
Senator Al Franken: No joke, Comcast trying to whack Netflix - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/sen-al-franken-no-joke-comcast-trying-to-whack-netflix.ars
======
shimon
Level 3 did a great job spinning this into public outrage. Here's what
actually happened:

1\. Level3 started offering CDN services. By leveraging their existing peering
relationships (as a tier 1 ISP) they could essentially subsidize the transit
costs of the CDN business, compared to e.g. Akamai which had been paying
Comcast for peering to reach Comcast customers.

2\. Netflix got a good offer for CDN services from Level3, and switched a
bunch of their content from Akamai to Level3's CDN.

3\. Comcast therefore saw a bunch of paid traffic turn into unpaid traffic
overnight, and complained.

This is a business dispute between two self-interested parties. Is it really
fair for Level3 to use their position in the ISP business to undercut
competitors in a new CDN business? Was it fair a few years ago when Akamai
caved and agreed to pay Comcast for peering? Will it be fair for Comcast to
use a newly acquired media property to exact revenge on Netflix/Level3?

The problem with Network Neutrality is that it takes a complex issue, the
product of many complex business relationships, and frames it in a black-or-
white context. The history here is complicated, and the only thing I'm sure of
is that everyone's a bad guy sometimes.

~~~
leot
The problem with Network Neutrality is that it's very easy to see the
development of a monopoly/oligopoly that will have near complete control of
the world's most valuable man-made resource.

When it comes to the corporate behavior, only the most cynical predictions
have been at all reliable. Those sanguine about the result of absolute
freedom-of-action by internet providers clearly have little sense of history.

God forbid that internet access become a relatively unprofitable commodity
rather than an utterly complicated, multi-tiered service in which profit is
extracted through the creation of an artificial shortage.

~~~
stinkytaco
I don't understand why the Internet is not government controlled. Would you
leave road maintenance to private companies? How about air traffic, or sewers
or water? The Internet is as important, if not more important (in a
Constitutional way) than these services, but we leave it in the hands of self-
interested parties.

~~~
MichaelSalib
The difference between these and the internet is right of way and
externalities. That is, the government is involved in roads and sewers because
(1) you can't have a road network in most places without the ability to
forcibly purchase small strips of land from lots of people and (2) until
recently, there was no efficient way to charge usage fees in a reasonable way.
The internet doesn't really have that problem: charging is quite simple and
the flexibility of routing means we're not nearly so beholden to any one set
of property owners.

Now, I think there might be a case made for making last mile internet either
municipally run or a heavily regulated business in the same way that
water/power/sewer service in cities is, but that's a very different argument.

~~~
jnw2
Ideally, the last mile fiber would be divorced from the IP connectivity to the
rest of the world, so that a residence would pay the same money to use that
last mile fiber whether they're running 1 megabit or 1 gigabit. If you then
had real competition for options from your central office to the rest of the
world, you'd see performance for a given price increase dramatically.

~~~
mmelin
This is basically how things are done in Sweden, at least outside the major
cities. A municipality builds and runs fiber to every home, residents choose
from a number of different ISPs and each ISP pays a flat rate to the
municipality for each active subscriber they have. ISPs can then offer any
type of service within reasonable limits. This means that I can get for
example 100 Mbps service and VoIP for ~25 dollars a month, or 10 Mbps for 15.

------
patrickgzill
Maybe I should send the Senator my comment on Comcast's blog when they posted
their letter complaining about Netflix, which did not get approved by their
moderator:

====

I am a Comcast residential HSI customer, and have many clients who are
business HSI Comcast customers. At the same time, I do maintain servers in my
own racks at a datacenter.

What is not mentioned in this letter, is that Comcast is already being paid -
by me, and by every other customer, for access to the content.

Note that Comcast has never said that the Level3/Netflix issue is about users
exceeding their allotted bandwidth (currently at about 250GB/month for
residential); presumably, were a Comcast user to use 249GB of bandwidth
downloading cute pictures of cats, Comcast would have no objection.

It appears to be the specific issue that Netflix is a possible competitor to
Comcast's TV business, that somehow causes Comcast to decide that there is a
problem.

Understand this: every Netflix video to be streamed, is specifically requested
by a Comcast user, operating under the Comcast-advertised "High Speed
Internet" service and presumably within the bandwidth caps that Comcast's own
contract allows.

That Comcast presumes to have the right to limit, modify, or decide for me
which pieces of the Internet I can have access to, removes Comcast's common
carrier protections, calls into question the truth of your (meaning Comcast)
advertisements for the HSI service, and raises the issue of whether Comcast is
dealing in bad faith with each and every Comcast HSI subscriber.

====

~~~
mikeryan
I'm probably going to get downmodded for this because its unpopular to side
with the big guys.

But..

The Netflix/Level3/Comcast dustup was not a net neutrality issue. It was a
peering disagreement. Comcast pays Level3 to be a transit provider, so they
pay to connect to Level3's network. Traditional CDN's such as Akamai and
Limelight _pay Comcast_ in order to get a direct pipe into Comcast's network.
Level3 in the meantime was charging Netflix as a CDN since they already had a
direct pipe into Comcast's network as a transit provider. So in essence
Comcast was _paying_ Level3 to act as a CDN as opposed to the other way
around.

While Level3 quickly screamed "Net Neutrality" when Comcast wanted to fix the
agreement, that was just a smokescreen for a peering issue.

EDIT (Shimon has covered this as well
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2121472>)

~~~
patrickgzill
The reality is that Comcast never raises the issue over transit to e.g.
ICanHasCheezburger.

Do you not see that Netflix competes directly with the Comcast sister offering
of cable TV and video on demand?

This is a test case to determine how to "tax" every content provider for
access to Comcast customers; who as I mention, are already paying for access
to the Internet.

~~~
mikeryan
Comcast never raised this issue with Netflix specifically. They raised it with
everyone using Level3 as a CDN, if ICanHasCheezburger is using Level3 as a CDN
then it got raised. Netflix's volume of traffic over Level3 is likely what
made it a pressing concern.

I'm well aware of Comcast's dislike of Netflix. Probably better then most. But
a vast amount of data being thrown around on these networks is video, most of
it by Netflix. While there are net neutrality concerns there, there are also
legit network stability and infrastructure concerns.

~~~
patrickgzill
You say "there are also legit network stability and infrastructure concerns"

I would like to ask, "how do you know this"?

Also, would reference my original point - "Comcast has a residential cap of
250GB/month as being acceptable usage by a customer" - if a Netflix user is
staying within that limit, and if Comcast is having problems - they
deliberately under-engineered their network, yes?

~~~
mikeryan
_I would like to ask, "how do you know this"?_

Umm.. check my profile, I worked for Comcast for 4 years I know their
broadcast and HSI infrastructure pretty well.

 _Comcast has a residential cap of 250GB/month as being acceptable usage by a
customer_

Yes and if everyone used it at the same time your network would crawl.
Bandwidth on Comcast (And most networks) is a shared service. Caps be damned
there's not an ISP in existence who can survive massive simultaneous usage by
all their users (such as everyone using Netflix around 8pm in the evening).
Unless you want Comcast to throttle down their limits?

Again you keep making _this_ argument a battle between Netflix and Comcast and
its not. If Netflix used Akamai as their sole provider of CDN services (who
have CDN agreements with Comcast) this would not be a Netflix issue. This is a
Level3 and Comcast business dispute.

~~~
devicenull
How is it the end user's fault that Comcast's network can't handle everyone
using the service they paid for?

I understand that everyone does overselling because it's profitable, and makes
sense, but don't expect the customer to not use what they are paying for
because you have oversold your services.

~~~
russss
No ISP on earth can "handle everyone using the service they paid for", the
same way that the electricity grid can't handle everyone using their full 100
Amp supply.

Overselling is the way the industry works.

~~~
patrickgzill
It depends; there are some ISPs that have enough capacity in their burstable
circuits, that they could actually do that.

------
ck2
_"Now is the time to decide if we want four or five companies owning and
delivering all of our information and entertainment"_

Way, way too late. It went from 10 to 5 a few years ago.

<http://www.sarahstirland.com/archives/mediacon.htm>

[http://web.archive.org/web/20071025061940/http://www.thenati...](http://web.archive.org/web/20071025061940/http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten11.swf)

[http://www.nowfoundation.org/issues/communications/tv/mediac...](http://www.nowfoundation.org/issues/communications/tv/mediacontrol.html)

[https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fadage.com%2Fi...](https://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fadage.com%2Fimages%2Frandom%2Fmediafamilytree07.pdf&docid=416850233c18c6eeebf6c81208b81d38&a=bi&pagenumber=1&w=2000)

Remember it makes no difference if it's Republican or Democrat they are both
pro massive-corporation. Wait until Comcast starts moving it's call centers
overseas to increase their profit by reducing US labor costs.

If politicians aren't going to fight corporate control of health care
decisions for the nation, why do you think they are going to bother about
something like the internet.

~~~
billybob
"they are both pro massive-corporation"

More specifically, they are both pro-campaign donations. And it's much easier
to court a few big players than thousands of small ones. They may even think
they're being fair and objective. But they can only chat with so many
lobbyists a day, and the most polished, friendly, helpful, professional ones
are - surprise - hired by huge companies.

------
mark_l_watson
I am reading Tim Wu's excellent book "The Master Switch" right now that is
relevant to Franken's concerns. Covers corporate takeovers of information
systems starting in the late 1800s.

~~~
joelhaus
Tim Wu recently discussed these issues on CSPAN and I posted his interview on
Charlie Rose a few days ago (videos):

<http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/TheMas>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2080742>

 _Warning: put in a historic context, he predicts a somewhat disheartening
outcome._

A cringe worthy update from the CEO's of Time Warner and AT&T. Straight from
horses mouth [starts at 18:40], the two share their perspectives on
regulation, innovation and the net (recorded on 1/12/11):

<http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/InnovativeI>

Summary: Innovation requires less tax, less regulation. Pleased with recent
FCC rules on net neutrality.

------
btipling
I don't understand why the government should create regulation to tell private
companies what to do with their property in this case. I think a lot of the
'net neutrality' hubbub is irrational driven panic. If you don't like the
service they provide just pay for something else that does. Running to the
government every time a company does something that inconviences you as a user
strikes me as dangerous. This isn't life saving health care, the vast majority
of the arguments and infographics highlight the many shows you might not be
able to watch or websites you might not be able to access. I'm sorry but your
need to catch the latest Glee or access your friends update on Facebook aren't
a convincing enough argument to agree to letting the feds regulate what
private companies do with their business.

Let the downvotes commence.

~~~
yequalsx
Here's the problem, in my view, with your position

" If you don't like the service they provide just pay for something else that
does. "

In many localities there aren't many options for high speed internet service.
The fear is that ISPs will find it easier to form a cartel and exact tolls
than to compete with each other on service.

~~~
dantheman
Then that is the problem, ask yourself why that is?

Oh yeah, its because the local government gives monopolies to certain
companies. That is the root of the problem, address it there instead of
bandaid hacks that break core system.

~~~
tomkinstinch
It is not explicit granted monopolies, but more so de facto monopolies arising
because the costs for a competitor to enter the ISP business are prohibitively
expensive. With material costs, labor costs, and easement costs, it takes a
major investment to run a mile of cable.

My question is this: Why are fiber lines not administered by public utilities?
It works for power and roads.

~~~
dantheman
Here's a slightly older article (1998) about localities granting cable
companies monopolies: <http://www.fff.org/freedom/0598d.asp>

As for the public utilities I completely or agree, or perhaps do it one
better. Set up a not for profit that's independent from the government that
sole purpose is to provide bandwidth with no restrictions.

~~~
nitrogen
Several locations have tried this (including my home state of Utah), and the
cable/telco duopoly lobbyists got new laws passed that prohibited or severely
restricted municipal broadband projects.

~~~
dantheman
So once again, it's a problem with local government - a government that is a
lot more responsive than the FCC or any federal solution. If the teclos can
manipulate your local gov, imagine how effective they'll be at the national
level.

~~~
nitrogen
I agree that local and state governments are a problem, but only because these
national corporations have so much power over them. I don't agree (or at least
I'm not yet convinced) that the FCC or Congress adding some "light touch"
neutrality regulation would be a terrible problem, or that it's an either/or
situation. In other words, these national ISPs need to be fixed at a national
level, while broken local regulations need to be handled at a local level.
Fixing one may help fix the other.

