...they can't do business here. Comcast has essentially quarantined off part of the 'net. The point was made earlier - does Comcast take the same stand against Google? Are they going to tax Amazon (Holiday traffic, you know) for their traffic, or any other online merchant that may not use Comcast as a primary provider? Comcast's infrastructure is getting overrun by legitimate traffic requested by their own customers - I'm not a NetFlix subscriber, but the way I understand it is that the customer requests content in the form of movies over the net - content is not arbitrarily provided by the content provider. Instead of rasing the tarriffs for the true consumers in this case - being their customers, they're going after the content provider. Anti-competitive at best. The truth is, given today's media-rich content, Comcast can't deliver a 15mb constant stream of traffic (or whatever it is they claim to offer), at $19.95/month - they've made a business decision to over-subscribe their infrastructure, and had a formula for the level to which they were going to over-subscribe their network. That formula either wasn't accurate then, or didn't take into account the media-rich content that would be delivered over the net. Now, the second explanation really doesn't hold water in light of the fact that Comcast also offers premium content similar to NetFlix. A significant portion of the Comcast subscriber base has decided the content available from NetFlix either in content or delivery, superior to that offered by Comcast. So Comcast is now saying ...wait...to get your content to our customers, your traffic has to traverse our backbone, therefore, we should be able to extract a tarriff for said traffic. But the NetFlix subscription is a fully opt-in model. L3, via NetFlix, is simply delivering the content Comcast customers have requested, and using the Internet to delivery it. Comcast has truly handled this all wrong...they should either a) charge their customers a more realistic monthly fee - one more in line with what it takes to deliver what their level-of-service claims they offer, or b) improve the quality and/or delivery of their premium content, or make it more cosst-effective to their customers, so their customers don't have to go off-net to get the premium content they desire. What they did is take the easy route, which is/was to try to get into the pockets of the successful content provider, because their network is ill-equipped to handle their own level-of-service claims. On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 9:44 PM, Marshall Eubanks t...@americafree.tvwrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 9:03 PM, Steven Fischer wrote: Trying to follow this - so, if I have followed it correctly, L3 hosts high-bandwitdh services (namely NetFlix) to which an abundance of Comcast users subscribe? That is my understanding. And Comcast is crying foul, and claiming a portion of L3's revenue is rightfully theirs, for being last mile to a significant portion of the CDN/NetFlix customer base? That is my reading of these diplomatic notes. Does L3 even service a home user market, in the same vein as Comcast or Verizon? Not as far as I know, although they made enough acquisitions I wouldn't be surprised if they had the odd neighborhood. Regards Marshall On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Marshall Eubanks t...@americafree.tv wrote: On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote: Is L3 hosting content for Netflix? You bet. http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/ • NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally Regards Marshall Netflix has become a large source of traffic going to end users. L3 likely could have held out on this one if the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers, but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of things. Obviously someone has to pay for the
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:22:34PM -0500, Christopher Morrow wrote: see craig's report from nanog47: http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog47/presentations/Monday/Labovitz_ObserveReport_N47_Mon.pdf not for a time has Comcast been solely an 'eye-ball' network... or so they think. I think you are misreading the data. From googling around it appears there are somewhere between 90 and 100 million broadband subscribers in the united states. Comcast claims to have somewhere between 15 and 17 million broadband subscribers, and they are the largest cable company in the US. With around 18-20% of all broadband end-users in the US Comcast, if you believe Arbor's numbers, generate 3.12% of all Internet traffic. Comcast also sells business service (not cable modem, but like GigE to the prem) which is propping that up a bit. If the FCC wanted to do something useful they would look at the combined ratio of all /customers/ of an ISP, and then require their peering policy to allow for around 2x of that. For instance, if you summed all Comcast customers and did the ratio of out:in and got 3:1, they should at a minimum be required to peer with someone at 6:1 IMHO. I have no idea in Comcast's case specifically, or in any recent case as my skin isn't in the game right now. However I am quite sure in the past I have delt with networks who wanted 2:1 on peering, but where I was nearly positive their customer base was 3:1 or 4:1. Basically the ratio became an excuse to depeer anyone they didn't like, it was all a sham. While I think ratio requirements are just plain stupid, I do think it needs to be considered when looking at peering. If you do hot potato routing the person on the wrong end of the ratio ends up carrying the traffic longer distances. If you look at long haul bandwidth on a bit-mile basis this can be unfair in some circumstances. The thing is though it's easy to fix. Networks could use MEDs (yes, they work on Internet scale routing), selective leaking (w/no-export), peering with regional ASN's (many of the large eyeball networks are subdivided internally) or any number of other very simple configurations to balance this issue. But I come back to my fundamental beef with cable and DSL providers, when you're selling 50/5 (10:1 ratio), 25/5 (5:1 ratio), 12/2 (6:1 ratio) services, you can't expect to maintain a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio with your peers. If you look at the TV side of the business the eyeball network is the whipping boy 99 times out of 100. Look at the recent Fox v Cable Vision dispute, Cable Vision caved. Users want content, users pay Cable Vision, Cable VIsion gets millions of angry calls, Fox runs a few ads how Cable Vision is the big bad guy and they have deals with everyone else. Go back to previous cases, almost always the eyeballs cave. Provides are trying to change this in IP space, because they don't like it. They want Netflix/Amazon/Apple/RIAA/MPAA to pay, and not be in charge. For the moment this works, if Netflix can't deliver via the Internet their users just request DVD's in the mail; a peering spat hurts Netflix more than Comcast. But, as users cut the cord, and get more of their content over the Internet I think we'll see the same shift. Outside of Nanog Ma and Pa Citizen don't even know what the word peering means. All they know is when they can't get their Netfix streaming to work they call their provider and complain, possibly going as far as to switch services. Now, while it may seem I'm taking Level 3's side of this dispute I am not. Sadly when these things spill out in public like this it is generally because both sides have been acting like idiots with each other in private for months or years. Maybe Level 3's been a model citizen in this case and has been wronged, but I doubt it. The problem is it all happened in private, and nice press releases from both parties aside we really have no idea what happened behind closed doors, who asked for what, who's egos got out of control, etc. I'm not going to call a winner or a loser, just point out how broken some of the arguments put forth are. -- Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/ pgpCp0OnDDCJO.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 08:03:27PM -0800, Leo Bicknell wrote: [snip] If the FCC wanted to do something useful they would look at the combined ratio of all /customers/ of an ISP, and then require their peering policy to allow for around 2x of that. [snip] ...or maybe not get involved in peering policies at all? DO we really want regulatory oversight here, happily driving traffic away from the US? -- RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
You and I both know that. I'll bet the vast majority of comcast customers don't. Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless -Original message- From: William Warren hescomins...@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com To: 'NANOG list' nanog@nanog.org Sent: Tue, Nov 30, 2010 01:24:40 GMT+00:00 Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions On 11/29/2010 6:45 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote: I think what this really boils down to is an effect of shoddy marketing. Access providers want to offer unlimited everything and don't want to have to go back to their customer base and say, oh, sorry, we didn't really mean unlimited. We didn't think you'd really use that much. So they are looking for ways of making up for the increased costs without having to look like idiots to their customers. Unlimited access is already NOT unlimited access. A transfer cap isn't unlimited..while Comcast has a generous cap..it's still a transfer cap. My problem is, what happens if this becomes the new model? What if Comcast comes to me and says, Oh, we've noticed X Mbits originating from your network coming through ours. Here's the bill of $X per bit. What happens when I counter with, Ok, and I see X bits originating from your network. Here's my bill, too. Do they agree to an exchange of money for an exchange of bits or do I get an F you. Pay your bill to us and we're not giving you crap.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 11:03 PM, Leo Bicknell bickn...@ufp.org wrote: In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:22:34PM -0500, Christopher Morrow wrote: see craig's report from nanog47: http://www.nanog.org/meetings/nanog47/presentations/Monday/Labovitz_ObserveReport_N47_Mon.pdf not for a time has Comcast been solely an 'eye-ball' network... or so they think. I think you are misreading the data. s/you are/Craig is/ I was just passing along a study presented at a nanog meeting about this kind of topic... I really do like to know next to nothing about peering. I have no idea in Comcast's case specifically, or in any recent case as my skin isn't in the game right now. However I am quite sure in the past I have delt with networks who wanted 2:1 on peering, but where I was nearly positive their customer base was 3:1 or 4:1. Basically the ratio became an excuse to depeer anyone they didn't like, it was all a sham. sure, there are more variables (I gather) than just bits in/out... like 'but my customers complain more if you are further away/slower/more-lossy' etc. None of those factors are in peering agreements I would bet, though clearly ratios are, so that stick is used to whack the other-guy over the head. But I come back to my fundamental beef with cable and DSL providers, when you're selling 50/5 (10:1 ratio), 25/5 (5:1 ratio), 12/2 (6:1 ratio) services, you can't expect to maintain a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio with your peers. web traffic (as a measure) seems to be ~10:1 when I look at my interface at home (vz-consumer-type), without packet-loss and over a decent sample of time. As with all of the 'peering disputes' over the last few years, it'll be a fun ride to watch from the outside :) -Chris
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Bret Clark bcl...@spectraaccess.com wrote: On 11/29/2010 07:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote: http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKERd...@dcrocker.net wrote: Okay's let's say L3 gives in to Comcast and pays them. L3 then turns around and charges us (providers) more to cover the additional money they have to pay Comcast now. In the meantime Comcast continues to undercut the market it sells into making it harder for me as a service provider to compete...that just isn't right. Maybe Comcast should raise their prices to their customers to cover the cost of upgrading there network, but then they wouldn't be able to undercut me anymore...monopolies are a dangerous thing! From the spectator sport perspective...I would have loved to see what would have happened had Level3 said essentially your customers want more data from me, go bill them for it. Would Comcast really de-peer Level3? Where would that 500Gbps of traffic try to flow? I rather doubt the TATA pathway would be able to take more than 20% of it before melting down; and it's pretty clear that Comcast has been working to phase out their previous relationship with GlobalCrossing, or at least to depreference it over other pathways, so I doubt it could pick up the slack. And, at the end of the day, if Comcast *did* try to call Level3's bluff, and depeered them...whose support phone lines would be likely to melt down first? Would the Comcast customers call Level3 to complain, or would they call Comcast to say what the hell, I pay $8.99/month to be able to stream Netflix, and now I can't reach them anymore--go fix it! It would be an ugly, ugly day for the US bits of the Internet...but it would be fun to watch from the sidelines. ^_^ Matt
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
AFAIC, Comcast really doesn't have a leg to stand on by doing this. Unfortunately L3 set a very bad precedent by caving into Comcast's pressure. Actually, by paying but crying foul, I think L3 is doing the best they can with a bad situation and as much as it pains me, I applaud L3 for this. The other options were: + Cave without crying foul -- Bad on both fronts. + Refuse -- Moral high ground, but, degraded service harmful to L3 and Comcast customers alike. I think it is better to try and preserve good user experiences and resolve the situation through diplomatic methods as L3 appears to be attempting to do. Hopefully this will lead to sufficient peer pressure (no pun intended) to get Comcast to eventually renege. Owen
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On Nov 29, 2010, at 15:57, William Warren hescomins...@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com wrote: I think Karl Denninger has this one called right: http://market-ticker.org/post=173522 I don't think so. Let's do a little math exercise: Comcast charges me $75/mo for my pipe, but let's discount that for bundling, promos and lower tier services. $30-40 avg ok? For that money I get 250GB a month. Let's assume I actually use it - which I never do, even with Netflix, other VOD, and many habits common to eyeballs - but for the sake of a number to work with, I do. That's less than 1Mbps average per month. I'm not factoring in deviation from avg to peak, so I am going to assume 1Mbps per sub is peak per sub and 250GB is not the average for the user base. That is at least $40/Mbps paid by the eyeballs... or if I am very wrong, $20/Mbps. This is unsustainable and requires income at both ends for a healthy business model? I'm not convinced. Either I'm calculating something wrong, or greed is at work.
Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions
On 29/11/10 3:45 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote: I don't think it's unreasonable to expect customers to bear the cost of their provider doing business. You don't think it's unreasonable (and I don't think it's unreasonable), but most US consumers *do* think it's unreasonable. They would like to get their internet service for free, or for as close to free as possible. They are happy to watch ads in order to get content for free, and they would love to see an ad-supported (or subscription supported for special content) service with free or nominal ISP charges. If one of the big eyeball networks can push their network costs onto a major content provider it will nudge things towards this business model. It has been my opinion for many years that eventually we would find market forces lowering the price consumers pay and raising the price content providers pay until the consumer cost *is* free, or very close to it. This could be the first step... And it's a push back from the ESPN360/ESPN3 model where the content provider was forcing the ISPs to pay extra to get the content on their network... Does anyone have data on how well that's working for the ESPN 360 / ESPN3 system? What is happening now between L3 and Comcast also reminds me of the dial-tone settlement deals in the 1990s. The big telcos thought they could push small telcos out by making it more expensive to place calls (paying a fee to the telco that terminates the call) and less expensive to receive calls (receiving the termination fee). They mistakenly thought the startup telcos would go after consumers (who typically place more calls than they receive) and they didn't think about startup telcos going after ISP dial-up services (which receive more calls than they place) and then being forced to pay those startups settlement fees for all the calls their consumer customers made into the startup telco's ISP customer's modem banks. We don't have an interstate telephone settlement system or PUC to decide what the rules will be for settlements between content providers and eyeball providers. I believe that in the end it will come down to market forces and which group can better marshal customer angst to their side when packets don't flow freely between these two types of networks. jc
