
 FCC gets Comcast, Verizon to reveal Netflix’s paid peering deals - MBCook
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/fcc-gets-comcast-verizon-to-reveal-netflixs-paid-peering-deals/
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esbranson
How can Comcast or Verizon claim to offer you X MBps if they refuse, or are
unable, to provide downloads from the Internet, including from Netflix, at X
MBps? How is that not fraud or a breach of contract?

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_greim_
If billing rates were by volume of data transferred, just like every other
utility, that would incentivize ISPs to maximize data flow. But as things
stand they're not incentivized to increase bandwidth because they make the
same money whether you check email once a week or stream Netflix 24/7\. This
seems obviously broken to me, but apparently most people can't stomach the
idea of paying by volume, so we're stuck with the current system.

~~~
graylights
The problem with pricing by volume is that the average consumer can't really
manage their volume.

Would the consumer be responsible for paying for: -DDOS (not only can you
knock them offline, you can cost them big money) -Spam (Both received and
botnet sent) -Retransmissions for traffic the ISP dropped due to congestion
-Ads (adblockers could reduce bandwidth costs by a third)

I personally would love volume pricing. But I also would not want to provide
tech support next time my parents get hit by malware and get hit with a $1000
isp bill.

~~~
_greim_
Definitely valid concerns, but they don't strike me as inherent problems with
the idea, rather technical problems that can be overcome with some ingenuity
and incentive.

It's the incentive that's lacking at the moment. My machine may send out
bursts of spam at 3am, or a website ad may weigh 10MB, but as long as I can
still check Facebook what do I care? But I would care if I were billed for
those transfers. I'd start shopping for devices that helped me self-throttle.
I'd start caring whether websites were bloated. That would pass the incentive
on to those providers, etc.

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rasz_pl
Netflix became Level3s problem with Comcast because of unbalanced level of
traffic flowing from L3 to comcast.

There is a simple solution to unbalanced Peering that Netflix could implement
– just setup their clients to upload dummy garbage data at 70% max uplink
speed whenever their client software is running. All of a sudden traffic will
go both ways and they will be able to peer as an equal party.

This alone proves Peering agreements based on traffic amounts are a joke.

Streaming service that generates one way traffic is simply 'too nice' to
comcast. Flood those asshats with /dev/random.

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chaostheory
This isn't big news unless it's made public.

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evv
This brings to mind an interesting question: Does the FCC even have the
authority to regulate net neutrality?

Even if the US government did somehow manage to regulate the US-based telcos,
the FCC would have no legal way of regulating net neutrality outside of the
US. An effective net neutrality policy could even harm our economy, if its a
rule that nobody else needs to play by.

If we want access to a free internet, we need to figure out how to democratize
the infrastructure. As long as we depend on fiber and copper controlled by big
companies, net neutrality will continue to slip through our fingers like
water.

~~~
deciplex
>An effective net neutrality policy could even harm our economy, if its a rule
that nobody else needs to play by.

Can you expand on this? I don't see it. What does it matter to America, if
Brazil allows telcos to meter speed to subscribers based on bribes paid by
third parties?

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kpanghmc
It affects American businesses and therefore affects the American economy.

For instance, let's say Brazil's telcos started throttling their citizens'
access to Netflix, but not to Braziliflix, a hypothetical Brazilian version of
Netflix. That could prevent Netflix from gaining traction in Brazil.
Meanwhile, Braziliflix would be free to compete on an even playing field for
customers in the US.

~~~
yongjik
Cool, that means consumers in the US will have two viable alternatives,
Netflix and Braziliflix, so there will be competition and people will enjoy
better level of service. And the two companies will try to out-innovate the
other, hiring engineers and lowering prices. Sounds like economic gain to me.

Meanwhile, consumers in Brazil enjoy shitty services and exorbitant prices...

~~~
kpanghmc
While that scenario is certainly better for American consumers, it's not
better for Netflix. Both companies will have to innovate and compete in
America, but Braziliflix will essentially get the Brazilian market for free.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
Protecting American consumers is the FCC's job. They can't be expected to
prevent protectionism in other countries.

~~~
kpanghmc
That's correct. Note that I never said it was the FCC's job to prevent
protectionism in other countries. I was simply answering deciplex's question
of how net neutrality could harm the American economy if it were only enforced
in the United States.

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opendais
Well if these aren't public...

Would a FOIA request on the FCC for them since they are technically Comcast,
Verizon copyright?

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phantom784
IANAL, but I'd imagine that they'd fall under NDAs and trade secrets rather
than copyrights (although I suppose the text of a contract could be
copyrightable).

Still, I'd be curious to see if a FOIA request would work.

~~~
eli
Feel free to try, it don't cost nothin'.

But there's a specific exemption for: _" Trade secrets and commercial or
financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential, 5
U.S.C § 552(b)(4)"_

Years ago I lost a fight with the FCC for data on cell phone carrier
reliability. The FCC has great insight into who has the fastest or most
reliable cell network, but as part of mandating outage reporting, Congress
promised the carriers everything would stay secret.

~~~
opendais
Bah, well that is inconvenient. :/

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higherpurpose
Transparency into the deals is nice, but doesn't change the fact that the
deals have to exist in the first place. This seems in the same line of
thinking with FCC's earlier "commercially reasonable" deals. "We'll give them
fast lanes..but don't worry...the deals will be _commercially
reasonable_...and now transparent, too".

Somehow it doesn't make me feel much better about it.

~~~
MBCook
I'm hoping this produces some good smoking guns. At least we'll _know_ what's
going on as opposed to having to infer it.

I mean if Netflix is paying Comcast $2k/month to fix the issue that's stupid
but not very bad. If it's $2m/month that's a huge problem.

~~~
ColinDabritz
I don't care at all how much money is being paid. So long as content providers
are paying any amount, it's unequal, and needs to stop.

Net Neutrality would be a good step. Common carrier status would be better.

~~~
diminoten
Who the hell are you to tell me how and who I peer with? It's my network, you
shouldn't be able to force me to peer with actors who will flood me.

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wmf
I agree that nobody should be forced to peer. But if a content provider is
"flooding" an ISP, refusing to peer will just cause those packets to arrive
via more-expensive transit. How bad do you want to spite Netflix?

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diminoten
Refusing to peer won't cause those packets to arrive at nearly the rate they
were arriving previously, which means my network won't flood, which is _less_
expensive for me.

I don't want to spite Netflix at all, I just don't want my network flooded.

(I probably also shouldn't have promised folks I could deliver all of these
packets, either, but that's another issue)

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aaronblohowiak
>I don't want to spite Netflix at all, I just don't want my network flooded.

You have different incentives than people trying to protect their
transactional VOD content businesses.

