On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 8:29 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:27:07 -0500 > From: Kevin Donovan <[email protected]> > Subject: [FC-discuss] Views on the Comcast / Level 3 Dispute? > > What's the word on this? I haven't followed too closely, but, if in fact, > Level 3 is no longer a 'peer' of Comcast, why should they not have a > contractual relationship? I understand that should be negotiated, but this > is interconnection, not net neutrality, right? Is the difference that it is > only for Comcast last-mile subscribers? What do people think?
The two already had a contractual relationship - this is not entirely uncommon. I'm also not terribly informed about this but my understanding is that peering takes many different forms (including verbal handshake agreements). Comcast's account of the events indicates that Level 3 may have been a little shady about disclosing their relationship with Netflix. The interesting bit to me is that even we simply can't know if Comcast is negotiating in good faith because they have too many interested holdings. To me, this interaction is evidence that vertically-integrated corps like Comcast cannot reliably self-regulate. If the same organization owns last-mile infrastructure, service layers, and IP/content production, there are too many conflicts of interest to avoid monopoly behaviors. Related news: FCC to announce Open Internet order in the AM: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120100014.html Kevin _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss FAQ: http://wiki.freeculture.org/Fc-discuss
