It is important to consider bias and factual accuracy of the material. George Ou was working for Comcast and AT&T as a lobbyist at the time he produced the Youtube video.
Drive Slow, Paul Wall On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Rick Astley <jna...@gmail.com> wrote: > That was an interesting read but it's not the whole story. Skip to the > TL;DR if you'd like but I'll attempt to explain what happened. What he > isn't saying is the roles of the companies involved have changed over the > last 10 years. Mostly gone are the days that content providers and access > networks each just gave a middleman/transit provider money to reach each > other. "Content provider" has expanded to become "content delivery network" > and "access network" has expanded their role to offer transit as well. If > these networks have a large amount of traffic between them and are able to > reach each other in multiple locations nationally what is the technical > reason a 3rd party transit network is required instead of a direct peering > relationship? From a purely technical perspective content and access at > that scale can peer directly cutting out the middle man. > > The reality is an increasingly directly peered Internet doesn't sit well if > you are in the business of being the middle man. Now if you will, why do > transit companies themselves charge content companies to deliver bits? How > is it fair to be in the business of charging companies to receive their > bits and hand them to a settlement free peer on the hook to deliver them, > but not fair for content to just bypass the transit company and enter a > paid peering agreement with the company delivering the bits? In this case > paid peering is mutually beneficial to both companies involved and is > typically cheaper for the content company than it would cost to send that > traffic over transit. > > What we have is a major shift in the market over the last 10 or so years. > So why are these large nationally connected "access" networks charging > Level 3 for ports? That's the elephant in the room here and to understand > that you have to go back to where (to my knowledge) this dispute first went > public. The most comprehensive description I have seen to date is the > following Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR1sLLOYxnY > > I recommend the video before continuing. "Level 3" is really both Level 3 > transit and Level 3 CDN. Level 3 has already had a long standing precedent > of justifying the right of an ISP to charge for content delivery. So what > happens when Level 3 greatly expands their content delivery business and > sends traffic to other ISP's over settlement free ports? The large access > networks say "hey, content delivery is a billable service, you should know" > and they ask Level 3 CDN for compensation. The middleman networks protest > and say "Charging for content delivery is only OK if we do it, but not when > you do it!" and their justification for this claim is made on the basis > that unlike access networks they a) Have a large network and b) send a full > table of prefixes. > > So lets look at the first claim. Are the transit networks large? Yes, but > especially in the case of North American traffic destined for North America > they are typically smaller overall than the largest access networks who > arguably have the lions share of equipment tasked with delivering the bits > beyond just the colo. > The 2nd claim is mostly a strawman and this is why. Middlemen still carry > traffic not destined to directly connected peers but how they bill for it > is largely based on volume of traffic, not the number of prefixes > exchanged. The big content providers and the big access networks make up a > majority of the traffic on the Internet even if they don't make up a > majority of the prefixes. > > TL;DR So the reason the ports are maxed out is the market has changed, > access networks have attempted to change peering agreements to match the > existing market conditions but the middleman networks are arguing they > should be exempt from the long standing tradition of charging for content > delivery they themselves helped to establish. Some middleman networks have > responded by refusing payment to access networks for delivery and as a > result, the paths have not been upgraded and remain congested. > > End of TL;DR > > The next part is (even) more opinion than fact so you are forgiven if you > stop here. My opinion is this is a peering dispute more than something > that should fall under net neutrality. If content companies sent letters to > "middlmen" that said "In your statements to the public you made the case > that content delivery to ISP's should be settlement free so we have decided > to take your offer and refuse any further payment to you from here forward" > how would they handle it? Likely those companies would not only find > themselves congested but depeered. > > A bunch of people say charging at both ends is double dipping but really > modern access networks are now at least partly filling the role of transit > as well as last mile delivery. Where "content" "transit" and "access" all > have a presence in the same colo, paying more money to send traffic through > transit first instead of just directly to access because of some dated > definition of what the roles of those companies are supposed to be doesn't > make sense to me. Hijacking NN to attempt to bring litigation into the > matter to protect an old business model from a changing market makes even > less sense. Seeing Level 3 publish half truths in what looks like an > attempt to mislead the public on the matter is disappointing. I would > expect it from maybe Cogent but I have higher expectations of Level 3. > > Broadband providers obviously aren't without some blame in the matter > either. One of them is allowing customer satisfaction to be so low that > they are easy targets for misinformation as most the comments I have seen > on the matter to date are more emotional than rational. They have other > mistakes too but for the purpose of keeping this brief and because some of > them have been heavily documented elsewhere I'll save them for another day. > > > On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 1:18 PM, =JeffH <jeff.hod...@kingsmountain.com>wrote: > >> Observations of an Internet Middleman (Level3) >> http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations- >> internet-middleman/ >> >> See also... >> >> Level 3 accuses five unnamed US ISPs of abusing their market power in >> peering >> http://gigaom.com/2014/05/05/level-3-accuses-five-unnamed- >> us-isps-of-abusing-their-market-power-in-peering/ >> >> "... >> I’d love to see Cogent, Google and other providers release their data >> next, so even if the FCC doesn’t want to pursue this, a growing cry of >> consumer outrage could push the agency to do something about a very real >> and difficult problem that’s crippling access to video content on 5 U.S. >> broadband networks. Level 3 didn’t name names, but based on the deals >> Netflix has signed and the complaints it has made about AT&T, I’m confident >> that AT&T, Verizon and Comcast are among the five. " >> >> >> =JeffH >> >> >> >>