Comcast: Destroying What Makes a Competitive Internet Possible 227
An anonymous reader writes "Vox has another in-depth report on the perilous state of net neutrality regulation, and how Comcast is attempting to undermine it. Quoting: 'In the bill-and-keep internet, companies at each "end" of a connection bill their own customers — whether that customer is a big web company like Google, or a an average household. Neither end pays the other for interconnection. ... ISP's typically do this by hiring a third party to provide "transit," the service of carrying data from one network to another. Transit providers often swap traffic with one another without money changing hands. ... The terminating monopoly problem occurs when a company at the end of a network not only charges its own customers for their connection, but charges companies in the middle of the network an extra premium to be able to reach its customers. In a bill-and-keep regime, the money always flows in the other direction — from customers to ISPs to transit companies. ... But when an ISP's market share gets large enough, the calculus changes. Comcast has 80 times as many subscribers as Vermont has households. So when Comcast demands payment to deliver content to its own customers, Netflix and its transit suppliers can't afford to laugh it off. The potential costs to Netflix's bottom line are too large.'"
Re:Comcast doesn't care (Score:5, Funny)
Comcast wasn't your only choice. You could have voted NO. Even a commie Russian gets to vote NO.
But Americans? Nope. Bend over and take it.
I've had dial up instead of Comcast. I've had nothing, for short periods of time. I've thrown Comcast out of every property I've ever owned.
Hell I even ordered Comcast just so I could return the equipment the next day and keep the batteries.
Comcast is the Edith Keeler of the internet.