
Level 3 vs. Comcast: Peering Dispute or Breach of Net Neutrality? - 1SockChuck
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/11/29/level-3-vs-comcast-more-than-a-peering-spat/
======
Terretta
> _“Level 3′s position is simply duplicitous,” said Joe Waz, Comcast’s Senior
> Vice President for External Affairs, in a statement. “When another network
> provider tried to pass traffic onto Level 3 this way, Level 3 said this is
> not the way settlement-free peering works in the Internet world. When
> traffic is way out of balance, Level 3 said, it will insist on a
> commercially negotiated solution. Now, Level 3 proposes to send traffic to
> Comcast at a 5:1 ratio over what Comcast sends to Level 3, so Comcast is
> proposing the same type of commercial solution endorsed by Level 3.”_

I believe Comcast is pointing at when Level 3 blocked Cogent for pushing too
much traffic onto Level 3:

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/105790/Level_3_Cogent...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/105790/Level_3_Cogent_resolve_peering_dispute_renew_deal)

An interesting article on why de-peering matters:

[http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/22/1316...](http://scrawford.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2005/10/22/1316514.html)

~~~
snsr
Thanks for that second link. I think Comcast is clearly drawing a line between
L3's CDN and their tier one backbone. The following press release (from 2004)
details Comcast's use of L3's fiber:

[http://www.comcast.com/About/PressRelease/PressReleaseDetail...](http://www.comcast.com/About/PressRelease/PressReleaseDetail.ashx?PRID=183)

------
alecco
Fishy. From Slackerboy @reddit:

    
    
      > Yeah I have seen the peering agreements with L3 and Comcast,
      > this story is complete BS.
      >
      >> Before Level 3 Communications landed the Netflix CDN deal,
      >> it sent approximately the same amount of traffic to Comcast
      >> as it received.
      >
      > This is a flat out lie, end consumer networks like Comcast ALWAYS
      > receive FAR more traffic then they send. Note how you get something
      > like 5 megs down and 1 meg up... wonder why? Because as an end
      > user you are not allowed to run any servers or serve any services.
      >
      > When you request a YouTube video you send maybe 20KB up stream
      > and receive 50-200MB back. Comcast has NEVER had more then 5%
      > upstream.
      >
      > I am smelling a Comcast fed story here.
    

[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/edxjp/level_3_ou...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/edxjp/level_3_outbid_akamai_on_netflix_by_reselling/c17dvwd)

~~~
meroliph
It's wrong to assume that Comcast does not send a lot of upstream traffic.
They actually sell IP transit at relatively small prices.

~~~
alecco
They have about 16 million users of broadband asymmetric access. I doubt any
IP transit sold would balance that. It'd be nice to see real numbers instead
of conjectures.

------
mrkurt
Comcast and Level3 are both being disingenous, really. Each is pretending
they're operating as a transit provider (because they both do at times, Level3
more than Comcast), but neither is actually doing that at the moment. In this
case Comcast is the eyeball network and Level3 is the CDN.

I have no doubt that Level 3's CDN traffic went through the roof when they
took on Netflix. I also have no doubt that Comcast went "oh, we have them by
the balls, lets get more money". It's not really a simple thing to take sides
on.

It is a problem, though, that Comcast is operating as a de facto monopoly with
their connected consumers. That's kind of the breaks of giving them that sort
of leverage. Thank your congressman. Level3 is sure using that story to their
advantage.

\--Edit-- Also, Comcast apparently _does_ charge other CDNs like this. My
opinion has tilted slightly in their favor, it sounds like they're at least
being consistant. CDNs always have the option of not using a peering
connection but going through paid transit.

------
keltex
I always thought that Google should buy NetFlix. Netflix's market cap is $10B
or so (maybe they pay $12-$15B in a buyout). Seems like a better deal than $6B
for Groupon.

I'm sure Google has a lot more leverage in peering negotiations.

~~~
thrdOriginal
And let's not leave out Level 3 and the perennial rumors that it is a prime
acquisition target for Google in order to gain a strong fiber backbone (not
that I think it will ever happen: I don't).

------
mcritz
It’s funny when evil telecoms fight each other until I realize no matter which
one wins, we lose.

------
jrs235
So, does this mean that Comcast is no longer merely a content provider since
they are now actively filtering/determining what content is allowed on their
network? If so, then Comcast should now be held liable for any and all
illegal/pirated content sent across their network.

RIAA maybe you should find a few Comcast subscribers downloading and sharing
illegal/pirated music then go after Comcast (who actually has the money to pay
the fines) for not actively filtering said content out of their network.

Comcast, you are walking on a rope next to a slippery slope.

~~~
davidu
This is not what is happening.

Comcast is an ISP. Just about every CDN out there pays to peer with Comcast to
deliver bits faster and cheaper to Comcast eyeballs.

Level(3) is an ISP. Because they carry traffic Comcast customers want they
have been able to peer at no-cost to Comcast historically. Now Level(3) is
building and selling a large CDN. Level(3) is taking advantage of these
existing peering circuits to be able to offer lower-cost CDN than their
competitors because they don't have to pay Comcast to exchange traffic. As a
consequence, their CDN has grown very large. They now dump far more traffic
onto Comcast's network than Comcast sends them. Comcast says their peering
policy is based on equal traffic ratios. Therefore, unless Level(3) can
balance their peering circuits, they will be forced to pay.

This has little to do with Net Neutrality and has been happening between
various ISPs over the last 10-20 years.

In IPv6 it's even worse. If you have Cogent as your ISP you can't reach
Hurricane Electric's network over IPv6 because neither of them has transit and
they don't peer with each other. :-(

~~~
illumin8
This entire model is duplicitous on Comcast's part. They complain when content
providers dump too much content on their network. Never mind the fact that
Comcast's entire infrastructure is built to deliver lots of downstream
traffic. If, for example, a lot of Comcast customers started seeding
BitTorrent traffic to L3 customers, generating upstream traffic, Comcast's
network would collapse because it is not designed to do this.

Comcast should be thankful that their peer is sending them content directly,
and that they don't have to pay transit costs from their upstream provider.

This is clearly an attempt by Comcast to put up a pay-wall for content from
3rd parties.

I've noticed more and more cable company manipulation of CDNs. For example,
nothing scientific, but a few days out of each month, Cablevision, my ISP in
Connecticut, starts randomly delaying traffic to Akamai CDN which serves Hulu
content. It is difficult for me to scientifically prove anything is wrong,
however, when the entire Internet is working flawlessly and a few random
Akamai CDN content addresses, which just happen to have Hulu content, stop
working, or are throttled, something stinks.

~~~
davidu
I guess we disagree. I don't find anything you wrote to be very factual.

Most networks charge their neighbors -- be them customers or peers. That means
when one neighbor sends traffic to another neighbor via the ISP, they both
usually pay.

If you call that duplicitous, then every network is duplicitous.

Also -- Comcast's network is symmetrical to the head-ends. It's true the head-
ends are configured to allow more spectrum to be used for download than
upload, but that's easily changed if people's surfing habits changed. I
imagine in the future it'll be dynamic, per customer (if we even continue to
use this model for cable modems, which I think DOCSIS is starting to move away
from).

~~~
illumin8
Most peering agreements don't work like ISP customer agreements. Peering
agreements are usually entirely agreements NOT to charge for traffic which
terminates directly on your network. Transit agreements are more like typical
ISP customer relationships, where I pay you to transit traffic that has an
endpoint on some other network.

Ignoring the fact that the entire DOCSIS standard was designed around
downstream distribution of content, and simply would not function well if you
try to reverse the flow, how do you determine who pays who in your world? If
I'm Comcast, do I have to pay L3 because they have content my customers want?
Or should L3 pay me because I have customers they want to deliver content to?

You see, it is not so cut and dried as "everybody pays for bandwidth." ISP
customers pay for bandwidth because they are asking the ISP to transit traffic
through their network. Peers typically don't pay because they are both
endpoints.

~~~
davidu
1) How do you know what peering agreements look like? What you write is simply
untrue from my experience. I peer with about 200+ networks today. Who are you?
Illumin8 me please.

2) Of course DOCSIS works if you reverse the flow. You already have separated
spectrum in each channel. The wider one is typically for downstream, but could
easily be converted for upstream. As I said, I think in the future it'll be
dynamic.

~~~
illumin8
You said: "That means when one neighbor sends traffic to another neighbor via
the ISP, they both usually pay." This is true, if they are both customers of
an ISP, and they are using that ISP to transit traffic to each other, they
both pay. But if we have a lot of traffic destined for each other, it would
make sense for us to peer and reduce our bandwidth costs from our upstream
providers.

DOCSIS only works in reverse if you are willing to install cable plant
equipment at a customer site, which would mean a rack full of head-end gear at
every house. Not feasible, and won't happen tomorrow.

I used to handle BGP and peering for a tier 1 ISP and CLEC in the western US,
so I've seen my fair share of peering agreements, and I've run my fair share
of DS3, OC3 and OC12 circuits to peering locations.

It sounds like you have a lot of credentials working for OpenDNS, so I don't
mean to denigrate your experience, but OpenDNS seems more like a bandwidth
customer and less like a provider/peer. I have a lot of experience with cable
plant equipment because we provided cable modems and DOCSIS equipment to a lot
of small business/enterprise customers in the late 90s/early 2000s.

