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.'"
Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
First they came for Netflix, and I did not speak up because I did not use Netflix.
Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much this, but not exactly. How many of the average consumers getting Comcast "Hot Deals!®" realize the penalty for the deal? Not many. Just like with so many other things the only way to fight is by consumer knowledge. Since the same people (I'm tempted to use an ad hominem for them, but won't distract) that own Comcast own all of the Mass Media, consumers are once again either ignorant or lied to.
EFF and others have been warning about this for years, hell we have debated this topic over and over on Slashdot. How do you wake consumers when you don't own any media? I guess we can hope that more of the SOPA type blackouts will occur, but I have doubts. It was effective once, but corporations hated it. Keep mailing those US House and Senate members, but also start tapping people on the shoulder. It's not like NBC is going to warn consumers of the dangers of monopolization.
MAFIAA (Score:2)
Since the same people (I'm tempted to use an ad hominem for them, but won't distract) that own Comcast own all of the Mass Media
This wouldn't involve an acronym for "music and film industry associations", would it?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Oligarchies have no incentive to listen. My question still is how do we take an Oligarchy and transform it into a Technocracy because this is exactly what would solve the problem. How is it possible without all hell breaking loose?
Re: (Score:3)
Oligarchies have no incentive to listen. My question still is how do we take an Oligarchy and transform it into a Technocracy because this is exactly what would solve the problem. How is it possible without all hell breaking loose?
Technically we are not a true oligarchy, or at least we have no proof that the Republic is completely dead. There are people that are not career politicians getting into offices, so at least a portion of the Republic is still working.
Transformation is always painful, and a bit of chaos may be needed to restore the full Republic. That is much less frightening than doing nothing and watching us transform into a much worse form of Government. How far away is dictatorship if we do nothing? Not very far.
Re:Sigh... (Score:5, Informative)
I firmly believe Comcast's "average" customer has only the choice between Comcast or no adequate Internet service at all. Other than Stockholm syndrome, it's the only explanation that makes sense.
Netflix is a terrible test case (Score:3)
Re:Netflix is a terrible test case (Score:5, Interesting)
Comcast must be thrilled Netflix has emerged as the proxy case for Net Neutrality.
It doesn't matter though... as a user, YOU are "requesting" date from Netflix... and you have already paid Comcast for that bandwidth.
Another article today noted that carriers like Comcast deliberately let their nodes get congested so they can scream "bandwidth hogs!"
Shoot 'em down. Title II Common Carrier status for the lot of 'em. They've abused for far too long, and gotten rich in the process. Time to cut them down a notch, before they manage to throw their weight around so much they break everything in the room.
Re:Netflix is a terrible test case (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
He is most definitely not spineless. He has the balls to put forward regulations under the name "Net Neutrality" that basically say "pay for transit = net neutrality".
Re: (Score:3)
As soon as that spineless fuck Tom Wheeler stops threatening to knock them all down to Title II and actually does it, we can only expect this to escalate.
Stop pretending that he's not a corrupt bureaucrat. Your language paints him as a coward, but one who has good intentions. There is no factual basis for such an assumption and it just harms the issue - Wheeler will do what he was sent there to do and nobody is going to do anything about it. Now who's spineless?
Re: (Score:2)
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
A lunatic with a fetish for cold, canned beans.
Re: (Score:2)
baby bells were common carriers and you had to pay them to terminate your phone calls on their networks
Re:Netflix is a terrible test case (Score:5, Interesting)
baby bells were common carriers and you had to pay them to terminate your phone calls on their networks
Yes, but...
Our Common Carrier telephone system, at least until the breakup, was the envy of the world. Rates were reasonable and closely regulated, they couldn't snoop, they couldn't pull bullshit tricks on their networks to get you to pay more, and local calls were a flat rate even if you talked all day.
In countries where competing companies were allowed to operate (instead of the U.S. "natural monopoly" setup), you had telephone systems that were fundamentally incompatible, mazes of wires, and sometimes you couldn't even call your own neighbor, because he was on a different system that was electrically incompatible with the one you used.
Now that many other countries have adopted more of a regulated "natural monopoly" system (even if not completely so), and the U.S. has gone almost all private, the tables are turned... we have among the worst service of Western nations while at the same time some of the highest rates.
Re:Netflix is a terrible test case (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Netflix is a terrible test case (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe you exaggerate, though the point that rates were higher is good.
"you paid extra for caller ID and lots of other services"
I actually miss that part. Because the corollary was that you could decline unwanted 'services.' Now any phone service you get has a dozen "services" that I do not want, must pay for anyway, and to add both insult and additional injury it's often impossible to even turn them off.
"you paid per minute for local calling. higher rates for regional calls and crazy rates for long distance calls"
It was possible to pay per minute for local calling, if you got the super-cheap phone service designed for those who would otherwise have no phone at all. With that lowest level of service you still got a number you could receive calls on all day every day, you only paid extra when you called out.
The normal mode was to pay slightly more per month and get unlimited local calls. Rates for long distance were certainly higher.
"there wasn't enough capacity for everyone and getting all circuits busy was normal, especially on long distance calls"
Not true, it happened but it was certainly not normal. Unless, say, you were trying to call Mexico City right after the news reported a natural disaster there - yeah, in that case, circuits would be busy.
So those are the down sides, and they are significant. What was the upside? If you were designing the system from scratch, why would you consider using a circuit switched network instead of a packet switched network?
In a word, reliability. Once you established a call, there was literally an unbroken strip of copper reaching from your handset right into the hand of the person you were talking to. There was NO packet loss, latency was very little above what the speed of light demands, bandwidth was constant and predictable.
With modern telephony being VOIP based, these things are no longer true, and telephone service is much less reliable.
With the old circuit switched network, when too many people tried to call Mexico City at the same time, a certain number actually got through. Each one of them got a good connection. All the other people whose request when through a moment too late got the message about all circuits being busy and try again later.
With the current packet switched network, when too many people try to call Mexico City at the same time, what will happen instead is that far more connections will be made, but they will not be reliable. If it's only a few too many, then maybe the audio quality goes down, a little delay creeps in, some audio artifacts... but you can all still keep talking. That's probably good. But when it's waaay too many, then no one will get a usable connection at all.
A packet-switched network is great for lots of applications but one can certainly argue that telephone service is not one of them.
Re: (Score:2)
VOIP uses approximately no bandwidth relative to Mexico city's landline connection, such that the drop in Netflix traffic concomitant with any easily observed or difficult to not observe event would afford more than adequate bandwidth for voice traffic. "Packet switched networks," as you say, does include GSM, which would certainly be jammed in such an event. Perhaps the old analog cell networks could fall under the circuit switched definition, but they'd be of less use than a 2 meter piece of wire you ha
Re: (Score:2)
With the current packet switched network, when too many people try to call Mexico City at the same time, what will happen instead is that far more connections will be made, but they will not be reliable. ... when it's waaay too many, then no one will get a usable connection at all.
A packet-switched network is great for lots of applications but one can certainly argue that telephone service is not one of them.
Actually, packet switched networks work just fine for this IF they have a "reserved bandwidth" conn
Re:Netflix is a terrible test case (Score:4, Informative)
Repeat after me: NET NEUTRALITY IS NOT FUCKING QOS!.
It's really simple: QOS ("Quality Of Service") is about discriminating between different types of traffic based on its characteristics and needs (e.g. low-latency-required stuff like VoIP vs. latency-not-important "bulk data" transfers like BitTorrent). That kind of discrimination is just fine. In contrast, Net Neutrality seeks only to prohibit discrimination based on the origin or destination of the packets; i.e., who sent or requested them. That kind of discrimination is very much not "just fine."
For example, Comcast wanting to prioritize Comcast's video-streaming service above Bittorrent is fine; that's QOS. Comcast wanting to prioritize Comcast's video-streaming service above Netflix is wrong; that violates net neutrality.
In my experience, the only people who disagree with this after having it explained to them are those who are paid to believe otherwise.
The Supremes (Score:2)
Given that the majority of this Supreme Court just ruled that government-backed and sanctioned prayer in public meetings is fine provided they are Christian prayers, you really think an FCC ruling on Title II would have any scintilla of hope?
Democracy is d
Re:movies should not go over internet backbone (Score:5, Informative)
My recollection is that NetFlix has such caching equipment, and that they have offered it to Comcast and Verizon.
CC and VZ did not take them up on that offer.
Re: (Score:2)
Repeatedly sending big, high def movie files over the internet backbone seems so wasteful.
Wasteful of what, exactly? Most of the costs in networking are fixed. You use a little bit more electricity to send more data but, generally speaking, most of the physical equipment involved doesn't really experience extra wear and tear when a connection is saturated versus being unused (some that's poorly designed might from, for example, overheating). In other words, if you graphed it, the real cost of bandwidth per
Re: (Score:2)
Netflix discs by mail (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Untrue. The CDNs are provided by Netflix for free [netflix.com].
The ISPs are refusing bec
Not Likely (Score:2)
I don't think there are a lot of people who don't use Netflix. At least, I don't know any.
Re: (Score:2)
i know a lot of people who don't use netflix. i only use them for cartoons and i barely watch it myself. a lot of people are this way. very little on there worth watching
Re: (Score:2)
Just to add a vote here, I don't use Netflix. Certainly I don't count as 'a lot' but I am part of a group :)
[John]
Kind of the opposite effect (Score:3)
Lets say you did use Netflix.
Why would you speak up? Netflix just arranged a deal with Comcast and from the user perspective, it got faster. So from external observation most Netflix users would think the situation had improved.
There's simply no way to explain to non-technical people why what is happening is bad.
Re: (Score:3)
You are wrong and TFA shows you how. Did you read?
You dont need to understand the technical side just the business side.
The way the internet works, I pay my ISP, you pay your ISP, and so far as we are concerned everyone is paid (the ISPs pay transit providers out of what they bill us but we can ignore that, it's not our responsibility.) You are Netflix, I paid Comcast, you paid your ISP, I am happily watching movies and
Re: (Score:2)
You dont need to understand the technical side just the business side.
You are just trading one technical jargon for another.
Explain again how a normal non-technical person understands it is bad?
What the Netflix user sees is that they have Comcast, Netflix got faster, end of story. Any other words you use are pointless because the effect to them is not direct, the potential effect on the future too nebulous to understand.
Even if you frame it as you have, I'll bet 8% of normal people you explain it to would
Re: (Score:2)
92% response rate is fine, I'll take it in a heartbeat.
Re: (Score:2)
But to the end user that does not happen at the same time, the stream gets faster and sometime later the service price goes up - which is to be expected.
After all, BOTH Netflix and Amazon are raising rates so where is the tie? It's too remote. Users will not correlate the two.
Doesn't matter what you can see (Score:2)
Because I can see further than the next financial quarter
So what? My point is few of the MANY USERS of Netflix can understand the long-term implications.
It doesn't matter if a handful of people know better, because to actually change things would take a majority of Netflix or Comcast subscribers. And that cannot happen.
Won't happen (Score:2)
That's why Atlanta (and other cities) ... (Score:5, Informative)
... need google fibre. Its the opposite extreme when it comes to performance and openness...
Peter.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, advertising may not ultimately be in the best interest of the customer, but still...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Doesn't matter. Even fibers will be saturated one day and then the whole process starts again.
Re: (Score:3)
No, peek photons
Comcast doesn't care (Score:2)
Re:Comcast doesn't care (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
bullshit.
in the 1890's copper wire didn't have insulation that would work. Nor was there appropriately sized wire.
The underground pipe might have been laid in the 1890's but the wire was pulled and replaced in the 1970's or 80's.
It is easy enough to tell what kind of insulation does it have? if it is wax paper you might be right but you would get all sorts of cross talk.
Re: (Score:3)
we just need google fibre and such in major comcast markets - cut off enough of their profits that they see the impact on their bottomline...
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
and you are the jack benny of slashdot.
(goml)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Google Fiber can only offer their services in places where the local government has not awarded monopoly rights to a single ISP.
Probably they'd get sued by Comcast if they tried to offer Google Fiber.
What needs to be done is to make these kinds of monopolies illegal. Laws that fix this are not easy to get right though.
Re: (Score:2)
And this is why Comcast has the power. They have spent the money to deliver a service.
Didn't the US government pay a fuckload to get telecommuniations rolled out to the entire country rural and otherwise?
Re: (Score:2)
So yes, the internet is dying
What the fuck? Everybody uses the internet, all the time. That's like saying electricity is going out of fashion.
Re: (Score:2)
In my experience Comcast has better advertised rates, but they suck if you try to use them. I would download a 200mb file in afew seconds, but a 700mb or bigger iso would take hours. A torrent file would crawl after the first few minutes and take days to get over a gig. With att, it might take 3
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that you have to choose between Comcast and dialup (because officially you have a choice) is contraproductive to free market economy. It is wrong.
If you fixed that Netfix would be able to tell their customers "on so and so date we will stop paying the bribery Comcast demands and the Netflix service to Comcast customers will be once again fucked up by Comcast."
Fix the monopoly and Comcast will either die or correct their business practices.
Re: (Score:2)
Get the government to run dark fiber to the nearest datacenter and charge all local ISPs "fair market value" for access to that link...
Stop right there. You know that will never happen because their lobbyists be will hard at work making sure that your elected representatives will kill any such plan in birth. Probably on the grounds of "less government", "capitalism" and "free competition".
Lets have more realistic solutions, please.
Settlement-free peering and transit (Score:5, Insightful)
These concepts were part of the commercial Internet circa the early 1990s
and were part of the reason CIX was so successful. Then PAIX then others.
In time, Internet exchanges were themselves bogged down and companies
did private peering. Those who connected to like-quantity produders of
content did so for free (settlement-free peering). Those who were unequal
paid for transiting the network (paid transit).
That hasn't changed in 32 years. All that's changed is the up and down of
who provides more traffic where. The dominant player in each interconnection
point ALWAYS demanded transit, and often did so with the "wherever our
two networks meet" even if elsewhere it was not the dominant player.
Comcast could be made to behave, but Netflix blinked and paid them money.
Now others will as well.
This CAN BE FIXED BY REGULATION but not the kind people are thinking
of. No, not net neutrality. Rather the elimination of the cable-company
monopolies on entire swaths of subscribers. Eliminate the government-granted
access to rights-of-way, towers, utility poles, and infrastructure. Let them not
have a "sole franchise" but rather be one of many competing in the market.
Remove Comcast and their ilk from their high post as the monopolistic "owner"
of all these households by fiat, and having to compete to keep them, and instead
of throttling their peerings to make Netflix users (THEIR OWN CUSTOMERS)
suffer... they'll get peering with netflix.
More government regulation doesn't solve a market-driven problem. Removing the
government regulation harming free competition is the key.
E
Re: (Score:2)
The best way to solve it, without giving the state any new regulatory powers, would be to require ISPs to be only ISPs. Don't let one company own the pipes and also own a bunch of other businesses that compete as users of the pipes - that's just a recipe for corruption.
Comcast and others like them could pull a nice bump in revenues by divesting them
Re: (Score:2)
This CAN BE FIXED BY REGULATION but not the kind people are thinking of. No, not net neutrality. Rather the elimination of the cable-company monopolies on entire swaths of subscribers. Eliminate the government-granted access to rights-of-way, towers, utility poles, and infrastructure. Let them not have a "sole franchise" but rather be one of many competing in the market.
This is typically a local issue. If your city gave all the rights to Comcast, go lobby your city council member. You can probably knock on their door and have talk with them.
Re: (Score:2)
As long as it is legal the rights, once granted, will be very difficult to retract.
And that is as it should be. If I get a building permit and the building permit is retracted halfway the build I am royally screwed. Retracting things that are legal is difficult.
Like it or not, Comcast invested a lot of money in the cables. It shouldn't be easy for a city council to remove that.
What the city council should be able to do is demand a split, as Arker suggested.
Note: What I feel that should and shouldn't be poss
Wrong (Score:3)
Removing regulation, rather than writing proper regulation, would do nothing more than set all of us in the claws of Comcast-Warner
Totally wrong, the fastest internet I had was a decade ago when a small company called Wide Open West was allowed to run fiber to the curb.
Comcast put a stop to that soon enough, they are gone as is that faster access.
I've already seen a looser regulation having a positive effect, and yearn to return to that state where someone COULD offer service to me besides Comcast.
Make this an antitrust issue (Score:3)
We simply need to forget the FCC and make this an antitrust issue. If an ISP is so big that they charge companies for the privilege of reaching their customers, then it is anticompetitive. If they start charging backbone providers, well... then the backbone providers will go out of business since their revenue stream will become an expense. I'm not sure how that would ever work.
comcast is charging less than Cogent and L3 (Score:4, Interesting)
Netflix even said Comcast is charging them very little for the connections and its not material to earnings.
i've seen estimates of $.30 to $.50 per megabit per second which is A LOT less than standard transit prices and an estimate that the netflix will pay $18 million per year for this. out of almost $5 billion in revenues this year and a current tech budget which includes transit of over $100 million
this is another blogger crisis. they scream for better internet speeds and when a deal to enable this finally happens they scream fraud and extortion
Possible Two-Sided Sword (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Comcast also has a motive here -- to get their customers to use Streampix [comcast.com] instead of Netflix or get Netflix to pay extra to get to their customers.
Tit for Tat and all of that.
Re: (Score:2)
this is another blogger crisis. they scream for better internet speeds and when a deal to enable this finally happens they scream fraud and extortion
Um, just because the 'deal' make something better doesn't mean it's a good deal. I for one am not too pleased with this 'deal with the devil.' Netflix has kind of shot us all in the foot.
Re: (Score:3)
so why is it better for the sender of 30% of the internet's traffic to send their traffic through a third party network rather than directly to customers?
L3 and Cogent have done plenty of shady things in the past when they had the upper hand in the business. now they don't and are crying network neutrality
Re: (Score:2)
so why is it better for the sender of 30% of the internet's traffic to send their traffic through a third party network rather than directly to customers?
L3 and Cogent have done plenty of shady things in the past when they had the upper hand in the business. now they don't and are crying network neutrality
These are all reasons we need heavy regulation and common carrier status for internet networking infrastructure providers, regardless of tier or business size. So they quit screwing US over with their shady backroom deals, cuz you know who pays for those deals. We do, the last mile customers. Weither in higher prices, degraded service or lack of customer support. And any combination of the three.
Re: (Score:2)
This new thing with netflix is just showing big ISP's they can start milking content providers for 'better connectivity' to their throngs of last mile consumers. This is in no way a good thing.
And who's paying for it? Netflix customers. Did comcast lower their price? Nooo. Did Netflix lower their price? Noooo.. in fact they raised it.
Re: (Score:2)
While I'm all for net neutrality, but what was the difference between what happend here and a plain old multihoming deal? All big sites have their systems connected to more than one carriers. And they usually pay for that connection like we do for our internet connection. And now Netflix is connected to one more carrier.
Re: (Score:2)
i've seen estimates of $.30 to $.50 per megabit per second which is A LOT less than standard transit prices
I've seen banner adverts from HE for transit at $0.80/mbps and I imagine big customers can get better deals than that. So it's probablly in the same ballpark as buying transit from cheap providers like cogent or HE.
What would worry me as a content provider would not be the immediate cost but that once it becomes established that buying "paid peering" or transit service from comcast is the only way to get decent performance to comcast users they could slowly tighten the screws on me.
Re: (Score:2)
drpeering.net says $2.50 per megabit for small companies, less than a $1 for big ones like google and apple so netflix is getting a huge deal
there are dozens of content streaming companies out there. if comcast picks a fight they will have a lot of others against them. even then a strong streaming market is in their best interests because they pay a lot of money for their pay TV customers and want to decrease that
Re: (Score:3)
http://he.net/ Get BGP+IPv6+IPv4 for $0.45/Mbps!
$0.3/mbit for peering is EXPENSIVE. Since all of the equipment costs are already covered by their residential customer, that's a 100% net profit. Kind of like if Microsoft started subsidizing their xbox games to price the playstation out of the market. That's called monopolistic power for a reason.
Re: (Score:3)
that's a 100% net profit.
It is not 100% profit since Comcast still needs to add ports to their routers for Netflix to connect to and adjust the rest of their network accordingly.
Even if it was straight 100% net profit, we are still talking less than 80M$/year, which is less than 0.1% of Comcast's income; practically a rounding error within Comcast's accounting or around $5/year per Netflix customer using Comcast.
To me, that sounds like tons of ado about nothing. Cogent and L3 are frustrated about losing Netflix as a client, Netflix
Re: (Score:2)
Netflix even said Comcast is charging them very little for the connections and its not material to earnings.
Why is Netflix paying at all? Comcast REALLY want the traffic from Netflix: imagine how pissed off their customers (who paid comcast to get traffic) would be if they couldn't get netflix.
(WTF apparently I can't post twice in 5 mintes now)
Get OFF your freaking duffs! (Score:5, Informative)
You can still change this!
Start with filing your comment NOW at the FCC:
https://www.fcc.gov/comments [fcc.gov]
Click on 14-28 Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet
Here is a sample to give you some inspiration:
"It has become time to classify Internet Service Providers as Title II Common Carriers. The possibilities for abuse are just too great otherwise. Failure to do so will cripple the future economic well being of the United States, stifle innovation, and limit the freedom of consumers to choose the content they desire."
Re: (Score:3)
"It has become time to classify Internet Service Providers as Title II Common Carriers. The possibilities for abuse are just too great otherwise. Failure to do so will cripple the future economic well being of the United States, stifle innovation, and limit the freedom of consumers to choose the content they desire."
You do understand that telephone carriers pay to interconnect with each other with the carrier terminating a call ultimately being paid for that termination? This is the exact situation we don't want to see with ISPs. (As a side-bar this is why there are/were so many "free" conference calling solutions in rural Iowa - a few of the carriers there were paid upwards of $0.02/min for termination, regardless of origin, and were willing to *pay* customer to receive calls!)
I support net neutrality 100% but what ha
Re: (Score:2)
your whining to some unchecked inbox wont do a single bit of good
This only matters with huge data (Score:2)
You can do all kinds of things which are not "huge data" and you won't have a problem.
Netflix pushed things very hard and changed the foundation of the "all the bandwidth you want" model.
Because previously the average customer downloaded a fraction of what they downloaded after netflix.
ISP's have the option of charging their customers more (maybe a lot more) or charging Netflix (and amazon prime and hulu) which can then pass that cost on to its customers.
Comcast are not nice dudes- but it's not all on one s
Lobbyists are a HUGE part of the problem (Score:4, Informative)
having lobbyists in government regulatory bodies HAS to stop
sign this and share it: http://wh.gov/lwhr8 [wh.gov]
Tom Wheeler and his ilk have empowered too much Telco/Cableco monopoly control and done nothing to help regular people
Re:Lobbyists are a HUGE part of the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
The current President lied in his campaign promises to not appoint lobbyists, but I'm sure an Internet petition signed by a bunch of geeks will change his mind.
Washington DC is useless to us.
I don't understand (Score:2)
This whole thing doesn't make sense to me. If Comcast is intentionally degrading (or failing to upgrade, causing degradation) NetFlix stream, why doesn't NetFlix just let them? Put a message over the buffering stating that the buffering is caused by Comcast and asking the customer to contact them in order to fix it. Maybe put a short pre-roll PSA video, explaining the situation to all Comcast NetFlix users. I'm (luckily) not a Comcast subscriber, but if I was, and I couldn't do whatever I wanted with th
RICO the bastards (Score:2)
If the Executive administration wasn't such a bunch of spineless cowards they'd be pursuing RICO charges against Comcast for extorting Netflix and then miraculously eliminating their throughput problem less than a month later.
Re: (Score:2)
My thoughts exactly. This should be treated as extortion.
Can someone explain something to me? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You just said it yourself. The problem is that Comcast is a monopoly, has abused their position, and other ISP/Content creator combos are planning to follow suit.
Title II Common Carrier status would force Comcast to not discriminate. It can't charge Netflix more than what it charges any other customer.
I suppose another solution would be forcing Comcast to split its lines of business, but that is not a task the Government tends to want to do.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Can someone explain something to me, because I don't get it. If I want content, and netflix has the content, and I have a subscription to Netflix and an ISP, assuming neither has a monopoly, why does it matter if netflix or the ISP pays for the transmission of data? One of the two of them has to pay for it for my consumption. I understand this all changes if there's a monopoly by either netflix or the ISP, but without the monopoly, why does capitalism not drive this to cost+ a reasonable cost of doing buisness/profit margin? And if it does, why do I really care if I pay this money to either the ISP or netflix, I have to pay it to someone. Now obviously, this goes out the window if one or both has a monopoly. Also, please, I'm looking for a real answer as to why I should care, not "zomg, ISP greeeeed"
Basically, Netflix pays their ISP for bandwidth. You pay your Comcast for bandwidth. The traffic goes through Netflix's ISP, through the Internet backbone, to the Comcast network. Netflix's ISP is supposed to have a peering arrangement with Comcast where they agree to carry traffic to and from each other, usually for free. Normally both ISPs are close to being equal in the amount of data they exchange so this is fair.
Comcast has two arguments that they are using to charge Netflix extra to deliver their
Re: (Score:2)
It's pretty straightforward. You pay for access to the Internet through your ISP, which may be Comcast. Netflix pays for access to the Internet through their ISPs, although their service providers are probably a different tier than the consumer level service you're getting. The way it's supposed to work is that you're both connected to the Internet, so data you send between each other is covered by whatever plan you have with your ISP. What Comcast is doing here is double-dipping. They want to charge you fo
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately it's much worse than that. You pay for this if you use Netflix, or any other service that pays such extortion, whether you are a Comcast customer or not.
Also screw Netflix. I am on their side on this issue only under protest and lacking any other option.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't be obtuse. The government should have, but failed to, control the internet. That is why the ISPs are charging you and arm and a leg. One example- the FCC wanted net neutrality [fcc.gov], which
Re: (Score:2)
You do not understand the situation. The government has decided that it can't force ISPs to not charge content providers. In other words, it ceded powers to corporations.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How could a libertarian support net neutrality?
Re: (Score:2)
No, I didn't. I've been clamoring to get the private corporations out of government
Which isn't going to happen unless government gets a lot smaller. So the only alternative is to not give them any more power.
When people give the government power over the internet, naturally companies will seek to control what the government does with it. This is why happened; it is what was inevitable.
Re: (Score:2)
"Which isn't going to happen unless government gets a lot smaller."
How do you figure?
"So the only alternative is to not give them any more power."
Alternative to what? Who's giving who power?
"When people give the government power over the internet, naturally companies will seek to control what the government does with it."
When did the people ever have control over the internet? When did anyone give the government control. To the extent that the government does have control, they just took it. Why would
Re: (Score:2)
When people give the government power over the internet, naturally companies will seek to control what the government does with it. This is why happened; it is what was inevitable.
Er, no. The fact that you think this means you are utterly ignorant of how the rest of the world worked. Level 3 pointed out that in some companies with good competition (such as the UK) there was not a single congested port.
The UK market is very heavily regulated. There is an old encumbent ex-government monopoly (BT). They're man
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's gone away somewhat with in-network calling, and honestly since then I can't remember the last time I hit, much less exceeded my peak-minute allowance.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)