
How The Comcast and Netflix Deal Is Structured - jdorfman
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/02/heres-comcast-netflix-deal-structured-numbers.html
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aroch
I see this blog post conveniently ignores some details. I suppose this
probably isn't surprising, pretty sure his consultancy firm is a client of
Comcast's and that aside, has clear skin in the game on the CDN front.

1) The original intent behind Settlement-free Peering was that networks would
share similar amounts of data. This was before the time of readily available
and cheap hardware that enabled fast interconnections. This was a time when
running a network at scale was horribly difficult and even a little "extra"
load would bring things tumbling down. This is no longer even remotely true.
Comcast's fabric is capable of many-Tbps of throughput.

2) >> This is where a lot of the confusion starts as many are under the
impression that ISPs like Comcast are suppose to allow any transit provider to
push an unlimited amount of traffic into their network without any
compensation. This isn’t a Comcast specific policy, but rather one that is
standard for all ISPs.

No sane person is suggesting this. People instead are suggesting what you
later allude to as Comcast looking to double dip (I'll get to that).

3) >> As a result, Cogent has to take all the necessary business steps to make
sure Cogent has enough capacity to pass Netflix’s traffic on from Cogent’s
network to Comcast. But Cogent isn’t doing that.

Cogent is refusing to pay the many fold markup that Comcast is demanding for
access to its subscribers. Comcast is well aware of its position of power in
this. They control access, they're the gatekeeper, and as such know they can
charge more than the market rate for transit. Every commercial carrier would
balk at being asked to pay $5/Mbps instead of the usual $0.25/Mbps.

3) >> In a little known, but public fact, anyone who is on Comcast and using
Apple TV to stream Netflix wasn’t having quality problems. The reason for this
is that Netflix is using Level 3 and Limelight to stream their content
specifically to the Apple TV device.

Level3 doesn't have problems because they too have agreed to pay Comcast
protection money.

4) >>Netflix is the one in control of this, not Comcast or any ISP.

Neflix is in control insofar as they control their personal uplinks. Even if
they were to privately peer with every residential ISP in the US, they
wouldn't be in complete control. Netflix would have to own the last mile to be
in control.

