Comcast Accused of Congestion By Choice 434
An anonymous reader writes "A kind soul known as Backdoor Santa has posted graphs purportedly showing traffic through TATA, one of Comcast's transit providers. The graphs of throughput for a day and month, respectively, show that Comcast chooses to run congested links rather than buy more capacity. Keeping their links full may ensure that content providers must pay to colocate within Comcast's network. The graphs also show a traffic ratio far from 1:1, which has implications for the validity of its arguments with Level (3) last month."
The text in a readable format (Score:5, Informative)
Ever wonder what Comcast's connections to the Internet look like? In the tradition of WikiLeaks, someone stumbled upon these graphs of their TATA links. For reference, TATA is the only other IP transit provider to Comcast after Level (3). Comcast is a customer of TATA and pays them to provide them with access to the Internet.
1 day graphs:
Image #1: http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/78/ntoday.gif [imageshack.us]
Image #1 (Alternate Site): http://www.glowfoto.com/viewimage.php?img=13-224638L&rand=6673&t=gif&m=12&y=2010&srv=img4 [glowfoto.com]
Image #2: http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/749/sqnday.gif [imageshack.us]
Image #2 (Alternate Site): http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/13-205526L/4331/gif/12/2010/img6/glowfoto [glowfoto.com]
Notice how those graphs flat-line at the top? That's because they're completely full for most of the day. If you were a Comcast customer attempting to stream Netflix via this connection, the movie would be completely unwatchable. This is how Comcast operates: They intentionally run their IP transit links so full that Content Providers have no other choice but to pay them (Comcast) for access. If you don't pay Comcast, your bits wont make it to their destination. Though they wont openly say that to anyone, the content providers who attempt to push bits towards their customers know it. Comcast customers however have no idea that they're being held hostage in order to extort money from content.
Another thing to notice is the ratio of inbound versus outbound. Since Comcast is primarily a broadband access network provider, they're going to have millions of eyeballs (users) downloading content. Comcast claims that a good network maintains a 1:1 with them, but that's simply not possible unless you had Comcast and another broadband access network talking to each other. In the attached graphs you can see the ratio is more along the lines of 5:1, which Comcast was complaining about with Level (3). The reality is that the ratio argument is bogus. Broadband access networks are naturally pull-heavy and it's being used as an excuse to call foul of Level (3) and other content heavy networks. But this shoulnd't surprise anyone, the ratio argument has been used for over a decade by many of the large telephone companies as an excuse to deny peering requests. Guess where most of Comcasts senior network executive people came from? Sprint and AT&T. Welcome to the new monopoly of the 21st century.
If you think the above graph is just a bad day or maybe a one off? Let us look at a 30 day graph...
Image #3: http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/8917/ntomonth.gif [imageshack.us]
Image #3 (Alternate Site): http://www.glowfoto.com/static_image/13-205958L/4767/gif/12/2010/img6/glowfoto [glowfoto.com]
Comcast needs to be truthful with its customers, regulators and the public in general. The Level (3) incident only highlights the fact that Comcast is pinching content and backbone providers to force them to pay for uncongested access to Comcast customers. Otherwise, there's no way to send traffic to Comcast customers via the other paths on the Internet without hitting congested links.
Remember that this is not TATA's fault, Comcast is a CUSTOMER of TATA. TATA cannot force Comcast to upgrade its links, Comcast elects to simply not purchase enough capacity and lets them run full. When Comcast demanded that Level (3) pay them, the only choice Level (3) had was to give in or have its traffic (such as Netflix) routed via the congested TATA links. If Level (3) didn't agree to pay, that means Netflix and large portions of the Internet
Re:Current Comcast customer... (Score:5, Informative)
Verizon is much better. I am very happy with my 35/35 mbit symmetric fiber connection. Almost no outages at all. Way less than comcrap which used to drop out on a weekly basis for me. If you don't live in a state/city with FIOS, move.
Re:Does it have to be a conspiracy? (Score:5, Informative)
we're talking probably an extra 200k per month per link.
ps. I'm rounding _way_ up.
Re:100% utilization between mid-night and 7am? (Score:5, Informative)
Multi-national providers are likely to be running their graphs in UTC - reading the graph that way makes a lot more sense.
Re:Content providers must pay (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Content providers must pay (Score:4, Informative)
They're double dipping -- they charge you to deliver the bandwidth to you, and they charge the content providers to co-lo with them so that their users have a faster service experience.
So, the gouge you for shoddy service, and they gouge the content providers extortion-style so their content arrives in a timely manner.
Re:Net neutrality (Score:4, Informative)
In theory, by disallowing them to charge content-providers extra to deliver the content in a timely manner, and forcing them to address the root problem of simply not having enough capacity compared to what they sell.
This will never happen in America ... once they make the argument that spending their profits to improve service without getting any more money is tantamount to communism, then they'll continue with the way things are now.
From their perspective, if they actually had to have the service they advertise, they'd be losing money. This is a shell game that relies on overselling what you have (by several times) in order to make as much money as possible. End-user satisfaction would just eat into profits -- never mind the fact that they basically have a monopoly paid for by the tax payers in terms of right of way and the ability to lay cables that only they can use.
Re:Does it have to be a conspiracy? (Score:4, Informative)
They're certainly not made up numbers. That said, transit costs vary greatly by location and business negotiations. Getting a 10 gig link out of 60 Hudson when you have presence there is totally different than getting fiber run out to some middle-of-nowhere location.
I'm assuming we're talking about the opex cost of 10 gigs worth of transit from a fairly central hub. Capex to provide infrastructure to back that cost is not included. If we take the premise that Comcast's internal network isn't congested and only its transit links (which the graphs suggest is the major bottleneck), then there probably isn't significant capex cost in bringing online another link.
Of course I'm making huge assumptions. I'm on slashdot. Duh.
Re:Does it have to be a conspiracy? (Score:4, Informative)
Both in and out. Large sites like netflix or youtube use a CDN - servers placed all over the world, because no one place could be optimal in providing service to all customers.
Re:I, for one... (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with you 100 percent.
And apparently, so did Monticello.
Unfortunately the incumbent provider TDS disagreed strongly enough to slug it out in court, and while the referee had the city in the corner, TDS sucker punched them during the bell by getting an injunction against the city and builing their own network while the city's hands were tied.
Re:The text in a readable format (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does it have to be a conspiracy? (Score:5, Informative)
According to this article [wired.com], Comcast's public image is about the same as Halliburton or ExxonMobil. They're one of the most despised companies in America and they really don't give a shit.