
Comcast and Netflix now have a direct adjacency - bdb
https://gist.github.com/berg/9142463
======
ck2
It would be funny if netflix just looked for one of their hubs/datacenters and
moved in next door on purpose.

ISPs are common carriers and must be regulated as such, because as soon as
Comcast makes its own netflix-like service, you can forget getting netflix to
stream smoothly.

~~~
davidrudder
Comcast has it's own netflix-like service. They call it something like Xfinity
OnDemand. It's actually not terrible.

~~~
mkr-hn
Except for the STB interface. At least the mobile app is decent.

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Are you on X1?

~~~
mkr-hn
Not available here. A Google Fiber truck was spotted in Atlanta, so I wouldn't
be surprised if I can get that out in Winder before X1.

------
MiguelHudnandez
It's anti-climactic that all it was going to take was a compelling business
case. Netflix made it easy with their peering initiative [1].

Now Comcast gets to count these bytes against their customers' quotas, and it
costs them nearly nothing to deliver the traffic.

This reminds me of NNTP, but Netflix is still running their own hardware.

[1] Netflix's "Open Connect"
[https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/guidelines](https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/guidelines)

~~~
sp332
Most boxes like "Open Connect" pay to be colocated and connected that way.
Netflix insists on free installation.

~~~
ef4
Not true. Big CDNs have been cutting deals like this for a long time. It's
often in a network owner's financial interest to host a node for free, because
it saves them so much upstream bandwidth which they would otherwise pay for.

~~~
bifrost
Most CDN's pay money for this...

~~~
ef4
That's pretty hard to generalize. I worked at the biggest CDN for many years.
They definitely get free traffic in many places. They had a whole team who's
job was talking to network owners and saying "look, you paid for X terrabytes
of traffic to us last month. We can cut that cost by 100 if you let us install
servers inside your network that will cache the popular content locally."

It all depends on relative size. Bigger networks can demand money from smaller
networks and/or CDNs. Networks of comparable size can profitably peer with
each other without exchanging cash. Comcast may not do it for free, but the
national ISP in a smallish developing country sure might.

It's a big dance, and the relationships are constantly changing. Managing it
all in software to actually optimize cost and performance is a big part of the
secret sauce for a CDN.

------
koblas
I've noticed that the 11greatoaks.ca.ibone.comcast.net router(s) (Equinix SV1)
are typically the ones that fail / have large latency issues. Hopefully if
this has happened then they've increased overall capacity through this
bottleneck.

~~~
bdb
You're seeing this because that's where Comcast primarily buys transit and
peers with other networks; those edges are where the congested ports are. They
generally have plenty of capacity between SV1 and their CMTSes (even if they
have to take you from Oakland to Sac-town to get from SF to San Jose).

~~~
bifrost
Comcast has been horribly congested in the SFBA for months.

I believe they've been looking at offloading that congestion and frankly
moving Netflix is a no brainer.

------
jeremydw
Perhaps it's Netflix Open Connect? ([http://oc.nflxvideo.net/docs/OpenConnect-
Deployment-Guide.pd...](http://oc.nflxvideo.net/docs/OpenConnect-Deployment-
Guide.pdf),
[https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect](https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect))

------
bifrost
I can confirm this:

198.45.63.0/24 *[BGP/170] 2d 05:02:06, MED 150, localpref 100, from
68.86.80.82

AS path: 7922 2906 I

------
akulbe
I will admit that I am probably making a pretty sweeping assumption here...
but I'm assuming Netflix previously had the same access as everyone else on
the Internet, from Comcast - and now, they do not. They have BETTER access.

To me, this is disturbing. Surely there is some _financial_ incentive for
Comcast to do this.

It seems to me that this is _exactly_ the kind of thing that the whole "net
neutrality" issue is trying to prevent (i.e. back office deals that give one
content provider better access over others)

Or... am I just missing lots of things? (wouldn't be the first time!) :)

------
jonny_eh
I did notice last night that my stream of House of Cards looked way better
than it has in the past month (when it started to go bad). It was HD level the
whole hour, while previously it would only go HD for about 10 minutes total
randomly through the episode.

I'm a Comcast user in San Mateo, CA.

~~~
bifrost
That is probably my doing :) Comcast had some internal congestion issues that
we helped illustrate.

~~~
sscalia
Can you tell me why Netflix is so terrible on Uverse 20Meg in San Jose?

Blurry mess.

Speedtest is always 13Meg+

~~~
bifrost
Its the same reason Comcast was so bad, except you have ATT. Different
companies, same problem.

Switch to Sonic or something and that problem will go away.

~~~
jonny_eh
and what's the problem exactly?

~~~
bifrost
Endemic congestion.

------
egray2
Isn't it possible that the traffic could just be going over an MPLS backbone?
If that's the case, then there could potentially be more hops that aren't
seen.

~~~
bifrost
Thats not relevant to traffic interchange...

------
squigs25
A short route doesn't necessarily mean good bandwidth

~~~
wmf
It does reduce the buck-passing. See the current Verizon-Netflix squabble
using Cogent as a proxy.

~~~
btgeekboy
As a FIOS customer, it really is delightful. Especially when you're trying to
get actual work done from your business FIOS connection to your rack in a
colocation facility, not watch videos.

Only after calling and complaining for a week did they change the route, and
magically, the latency and 50%+ packet loss went away.

------
CamperBob2
How are you concluding that from the tracert?

------
freeasinfree
Using the Equinix IX
[https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/faq](https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/faq)

~~~
bdb
I don't think so. It's multiple direct 10GE ports. Given the traffic volume
the two networks exchange, there's no way it would be economical to move these
bits over a public peering exchange (which Comcast doesn't participate in in
the first place).

Even so, if it were in fact going via the IX, you'd see Netflix's IP from the
exchange (206.223.116.133) as hop 8 in the traceroute.

~~~
tostitos1979
Am I understanding this right? If I am an ISP, I can request a Netflix
appliance and serve customer requests for netflix content from this appliance
directly?

~~~
bifrost
Basically... If you're moving 5Gbps+, contact Netflix.

------
sergers
Meh. So your ISP joined the Netflix open connect CDN to make your Netflix
experience even slower.

Have fun blocking that address and other known Netflix cdn

