Comcast-Level 3: Net Neutrality the New “Fire in a Movie Theater”
It seems like every time there is a problem between business relationships in the telecom world these days, one side screams “Net Neutrality” and the blogosphere, twitterverse and news media go bananas. It’s like screaming fire in a movie theater, or yelling bomb in an airport, or even playing the race card in some hotly debated political issue.
Level 3 has essentially done just this with Comcast. A section from the linked article reads,
The dispute centers on the issue of network neutrality, the idea that Internet networks should remain free from pricing or network discrimination.
Wasn’t Net Neutrality was just about how packets were sent compared to other packets and that they should all be equal? Now it’s about pricing in contract disputes too? How convenient for Level 3.
On top of this, we have the usual suspects coming out of the woodwork. Free Press’ Tim Wu tweeted that,
The cable industry’s interest in destroying or taxing Netflix is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than 5 minutes.
OK, that may be the case. But all industries charge a toll to those that use their roads so to say, right? If someone dumped a bunch of packages in Wu’s car every day and had him drive them to their delivery destinations, at some point wouldn’t Wu be asking for gas money? Surely Wu would not continue to make those deliveries simply out of the goodness of his heart, for free, for “openness”?
Tim Karr chided as well that,
Comcast displays all the telltale signs of an abusive monopoly: extorting competitors, stifling innovation and gouging consumers.
Here are two companies that have previously made a deal for X traffic. Level 3 now wants X + Y traffic for the cost of X dollars. If Mr. Karr goes to McDonald’s tomorrow and asks for the Big Mac at the cost of a $0.59 hamburger, does anyone think he would receive the Big Mac? Comcast is not an “abusive monopoly” because they are attempting to get paid for the services they offer in a fair manner.
The bottom line is that Level 3 beat out Akamai as Netflix’s new best friend and now all of the sudden Level 3 has double the traffic that they are about to drop on Comcast. Comcast wants more money, and they are going to have to reach an agreement. This is a business relationship that is in the midst of a contract dispute and Level 3 is trying to use media attention on a hot button issue to pressure Comcast into reducing their rates or accepting more traffic for free. There is no fire in the movie theater, there is no bomb at the airport, this has nothing to do with Net Neutrality.
“The cable industry’s interest in destroying or taxing Netflix is obvious to anyone who thinks about it for more than 5 minutes.”
Nobody is saying Netflix is stealing bandwidth or trying to charge Netflix. Netflix’s former bandwidth supplier was an honest CDN provider that paid for the bandwidth they incurred on Comcast’s network. Level 3 on the other hand is trying to resell stolen bandwidth from Comcast. Level 3 effectively outbid Akamai using “hot” goods.
http://www.digitalsociety.org/2010/11/level-3-outbid-akamai-on-netflix-by-reselling-stolen-bandwidth/
George, you still have no idea what you’re talking about. Comcast purchased Internet access (transit) *FROM* Level3, then decided they didn’t want Level3 selling CDN services without them getting a cut.
Can you imagine what would happen if you called up Comcast (or whoever your home Internet provider is) and said “Hi, I think I’m really important, so I’ve decided I’m not going to pay you for this service any more, and instead I’m going to invoice you, or else you won’t be able to reach me”? I’m pretty sure Comcast’s billing department would turn you off for non-payment in a heart beat. The only difference here is that Comcast really IS important (based on the size of their captive customer base), so they’re actually able to get away with this extortion. They’re abusing their near monopoly status in MANY markets across the US to force other networks to pay them for access to their customers, if that doesn’t fall under the topic of net neutrality then I don’t know what does.
[...] By Nick R Brown Digital Society [...]
@Director of Stunt
Only because you’re confusing transit agreements with peering agreements. The two can exist concurrently and independently of each other. The fact that Comcast pays Level 3 for transit services has nothing to do with Level 3 paying Comcast for peering. Two businesses can pay each other for different services.
George,
Once again, you have NO idea what you’re talking about. It is technically impossible to run concurrent transit and peering relationships, which is, among other things, why every peering agreement in the history of mankind says CANNOT BE AN EXISTING TRANSIT CUSTOMER. BGP can only propagate the best path, so if your peering session wins then your transit route can never be heard, and if your transit session wins then your peering route can never be used. Peering 101 man. :)
Go easy on the boy, he’s getting his technical knowledge from Bill Norton.
This just reeks of the L3/Cogent debacle, and it looks like L3 buckled again.
I can’t wait to depeer Comcast!
Nice misquote. I’m not convinced the original quote was intended to mean movie theatres, being made, as it was, in 1919. The misquote rather more demonstrates that you tend to pad out things you hear with your own world view, a problem clearly apparent in the article, as it displays a deep misunderstanding of the structure and politics of the Internet.
The irony here is that many quarters also accuse Akamai of manipulating Net Neutrality by being able to deliver their content either directly from within access networks or via inexpensive peering arrangements, thus bypassing the need to buy transit or paid peering (though they do this by spending a *lot* on distributed hardware). In this instance the accusation is that (3) are manipulating it by undercutting Akamai based on the fact that (3) receive revenue from traffic they deliver from their transit/paid peering customers (which Akam don’t) and thus can offer lower prices for CDN.
It’s not about stolen bandwidth at all (a laughably inflammatory concept), but rather than (3)’s position as a major carrier makes being a CDN a considerably lucrative prospect for them, at an often higher cost to end networks than the traditional CDNs, who are almost universally open peerers.
Does Comcast have an open peering policy?
Captain Adama, Can you point me toward the misquote? I don’t know what’s been misquoted if you don’t quote it yourself. I’m actually thinking you commented on the wrong post.
Comcast has one of the most restrictive policies in the business.
http://www.comcast.com/peering/
Actually, that published peering policy is perfectly reasonable and quite easy for most large networks to hit. The problem is that even when you meet their requirements, they still refuse to peer, so it really doesn’t matter what numbers they claim.
The reality is they don’t WANT to peer, other than with a of a handful of Tier 1′s, regardless of the amount of traffic or other qualifiers. Getting the traffic for free isn’t good enough for them, they’d rather keep paying for the bits via transit today, with the hope that they can force other people to pay them for the bits later.
[...] Originally published at DigitalSociety. [...]
Leave your response!
Twitter Feed
About Us
Digital Society is a digital think tank that believes culture and commerce are inseparable, that the digital economy flourishes when people are free and rights are secure, and that free markets free people.
Digital Society is an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization, funded by donations from Jon Henke and from Arts+Labs. We advocate for a pro-culture, pro-commerce digital society through research, analysis and debate on emerging technology issues.
Reply Comments
Transparency and interactivity are trademarks of the Internet era, and we aim to foster them here at Digital Society. It is inevitable that some people will disagree with the technology policy positions we take. We want to have that constructive debate.
The Reply Comments feature gives our critics a chance to respond to our viewpoints and the Digital Society audience convenient access to competing arguments. Any time we directly challenge the views of an individual or a group on this site, the party in question may substantively respond in a guest post.
Please contact executive director Jon Henke by e-mail.
Subscribe
Daily Digest Email
Recent Posts
Recent Posts
Most Commented
Most Viewed