On 16/12/10 8:52 AM, Jack Bates wrote:
On 12/16/2010 9:17 AM, Mikel Waxler wrote:
Comcast can now charge its customers only for upkeep of its network
and use
the income they get as an "end point delivery network" to offset
customer
cost. Comcast's cost, which are upkeep and expansion of its physical
network, now scale proportionally with its customer base.
The problem with your layout is that, as a netflix user, I pay more to
netflix so that you can have their service over comcast, and my
provider doesn't get income from the netflix streams as it is sub 100k
users (so I still have to pay for my provider's upgrades to handle the
netflix which percentage wise will be higher than comcast due to less
ideal bandwidth discounts and the locality which may even drive up the
overall percentage of netflix streams per customer base).
Problem? For Comcast, none of this is a problem. (Do you see the
problem now?)
Again, I predict that things ARE heading in this direction, and that
market forces and the current regulatory climate encourages it. Dire
news for small providers. Saying you "want" it to be different[1] won't
change anything. I don't know what the solution is (if there is a
solution) but so far all I see are people complaining "but if that
happens, it's bad for me and for others". Yes, it's bad. What are you
going to do to stop it? If Comcast can continue to force other networks
to pay it to carry data to Comcast's users, it will create a tidal wave
of momentum in their favor for lowering rates and pushing other eyeball
networks aside, buying them up or just taking over their territory and
customers.
jc
[1] I want a pony, etc.
