Netflix Video Speed On FiOS Doubles After Netflix-Verizon Deal 204
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon now joins AT&T and Time Warner Cable in the list of ISPs on which Netflix streaming has significantly improved after Netflix paid for access to their networks. Ars Technica notes that "[t]he interconnection deals give Netflix a direct connection to the edge of the Internet providers' networks, bypassing congested links, but without receiving priority treatment after entering the networks." The success of these deals, however, gives the ISPs no incentive whatsoever to fix their congested links. Toll roads have, in essence, been created for the internet.
Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:5, Insightful)
"Verizon now joins AT&T and Time Warner Cable in the list of ISPs on which Netflix streaming has significantly improved after Netflix paid for access to their networks."
Every company in that list needs a massive boycott. People need to be creating web sites showing a list of who's creating toll roads. (read: default slow lanes)
It doesn't seem bad now, but this will destroy the internet if we allow it.
Re:Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:4, Insightful)
Good luck with that. People won't give up gasoline and they won't give up their shitty media. You can depend on that.
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Good luck with that. People won't give up gasoline and they won't give up their shitty media. You can depend on that.
Bullshit.
Everyone has their pressure points.
For 99% of us, that would be gasoline at $20/gallon.
Raise the cost of Netflix to $50/month, and you'll see a lot of people abandoning their shitty media too.
Given cost is often THE pressure point, the only thing you can be assured of is cheap entertainment for the mindless masses. And cheap opium in a prescription bottle.
Gotta keep the addicts happy. They might just get out and vote again one day...
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The point of ISPs extorting money out of companies like Netflix is to serve one of two goals. 1) Gain more profit for doing less work or 2) kill off the services if such costs make them unprofitable. Then, the competing service said ISP offers (or "exclusive" service contracted in) will be the only one available for those ISP customers to purchase. Win/Win for the ISP, and a loss for all of us, since one often does NOT pick their provider.
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Actually for most people in the U.S., the cost of gasoline at $4.50/gallon is the tipping point - this was proven the summer before the market went boom - gasoline consumption dropped. As far as boycotting - it is going to have to be something besides price pressure, unless you are able to start nailing the providers who are doing this sort of thing for monopolistic practices.
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When gasoline goes to $20/gallon, people;
- stop eating out just to save on the fuel
- start combining trips to the grocery to avoid fuel costs, which coincidentally reduces those impulse purchases as as fraction of the total
- stop taking their kids to soccer three times a week. And piano classes, gymnastics, robot league, etc...
And school systems start surcharging for the bus for field trips.
The analogy breaks down a little.
But, if Netflix does go to $50/month, do we start watching something else? Hell yea
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And Netflix programming is uplifting, educational, and inspiring?
House of Cards makes me want to storm Washington. the rest is, well, pretty much a lot like what Verizon is peddling.
Come to think of it, HoC is too.
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Good luck with that. People won't give up gasoline and they won't give up their shitty media. You can depend on that.
It isn't that they won't. It's that they don't have choices. Which makes this doubly bad.
Many people have kept pointing to Big Cable as an example of "capitalism gone bad". But the real problem is exactly the opposite. Most of the United States has only one cable provider in their area. So there is no competitive market. The big cable companies have "compartmentalized" the country and decided on who can service what area. (Which they ADMIT to, but which is grossly illegal, against federal antitrust law.
Re:Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, I'll cancel my broadband subscription with the local monopoly and go back to dialup. But who do they get their upstream bandwidth from? At&t, Verizon, Time Warner or Comcast. Doh!
Re:Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe they get it from Level 3, Cogent, XO, Integra or some other wholesale carrier. Competition is actually pretty healthy once you get out of that residential last-mile. Also, if you switch from an ISP that relies on selling video services to one that is more focused on data and voice, you will find they are much less dickish about impairing your connection to content providers.
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Competition is actually pretty healthy once you get out of that residential last-mile
The solution is to break up Monopoly of the Last mile. Municipal owned transport media (Fiber) back hauled to a COLO where several ISPs can offer their services is the only solution that is viable in the long term. Then Verizon FIOS, Comcast, TimeWarner, Cox, Charter and all the rest can compete on "we offer high speed Netflix", and Cable Channels people actually want.
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I don't think you break up a monopoly by building Municipal fiber. You just create a new Monopoly. Maybe that monopoly is benevolent, or maybe you live in Illinois and it's a perfect blend of incompetent and corrupt. I think a better step would be to break up or limit franchise agreements which are a big reason there is so little competition in the last mile.
Kudos for spelling 'colo' right though.
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Do they compete to offer services over it, or do they buy the mayor's nephew a new car? Instead of building an open fiber network, you might just end up building out Comcast's fiber network for them. I don't see this working out well, at least not in large swathes of the USA.
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By "compete to offer services" I think he meant that each of them gets to put their bits on the fiber (there's enough capacity) and the end user chooses whose bits they pay to decrypt.
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Decrypt? I think you're inventing networking technology. In a utopian muni network, the muni would offer MEF compliant E-Access service over whatever GPON, EPON, WDM-PON solution they choose. The customers would appear as VLANs at a ENNI handoff at the local CO or the nearest NAP/IXC. This is how it already works in a wholesale/large enterprise market and it's easy to buy service from one provider through an access network run by another.
Another solution that would work would be to just provide plain unbun
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You've gone into a good bit more detail than I was thinking (or aware of :) I had been thinking the data would have to be encrypted to keep folks from watching stuff they hadn't paid for but that's because for some reason I was thinking in the cable model where everyone gets all the bits, rather than a switched network model where you only see the bits that are sent to you. I must need more coffee.
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A boycott? My dear friend are you from one of those mythical "ideal world" thingies I've been reading about?
Need municipal network. (Score:5, Insightful)
You cannot boycott them while they still control the last mile (the connection to your house).
In order to take that control from them, people have to be willing to vote to have their local government install/maintain/tax a local network as part of the infrastructure.
Then the local government can lease connectivity to whomever wants to offer Internet service. If Comcast is charging extra for a service you want then you can go with a different option.
Re:Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:5, Informative)
"Verizon now joins AT&T and Time Warner Cable in the list of ISPs on which Netflix streaming has significantly improved after Netflix paid for access to their networks."
Every company in that list needs a massive boycott. People need to be creating web sites showing a list of who's creating toll roads. (read: default slow lanes)
It doesn't seem bad now, but this will destroy the internet if we allow it.
Bullshit. Direct Peering agreements (as well as CDN's and caching services) have been around for over a decade and in fact do a lot to make the Internet run better for everyone. The scandal here is not the peering, but rather the fact that instead of being mutual (each side foots its own half of the bill), the ISP's are using their customers as leverage to get paid for it. That practice ought to be banned as a monopolistic and/or unfair business practice.
The summary also makes this erroneous statement:
The success of these deals, however, gives the ISPs no incentive whatsoever to fix their congested links.
When 60% of peak traffic over the edge is from Netflix, pulling all that onto a dedicated peering link in many cases means there's no longer a congestion problem. Direct Peering IS a mechanism for fixing edge congestion.
The problem is that when a company like Comcast refuses to do a mutual direct peering deal with significant traffic sources, it hurts their own users. But the users have no way to get redress or hold their ISP accountable, they can't vote with their wallets either. Netflix doesn't have the option to hold out because there are competing services- the most notable being the cable service Comcast offers. It's also important to note that Comcast also owns Content... something else which needs to be banned.
Re:Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:5, Insightful)
The scandal here is not the peering, but rather the fact that instead of being mutual (each side foots its own half of the bill), the ISP's are using their customers as leverage to get paid for it.
No, the scandal here is that the asymmetric arrangement isnt presented honestly, like you didnt do right here.
Settlement free peering has never existed when one side sends significantly more traffic than the other side. Period. Its not something that happens. You can call it extortion if you want, never the less thats not how the business operates now or has ever operated in the past.
In this case the peering agreement need to be asymmetric (one side pays the other) because the bandwidth simply isnt even close to symmetric, but Level 3 (the ISP Netflix uses) does not want to pay the difference. Level 3 approached Netflix with a sweetheart deal, got their business, but now don't want to pay other backbones for the consequences of being Netflix's ISP.
Now given that Netflix itself is saving money because Level 3 isnt charging them a traditional price for the amount of bandwidth that they push, and Level 3 gets away with this by not paying other backbone providers a traditional price for such asymmetric peering, then it only seems natural that Neflix takes that money they are saving using their cheapskate ISP and uses some of it to route around the issues that choosing a cheapskate ISP has caused them.
Decisions have consequences.
Re:Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:5, Insightful)
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Please don't abuse the words "by definition". Use instead something like "by their nature".
"By definition" is used when an object is identified as a member of a class by showing that object has the characteristics required for membership in the class.
A network operator isn't defined as a last mile provider if there's a traffic imbalance, and a last mile provider doesn't cease being a last mile provider if there is no traffic imbalance.
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Re:Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:4, Informative)
Actually settlement free peering has always existed for the last mile providors, who will ALWAYS by definition have a traffic imbalance.
Most last mile providers are tier 3 networks and purchase transit. Thats not "settlement free."
Even Comcast which is tier 2 purchase their primary transit from Tata. They don't get a free ride because they can't do the transit.
Verizon is tier 1. They dont buy transit. They do transit. You dont get to dump many times as much data on another transit network as they dump on yours without consequences. You cannot argue around this because this is the way it is, the way its been, and the way it will continue to be. The burden is on the sender because thats the only way it makes sense to do it. The receiver shouldn't be paying because they may have neither requested nor want it. A lot of people bring up the idea that netflix users "requested" the data. The internet maintains no concept of "requested." Packets are pushed through the network, not pulled.
Netflix's old ISP was Cogent. Remember the issues between Cogent and Level3 back in 2005? Netflix's current ISP, Level 3, didnt want Cogent to get a free ride and shut down the interlinks, but now that Level3 is netflix's ISP they suddenly are all for free rides with everybody? Really?
There is the way you want things to work, and the way they actually work. There is good reason for the way things actually work.
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The receiver shouldn't be paying because they may have neither requested nor want it.
They DID request it and they DID want it, otherwise it would not have been transmitted through their network. It is not like netflix just randomly sends data to other peoples network.
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They DID request it and they DID want it
On the internet, you cannot tell. You seem to be missing this key fact. If you make the receiver pay instead of the sender, I will set up a network tomorrow and send shit towards your network all day and night, and then when you refuse to pay the bill I send you I will file a lawsuit and send notice to your credit agencies. While you are busy deciding if its worth fighting me in court or not, I'll be speaking to the press telling them what a deadbeat you are for not paying your bandwidth bill.
Whats that?
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Verizon is tier 1. They dont buy transit. They do transit. You dont get to dump many times as much data on another transit network as they dump on yours without consequences.
This is the crux of the problem. The FTC needs to break up backbone providers from their consumer ISP services or at least force them to manage them separately so that the 800 pound gorillas can't engage in these sort of anti-competitive practices.
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If you look at the settlement free peering policies for providers you will find that the traffic balance can rarely exceed 1.8:1. Level 3 is a bit shady, in my opinion, in that they don't, at least publicly, list the ratio they are looking for but instead state "as close to even".
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Residential ISP service is pretty much asymmetrical. I click here and there, and get a few gigs of movie as data. It;'s been this way forever, since when I ran an ISP off of a pair of T-1s, a Cisco 2600, and a Livingston box. One of the T-1s was all dial in ports. those were the days...
Not only did my customers show asymmetric data (10% up, 90% down often) but they railed about speed that only exceeded expectations by 10-25%. Customers.
Complaints that the business is so asymmetrical that it's unfair are
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Wow... someone that knows what they are talking about! Thanks for the post!
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As Level 3 already pointed out, requesting traffic settlement is absurd when your customers don't even have symmetric connections. It's just gaming the system, and when people game the system the system changes.
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Yes you are defending them.
--picking nits.
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The point is that traffic that is on the network because of my request is my responsibility. I'm paying Comcast to shovel bits from Netflix to me. I'm paying Netflix to answer my requests. Netflix is doing their job. Why isn't Comcast?
Now, if Netflix hands off to Level3, they have to pay Level3 because I don't. But Comcast and I have an arrangement. If they really need more than I'm paying them to handle the traffic that I have caused, they should talk to me about it. Instead they try to get it from Netflix
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When 60% of peak traffic over the edge is from Netflix, pulling all that onto a dedicated peering link in many cases means there's no longer a congestion problem. Direct Peering IS a mechanism for fixing edge congestion.
Well we'll see. I think part of the concern is that Verizon can now start using this as leverage against anyone and everyone. They can basically make sure their peering connections are generally congested for anyone moving a significant amount of data, and then say, "If you want things to improve, pay us a bunch of money to become a Premium peering partner!" Taken to the extreme, the Internet could cease to become an open network, and instead become a AOL-styled walled garden.
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The problem with this is that most of us have no alternatives and those few that do tend to have one (1) alternative and it's often another name on the list. The problem is that these companies know this; hell, they've payed good money to make sure it is like this and they're spending even more money to make sure it stays this way. The only way to fix this at this stage is to let your congresspeople know that you'll fire them if they don't fix this.
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The only way to fix this at this stage is to let your congresspeople know that you'll fire them if they don't fix this.
This is not the only way to fix it. It isn't even the best way to fix it. It isn't even the cheapest way to fix it. This is the stupidest way to fix it.
The best way to fix it, is to free the last mile from Monopolies. Build out Municipal Fiber, build a COLO facility for ISPs to offer their wares to the Municipal Customers, using the now UNRESTRICTED last mile. No need for any "laws" or "regulations" or big money spent on politics. Fix the problem were it starts, last mile.
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Without fixing your congress critters, how do you plan to get to your nirvana?
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Every company in that list needs a massive boycott.
If some major players (Amazon/eBay/Google/Facebook) took part in, say, putting a banner in their webpages when viewed over such a connection, that would at least raise awareness.
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Buying my groceries from a different store for a month is one thing. But how do you expect a boycott of an ISP to work? People cancel their currently-installed service, possibly incurring an early termination fee, then pay to have competing service installed, which probably a) doesn't exist or b) is just another name on the same list?
I'm sorry, but a boycott is just an asinine suggestion in this context.
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You better roll out another broadband option for your neighborhood before starting your "boycott", as The Cable Company (i.e. Verizon and AT&T) and The Phone Company (Time Warner and Comcast) are usually the only two broadband options available for most people.
I'd love to have a third fiber or wireless network option run by my local municipality, but I doubt that it's going to happen considering that the mayor and city council are probably getting campaign donations from the aforementioned Phone Company
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Yeah, because peering sucks. It will be the ruin of the Internet! Nevermind that peering saved the Internet when people were predicting the Internet would crash in the late 90's early 2000's.
Peering cuts both ways. A company like Netflix wants to reduce their cost of transit by peering. But then they have to make sure all those peering points are up to snuff. The mistake Netflix made was to let some other company handle peering for them. A company that had existing settlement free agreements with the target
Re:Boycott will end this in less than a week (Score:5, Funny)
the only way to reach these companies would be to either eschew legal methods of home entertainment (along with 100m other people), or shoot some executives.
Or?
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They should pay me to prevent a soon to be end of life.
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And Comcast? (Score:3)
The summary implies (by omission) that congestion for Comcast customers hasn't improved since Netflix paid off Comcast. What're they getting for their money?
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The summary implies (by omission) that congestion for Comcast customers hasn't improved since Netflix paid off Comcast. What're they getting for their money?
A direct line to the Comcast 2nd tier support desk?
Isn't this what Netflix OpenConnect is for? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't this what Netflix OpenConnect is for? (Score:5, Informative)
Could someone explain why all of this is an issue, when Netflix seems to be giving away their OpenConnect CDN boxes for free, so that ISPs can cache most of the Netflix traffic inside their own network?
Verizon has a competing (to some extent, anyway) video service. Their incentives have been aligned to make Netflix bad for customers.
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Verizon has a competing (to some extent, anyway) video service.
Verizon owned a majority stake in Redbox's online streaming, which just shut down.
Verizon also announced plans to launch a new online video platform sometime next year.
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Netflix is being a good netizen by giving away those boxes for free.
Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, TWC are being bad netizens by making Netfix pay them to accept the boxes, while simultaneously blaming Netflix for being a bandwidth hog and poor streaming service. How can you blame someone for a problem when they're giving away the solution for free, and you're just refusing to accep
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I work for a large ISP. We love the Netflix and Google cache boxes because they reduce our network costs and congestion and improve our customer experience. But we also do not rely on video as a revenue stream like cable and FTTH companies...
The problem is competition (Score:3)
http://www.digitopoly.org/2014... [digitopoly.org]
Look at how the Netherlands organized it, we have the best internet in the world
Everyone in the US knows this, but the political system is broken and unable to do anything other than obey the powerfull cable companies.
...right. (Score:2)
...Is this any different from the quite common practice of buying links on multiple networks, so that you have faster connections to those networks? That thing that people have been doing for decades?
Possible solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Netflix should revamp their billing structure. In addition to their monthly fee, there should be a separate line item for an ISP surcharge. If your ISP does not charge Netflix, then that surcharge is $0. If your ISP does charge them, then the surcharge is how much Netflix pays them divided by the number of Netflix customers on that ISP. Let the people using those ISPs eat the costs their ISPs are adding, and make it damn obvious that the ISP is the one responsible for the surcharge. Don't hide it in Netflix's regular bill and make the rest of us pay for it.
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Netflix should revamp their billing structure. In addition to their monthly fee, there should be a separate line item for an ISP surcharge. If your ISP does not charge Netflix, then that surcharge is $0. If your ISP does charge them, then the surcharge is how much Netflix pays them divided by the number of Netflix customers on that ISP.
Yeah, because that'd be easy for Netflix keep up with.
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This is not a black and white issue...there is some definite grey area here. Should Netflix be able to choose an ISP and expect to be able to provide service to their customers? Yes. Should Verizon provide unlimited asymetric bandwidth to that ISP without receiving compen
Re:Possible solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets say I pay a sub shop for a sandwich. I then pay you to go get my sandwich. When you get to the sup shop, you tell them that if they want to have their sandwich delivered, they will also have to pay you.
At this point, if they decline to pay you, I'll never get my sandwich, which will impact my willingness to order sandwiches from them again.
And unfortunately, you personally are the only one who can get the sandwich for me. So I can't go out and find another sandwich getter.
That is the issue. Negotiating around an asymmetrical peering agreement isn't the end of the world. Allowing an entity with a monopoly dictate the negotiation of an asymmetrical peering agreement is a huge problem to the market.
-Rick
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To put it in your terms, it is more like your sub shop has a bike delivery person and I have a delivery person. For no additional cost my delivery person will meet your delivery person half way. Occasionally this means that extra time will be taken in order to facilitate the hand off. Now, my delivery person goes to the sub shop and offers, for a fee, to guarantee that they will always deliver the sandwich the whole way in a timely mann
Re: Possible solution (Score:3)
I disagree with the your analogy in that Netflix does not have any means by which to deliver to me directly. They provide a service accessible to the ISPs. The ISPs are using that service I their sales pitch to me the customer.
As for the behavior of ISPs, check the more recent.post about ISPs altering packets. Specifically the linked video of the guy showing the difference in quality of Netflix direct and Netflix via VPN. It becomes immediately obvious that there is an artificial cap that Verizon was enforc
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It's a little more complex than that. I believe it's more like this:
Little Johnny Verizon opens a sandwich delivery service. He offers "Guaranteed sandwiches in 10 minutes". This isn't a problem for him, as there are only 5 people ordering sandwiches and he can easily get them all delivered in 10 minutes.
Net d'Flix opens a new sandwich shop. It's really really popular. People start asking Little Johnny to deliever sandwiches from d'Flix. Little Johnny (being a little bit greedy) signs up a bunch of ne
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As a Netflix subscriber whose ISP does not charge them for peered access, it is simply Wrong that part of my subscription fee is being used to pay Comcast, Verizon, etc. when I have no business relationship with them.
Any business you patronize is going to use some of your money for purposes that don't directly benefit you. Microsoft used some of the money I paid for Windows/Office to fund the development of the XBox, and I don't own an XBox. Boo hoo.
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The only trouble is that Netflix doesn't necessarily know who my ISP is. Maybe one day I'm watching it at home on Comcast, then another day I'm watching it on my phone with T-Mobile, then another day I'm watching it using a restaurant's wi-fi. For it to be "fair," Netflix would have to keep track of which ISP everybody was connecting through at any given moment and then pro-rate the surcharge.
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Then blame your ISP for overselling beyond their capacity to provide....
There was no "no Netflix" clause in my contract when I purchased the broadband connection...
Oh goody !! (Score:4, Insightful)
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They didn't gain much revenue from anything. Peering isn't something any ISP makes much profit on.
Verizon has its own peering provider. It, of course, gets the best deal from that provider. Everyone else in the world that wants large bandwidth access to their network knows this and uses that peering provider. ATT has their own, Comcast, everyone. They do this on purpose because a 3rd party can just sit there an leach money from them if they have to use that. ATT and Verizon will both have peers with each ot
No surprise there... (Score:2)
Netflix Video Speed On FiOS Doubles After Netflix-Verizon Deal
We all knew that ISPs were throttling netflix. We called them liars after they repeatedly lied to the FCC. Netflix ponies up some dough and now speeds are roughly what they should have been in the first place. Why should we be surprised now?
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lol (Score:3, Informative)
It's hilarious that no-one understands how this works. This is proof positive that this has nothing to do with net-neutrality.
Netflix chose a peer that was expensive for Verizon but cheep for Netflix. ...and for those of you wondering... these interconnect prices are virtually free on the scale Verizon and Netflix are working at. This entire thing has been a tempest in a teapot. This was about who had control over the interconnects. None of them gave a crap about the pittance it currently cost. The problem was that Netflix was trying to change the status quo and gain control over part of the network.
Verizon said No... Netflix made this big stink about net neutrality.
Verizon said no, we have our own peering, hook up to that.
Why on earth would Verizon pay a 3rd party for Netflixes interconnect?!?!
Netflix then moves the interconnect to Verizon... Of course the problem is solved!
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... these interconnect prices are virtually free on the scale Verizon and Netflix are working at.
Where can I get one!
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Call up any of the big players. They'll hook you up, no problem. Data links are not expensive at all. It's getting that data from the data center to your house that's the problem. The actual link between a company like Verizon and a Company like AT&T is usually nothing more than a fiber optic cable that's less than 20ft long. That's it. All the long haul trunking you do yourself.
I suspect you're suggesting "I want this at my house if it's so cheap!" Well yea... the problem is trunking it to your drivewa
The roads to and from Netflix were congested... (Score:4, Funny)
The system works - this is proof (Score:3)
This is how the net is supposed to work. lets take this point by point. I hate that i am about to defend verizon but the reaction to this story seems to ignore key facts that need consideration.
The Netflix appliance: Why should any ISP be compelled to have 3rd party gear in their DC or NOC? The price of the hardware a small portion of the TCO...There is power and cooling to consider. What about the cost of the floorspace and the opportunity cost of what that rack space/floor space could be used for. This could set a precedent to set up devices for any other content provider.
The problem was not Verizon's network, clearly, it was the inability to get their content smoothly to the edge of verizons network. This was clearly an issue where peering didnt work as intended because of the volume of traffic going one direction - the simple fix is to set up a direct link to Verizons edge, which it sounds like they did. Thats how the internet works, if the standard peer based internetwork connectivity doesnt meet the needs of your application, you connect directly, or more directly, to the other end.
It seems like people are willing to throw away one of the greatest inventions in the history of humanity all to keep their precious netflix from going up in price a few bucks a month. Sad.
Bad analogy time. (Score:2)
Say you've got a land full of city states. Verizon-town, Comcast-town, AT&T-town, etc etc.
There is one or more superhighway running into each -town. These super-highways generally meet at an 'interconnect point' or 'peering point.' All of the towns build their own highways to the peering points, and because they all have generally the same amount of traffic trying to go back and forth, they don't really charge each other for them.
There are multiple peering points for various reasons.
Now, if I'm under
Google next? (Score:2)
I occasionally view instructional videos from youtube at the low default quality, the videos will play for roughly 10-15 seconds and then stop. I have to pause the video, wait for it to buffer and continue to do this to get through the video. I'm on a 60mb service which tests out fine, I can download over 7MB/sec but can't reliably stream 480p video from youtube.com.
Anybody else experiencing this with youtube?
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Yup. It supposingly got better, but back when i was on FiOS (I moved and don't have it anymore), getting 360p on FiOS to stream ok was miracles. Even back then Netflix worked just fine, so did all the anime services (Crunchyroll, Funimation) in HD. I could download stuff pretty quickly. Youtube however? Even the "music only" videos with static images that should compress fairly well would barely run at all. Some MMO games (ie: FF14) were unplayable unless using a VPN service (1+ second lag spikes, constantl
Would Google-DNS / OpenDNS "Hurt" my speeds now? (Score:3)
Long-time FIOS user.
Would using Google's DNS or Open DNS negate any benefits from however they set things up now post-deal?
I toggle Google DNS because a couple months back, for whatever reason, my FIOS was acting up and I tracked it down to that. Used FIOS DNS and it was cruddy, switched to Google DNS and it was fine, back to FIOS it was cruddy... so I left it as Google DNS. It might have been a short-term problem for a day or so but I haven't bothered switching back.
The thing is, someone was saying that now... FIOS's DNS might redirect me to the good/fast route or internal server setup for Netflix while Google DNS (or Open DNS) might take the "unoptimized route"
Anyone know for sure?
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I should clarify... by "acting up" I mean regular webpage browsing... not Netflix.
It was acting funny -- slow speeds, page not found's, etc.
So I switched it. As mentioned it was probably a short-term issue for a few hours or a day or something and I just happened to catch it at the beginning. But I didn't bother switching back.
Obviously the answer is: switch back. But my concern is if it becomes an ongoing issue... will I have to choose between Netflix and the rest of the web.
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DNS does not handle routing...at least not directly.
It's job is to take a human readable address and convert it to an ip address.
How to talk to this IP is a router's job to figure it out.
Just keep in mind that some addresses might be more popular than others....
I understand that.
But I don't know how they setup this "fix"
Did they just put local mirrors of NetFlix content in their server farm? And have stream2775.netflix.com point to a local node instead of the "real" stream2775.netflix.com out on the Internet?
In which case, Google DNS would point to the real one on the Internet while the FIOS one points to the local node inside their server-room.
Franchise authority (Score:2)
If you have problems with your local internet (or cable) service provider, there is only one correct audience for your complaint. Competition is regulated LOCALLY, just like wars are handled NATIONALLY and family budgeting is a DOMESTIC issue. The FCC advises at https://www.fcc.gov/guides/cab... [fcc.gov] to direct complaints to local franchising authorities.
For example, with Comcast, they are required to plainly put this contact information on your bill. See for example this bill http://comcastbills.com/Compar... [comcastbills.com] Th
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Because that's the reason people build the highways. AT&T builds highways for AT&T customers and charges everyone else to use them.
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Right. Each party pays half the costs of the traffic. When the costs don't naturally split in half, settlement-based peering is used.
Amazon, by intentional design, places servers that generate huge amounts of traffic in places where it costs them the least possible to deliver that traffic to AT&T. Meanwhile, it is much more expensive for AT&T to deliver that traffic to their customers because they can't move just to bring traffic costs down. We presume the traffic benefits AT&T and Amazon equall
Re:IRL (Score:4, Informative)
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That is NOT how it has worked for decades. Sure there have been paid agreements, UPSTREAM, but not with ISPs, whose customers generate ALL the traffic.
ISP's have traditionally purchased transit. The idea that ISP's have commonly gotten settlement free peering is laughable because it is quite uncommon for an ISP to do any peering at all. The ISP's that do have peering agreements are tier 2 or tier 1, and there are only a few dozen of those each in the entire world. These so called ISP's are transit networks that happen to also be providers.
Transit networks have always had to be paid for asymmetric flow. Settlement free only lasts so long as the ratio to
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So if an ISP becomes a teir one or tier 2 provider up stream that gives them the right to bottle neck their customers and create toll roads that would never have been there?
If you dont like it, set up your own transit network and see how swell it is to increase your transit networks capacity in order to meet the needs of another transit networks profits.
I'm sure you are OK with being my networks transit bitch while I dominate the market with the lowest prices that I can offer because I get settlement free peering with a complete morons transit network.
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ISP customers generate very little traffic. The vast majority of the traffic "eyeball networks" like ISPs carry is generated by others. It's not the ISP, or their customer, that has control over the bandwidth usage. Companies like Google and Netflix design the products they offer and control how they use bandwidth. The end user just uses the service, generally not needing to particularly care how much bandwidth it uses. If you want rational resource consumption, the costs of the usage of the resource have t
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Let's put it differently. If Verizon/AT&T/etc all decide to charge for incoming data from the heavy hitters, and they say no, when do customers stop actually using the service at all?
As in cancelling their cable TV subscription and relying on the Internet for media - paying more, but in the end lowering their costs.
Naw. the ISPs really don't care. They will jack your bill back up to where it was before. Until they reach the limits of elasticity.
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I think your car analogy doesn't quite fit.
They are still using the same highways as everybody else, but now they have their own on and off ramp. Nothing more, nothing less.
I am actually not quite sure that this is a bad thing here... If you live in the suburbs, obviously you will have to cross quite a few intersections with traffic lights, before you get to you closest highway access. In my opinion, this is pretty normal. If you don't want to deal with it, you move closer to the highway access.
Netflix just
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How would you feel if there were highways that only certain companies could use to distrubute their goods? Why do we allow this on the internet?
It's called a "TOLL ROAD" and we DO have them. We also have Rail Roads, where if you want to put your freight on that system, you PAY the owner of the rails. Ever flown in an airplane, ridden a subway or a buss? You normally pay for that too.
The internet is not different, at least not all that different. If your business involves loads of traffic over somebody else's network, expect them to want a cut of the action.
What really should bother you though, is that Verizon customers like me have already pa
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That's a terrible analogy.
Netflix customers DO pay for internet access & bandwidth to the ISP, this is just charging at both ends. How about having a toll highway that requests payment for *both* entry & exit.
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I'm not sure I agree this is that bad a thing.
Surely the congested routers will now improve because they are not being congested by shitty Netflix traffic?
Why should everyone else have to pay for Netflix to deliver their services?
Surely the analogy is a lot like a coal company driving their coal through New York and instead paying to have a train line built straight to the port.
Why are people arguing this is a bad thing?
It's more like your telephone company deciding that it wants to have your calls you place to your brother get choppy and drop unless your brother decides to pay your telephone provider for the privilege of clear calls. Why should your brother also have to pay when you're already paying your phone company for service?
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It's more like you make long calls every night to your mom and she tells you all about her day. You pay for local service, she pays for local service, you pay for the call, she does the talking. Only now your phone company wants to charge your mom because she's doing all the talking.
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