Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[JC Dill]

 On 29/11/10 3:45 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect customers to bear the cost of
their provider doing business.


You don't think it's unreasonable (and I don't think it's unreasonable), 
but most US consumers *do* think it's unreasonable.  They would like to 
get their internet service for free, or for as close to free as 
possible.  They are happy to watch ads in order to get content for free, 
and they would love to see an ad-supported (or subscription supported 
for special content) service with free or nominal "ISP charges".  If one 
of the big "eyeball" networks can push their network costs onto a major 
content provider it will nudge things towards this business model.


It has been my opinion for many years that eventually we would find 
market forces lowering the price consumers pay and raising the price 
content providers pay until the consumer cost *is* free, or very close 
to it.  This could be the first step...


And it's a push back from the ESPN360/ESPN3 model where the content 
provider was forcing the ISPs to pay extra to get the content on their 
network... Does anyone have data on how well that's working for the ESPN 
360 / ESPN3 system?


What is happening now between L3 and Comcast also reminds me of the 
dial-tone settlement deals in the 1990s.  The big telcos thought they 
could push small telcos out by making it more expensive to place calls 
(paying a fee to the telco that "terminates" the call) and less 
expensive to receive calls (receiving the termination fee).  They 
mistakenly thought the startup telcos would go after consumers (who 
typically place more calls than they receive) and they didn't think 
about startup telcos going after ISP dial-up services (which receive 
more calls than they place) and then being forced to pay those startups 
settlement fees for all the calls their consumer customers made into the 
startup telco's ISP customer's modem banks.


We don't have an interstate telephone settlement system or PUC to 
"decide" what the rules will be for settlements between content 
providers and eyeball providers.  I believe that in the end it will come 
down to market forces and which group can better marshal customer angst 
to their side when packets don't flow freely between these two types of 
networks.


jc

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[Michael Painter]

Owen DeLong wrote:

You can stream 1080p/5.1 128khz over 2mbps at high quality using codecs that 
were available 2 years ago.
(VP6, VP7 can do this, for example).



Over the 'Internet'?  Why do you think  http://www.vudu.com/  tells me I need 
4.5Mbpps?

"Required Internet Speed:
Customers should have at least a 1 Mbps broadband internet connection in order 
to enjoy the VUDU streaming service.
With faster broadband connections, customers can enjoy VUDU's 720p HD and 
industry leading 1080p HDX format.
Minimum requirements for the VUDU streaming service are as follows:
SD (480p) requires 1 Mbps
HD (720p) requires 2.25 Mbps
HDX (1080p) requires 4.5 Mbps"

--Michael

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Kevin Blackham]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 15:57, William Warren 
 wrote:

> I think Karl Denninger has this one called right:
> http://market-ticker.org/post=173522

I don't think so. Let's do a little math exercise:

Comcast charges me $75/mo for my pipe, but let's discount that for bundling, 
promos and lower tier services. $30-40 avg ok?

For that money I get 250GB a month. Let's assume I actually use it - which I 
never do, even with Netflix, other VOD, and many habits common to eyeballs - 
but for the sake of a number to work with, I do. That's less than 1Mbps average 
per month. I'm not factoring in deviation from avg to peak, so I am going to 
assume 1Mbps per sub is peak per sub and 250GB is not the average for the user 
base.

That is at least $40/Mbps paid by the eyeballs... or if I am very wrong, 
$20/Mbps. This is unsustainable and requires income at both ends for a healthy 
business model? 

I'm not convinced. Either I'm calculating something wrong, or greed is at work.

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Jeffrey Lyon]

I spent have the GDP of Kyrgyzstan on their roaming charges when I
thought my Google Voice was using the WiFi vs. the mobile network.

Jeff

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 2:18 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson  wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Christopher Morrow wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 1:52 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson 
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Considering there are mobile roaming partners that charge USD10-15 per
>>> megabyte, unfortunately that proposition is really hard to do in todays
>>> global market.
>>
>> but really, the 'cost' here is  the same as a local wireless user for
>> air-time traffic, then 1$/mbps to ship the bits off their network
>> across the internet, right?
>
> Unfortunately the "cost" and the "price" has a very low correlation in this
> market. The same carriers who charge USD10 per megabyte for roaming might
> charge 0.1USD per megabyte to some of their own end users.
>
> --
> Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swm...@swm.pp.se
>
>



-- 
Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team
jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net
Black Lotus Communications - AS32421
First and Leading in DDoS Protection Solutions

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2010, Christopher Morrow wrote:


On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 1:52 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson  wrote:

Considering there are mobile roaming partners that charge USD10-15 per
megabyte, unfortunately that proposition is really hard to do in todays
global market.


but really, the 'cost' here is  the same as a local wireless user for
air-time traffic, then 1$/mbps to ship the bits off their network
across the internet, right?


Unfortunately the "cost" and the "price" has a very low correlation in 
this market. The same carriers who charge USD10 per megabyte for roaming 
might charge 0.1USD per megabyte to some of their own end users.


--
Mikael Abrahamssonemail: swm...@swm.pp.se

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[Owen DeLong]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:58 PM, George Bonser wrote:

>> I'd be willing to pay ~$250/month for global unlimited
>> voice/data
>> and my usage would not increase very much above what you're already
>> providing). I also happen to know that I'm not the only consumer that
>> would very much like to be able to purchase this kind of service.
>> 
>> Owen
>> 
> 
> So would I.  I make a fair amount of international calls/month but not
> very many (say less than a dozen in a normal month and that might
> increase to 20 if I had such a plan).  Thing is that when I do, they are
> often conference calls that last a while.
> 
> The problem with "unlimited" is the 85/15 problem where 15% of your
> users are responsible for 85% of your traffic.
> 
That's only  a problem if it's always the same 15% of users and the other
85% don't see a value proposition to the rate they are paying.

Also, I don't care if it's unlimited international -> international calling,
mainly I want unlimited international data roaming and the ability
to receive and make calls wherever<->US.

> Give someone unlimited international and you are going to get a bunch of
> people such as foreign students who will be chatting with their friends
> back home all day.  The issue with terminating international calls is
> that often the terminating telecom monopoly charges the initiating telco
> per minute for the call.
> 
Today this can be overcome with rational VOIP delivery options that
can make the call termination local in the receiving country with the
internet covering the international legs. Sure, it messes with 
Caller ID, but, in my experience, international caller ID on cellular
is, well, unreliable at best anyway, so, I'm not seeing a problem.

> Unlimited mobile to mobile might be an option in some countries, though.
> Calling landlines in foreign countries doesn't scale when "unlimited" is
> in the equation.
> 
> 
Like I said, I'm not so worried about calling foreign landlines unlimited,
but, I want to be able to call the US from wherever I am, get calls on
my phone wherever I am, and, use data services wherever I am.
For that, I'm willing to pay $250/month.

Owen

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[William Herrin]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 12:09 AM, Andrew Koch  wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrin  wrote:
>> So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't,
>> then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working
>> out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes.
>> Bad plan!
>
> If double billing is such a bad plan, what are your proposed alternatives?

Hi Andrew,

Back in the dialup days the solution was a single word: attended. The
$100 account was 24/7 and the $20 account was "unlimited attended
dialup." First month you got a warning so we could be sure you
understood that 24/7 was a different account. Second month was upgrade
or goodbye.

-Bill



-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Christopher Morrow]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 1:52 AM, Mikael Abrahamsson  wrote:
> Considering there are mobile roaming partners that charge USD10-15 per
> megabyte, unfortunately that proposition is really hard to do in todays
> global market.

but really, the 'cost' here is  the same as a local wireless user for
air-time traffic, then 1$/mbps to ship the bits off their network
across the internet, right?

So... same cost regardless of 'roaming' or 'local user', at the bit
level, right? Perhaps some charge to do the LNP (or equivalent to
find/locate the handset in the world) lookup but that can't be
10-15$/mb equivalent is it?

-Chris

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[George Bonser]

> I'd be willing to pay ~$250/month for global unlimited
> voice/data
> and my usage would not increase very much above what you're already
> providing). I also happen to know that I'm not the only consumer that
> would very much like to be able to purchase this kind of service.
> 
> Owen
> 

So would I.  I make a fair amount of international calls/month but not
very many (say less than a dozen in a normal month and that might
increase to 20 if I had such a plan).  Thing is that when I do, they are
often conference calls that last a while.

The problem with "unlimited" is the 85/15 problem where 15% of your
users are responsible for 85% of your traffic.

Give someone unlimited international and you are going to get a bunch of
people such as foreign students who will be chatting with their friends
back home all day.  The issue with terminating international calls is
that often the terminating telecom monopoly charges the initiating telco
per minute for the call.

Unlimited mobile to mobile might be an option in some countries, though.
Calling landlines in foreign countries doesn't scale when "unlimited" is
in the equation.

 

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Mikael Abrahamsson]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Owen DeLong wrote:


pay for domestic. (If any of you cellular companies are listening, that's
right, I'd be willing to pay ~$250/month for global unlimited voice/data
and my usage would not increase very much above what you're already
providing). I also happen to know that I'm not the only consumer that
would very much like to be able to purchase this kind of service.


Considering there are mobile roaming partners that charge USD10-15 per 
megabyte, unfortunately that proposition is really hard to do in todays 
global market.


The EU has regulated roaming prices within the EU because this just didn't 
work "right" in the free market:




It's still way too high, but the global roaming market is "interesting" 
and I'm sure european mobile operators will still charge carriers outside 
of the EU a lot more than this because of the good old "because we can and 
most do".


So your action to not use roaming is the best way to handle it, personally 
I get local SIM card in the country I go to and have two phones when I'm 
travelling. It's the only sensible way to handle the current situation.


--
Mikael Abrahamssonemail: swm...@swm.pp.se

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Owen DeLong]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 9:09 PM, Andrew Koch wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrin  wrote:
> 
>> So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp
>> electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service,
>> I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage.
>> 
>> There are several problems transplanting that billing model to
>> Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing
>> activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem.
> 
> Not quite.  Look at mobile data plans.  A very few are unlimited, most
> are per byte.
> 
And I am on Sprint because they are one of the few.

>> Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable
>> for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which
>> consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving
>> the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page?
>> Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now
>> it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being
>> ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off.
> 
> Yep, sure seems that way when I get my mobile bill with roaming data
> charges.  Consumers learn what it costs per byte, apps are created for
> them to manage their download amounts.  Carriers send messages
> alerting consumers of their usage.
> 
I simply avoid using roaming services. Frankly, my carrier could double
their revenue from me and significantly increase their profits if they
would offer me a global unlimited data/voice plan for twice what I currently
pay for domestic. (If any of you cellular companies are listening, that's
right, I'd be willing to pay ~$250/month for global unlimited voice/data
and my usage would not increase very much above what you're already
providing). I also happen to know that I'm not the only consumer that
would very much like to be able to purchase this kind of service.

Owen

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Owen DeLong]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 8:04 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:

> On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler wrote:
> 
>> In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would 
>> happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did 
>> with it.  2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone 
>> otherwise.
> 
> I say otherwise.
> 
> So do many customers who want 720 or 1080 lines on their TV.
> 
You can stream 1080p/5.1 128khz over 2mbps at high quality using codecs that 
were available 2 years ago.
(VP6, VP7 can do this, for example).

However, yes, 2mbps is at the low end of acceptable today since many households 
want more than one
1080p stream at a time.

Owen

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Owen DeLong]

> 
> AFAIC, Comcast really doesn't have a leg to stand on by doing this. 
> Unfortunately L3 set a very bad precedent by caving into Comcast's pressure.
> 
Actually, by paying but crying foul, I think L3 is doing the best they can with 
a bad situation and as much as it pains me, I applaud
L3 for this. The other options were:

+ Cave without crying foul -- Bad on both fronts.
+ Refuse -- Moral high ground, but, degraded service harmful to L3 and 
Comcast customers alike.

I think it is better to try and preserve good user experiences and resolve the 
situation through "diplomatic" methods
as L3 appears to be attempting to do. Hopefully this will lead to sufficient 
"peer pressure" (no pun intended) to
get Comcast to eventually renege.

Owen

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Matthew Petach]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Bret Clark  wrote:
> On 11/29/2010 07:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote:
>>
>> http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKER  wrote:
>>
> Okay's let's say L3 gives in to Comcast and pays them. L3 then turns around
> and charges us (providers) more to cover the additional money they have to
> pay Comcast now. In the meantime Comcast continues to undercut the market it
> sells into making it harder for me as a service provider to compete...that
> just isn't right. Maybe Comcast should raise their prices to their customers
> to cover the cost of upgrading there network, but then they wouldn't be able
> to undercut me anymore...monopolies are a dangerous thing!

>From the spectator sport perspective...I would have loved to see what
would have happened had Level3 said essentially "your customers want
more data from me, go bill them for it."  Would Comcast really de-peer
Level3?  Where would that 500Gbps of traffic try to flow?  I rather doubt
the TATA pathway would be able to take more than 20% of it before
melting down; and it's pretty clear that Comcast has been working to
phase out their previous relationship with GlobalCrossing, or at least
to depreference it over other pathways, so I doubt it could pick up the
slack.  And, at the end of the day, if Comcast *did* try to call Level3's
bluff, and depeered them...whose support phone lines would be likely
to melt down first?  Would the Comcast customers call Level3 to
complain, or would they call Comcast to say "what the hell, I pay
$8.99/month to be able to stream Netflix, and now I can't reach them
anymore--go fix it!"

It would be an ugly, ugly day for the US bits of the Internet...but
it would be fun to watch from the sidelines.  ^_^

Matt

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[George Bonser]

> 
> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrin  wrote:
> 
> > So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp
> > electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp
> service,
> > I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage.
> >
> > There are several problems transplanting that billing model to
> > Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing
> > activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem.
> 
> Not quite.  Look at mobile data plans.  A very few are unlimited, most
> are per byte.

If the end user had to foot the real bill, providers would have
incentive to innovate.  We might have higher quality video that uses
less bandwidth because consumers would demand it.  If the user doesn't
foot the bill, if the cost is some artificial flat rate and if the
network attempts to tax the provider for it, it just doesn't work.  It
is subsidizing the end user by taxing the provider.  It is sort of like
having no personal income tax and trying to make the government
supported only by business taxes.  In that way, the end user has no real
understanding of the real cost of it and it places a huge barrier of
entry to production.  If you so it the other way where the buyer
actually pays for what they are using, market forces will produce
efficiency.  

Also, increasing subscription for internet by $1 wouldn't be enough to
make users switch but would (according to Wikipedia) generate an
additional $15.930 million per month of revenue. Nearly $200 million per
year will buy a fair amount of network upgrades.

I am a believer in metered service, though. You pay for what you use.

 

Re: Blocking International DNS

[Ken Chase]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 12:52:50AM -0500, Jeffrey Lyon said:
  >Super unnecessary. If you want to be outside the grasp of U.S. law
  >find yourself a ccTLD.

Perhaps for his reasons at the time yes, but I'm applying it to the topic of
the suspended-for-now-bill that allows blocking of any domain in the US. Alt
root servers, as mentioned, would solve this. (And an encrypted p2p alt root
system perhaps running on dynamic ports would be harder to block.)

/kc
-- 
Ken Chase - k...@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA
Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front 
St. W.

Re: Blocking International DNS

[Ken Chase]

On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 12:52:50AM -0500, Jeffrey Lyon said:
  >Super unnecessary. If you want to be outside the grasp of U.S. law
  >find yourself a ccTLD.

Perhaps for his reasons at the time yes, but I'm applying it to the topic of
the suspended-for-now-bill that allows blocking of any domain in the US. Alt
root servers, as mentioned, would solve this. (And an encrypted p2p alt root 
system
perhaps running on dynamic ports would be harder to block.)

/kc
-- 
Ken Chase - k...@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA
Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front 
St. W.

Re: Blocking International DNS

[Jeffrey Lyon]

Super unnecessary. If you want to be outside the grasp of U.S. law
find yourself a ccTLD.

Jeff

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 11:56 PM, Ken Chase  wrote:
> as for the alt root servers idea, in case you didnt see this:
>
> http://twitter.com/brokep/status/8779363872935936
>
> (Nods to Richard Sexton :)
>
> /kc
> --
> Ken Chase - k...@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA
> Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 
> Front St. W.
>
>



-- 
Jeffrey Lyon, Leadership Team
jeffrey.l...@blacklotus.net | http://www.blacklotus.net
Black Lotus Communications - AS32421
First and Leading in DDoS Protection Solutions

TWT - Comcast congestion

[Jon Lewis]

Anyone else seeing this or know the cause?

 5:  ash1-pr2-xe-2-3-0-0.us.twtelecom.net (66.192.244.214)  29.758ms
 6:  pos-3-11-0-0-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.145) asymm 11 
846.582ms
 7:  pos-1-7-0-0-cr01.atlanta.ga.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.87.86) asymm  8 
866.718ms
 8:  pos-1-11-0-0-cr01.dallas.tx.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.85.221) asymm 10 
879.171ms
 9:  pos-0-11-0-0-cr01.losangeles.ca.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.87.37) asymm 11 
925.695ms
10:  pos-0-12-0-0-cr01.sacramento.ca.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.86.5) asymm 14 
919.159ms

We opened a ticket with TWT and were told we weren't the first to report 
the issue, but there was no ETR.  I adjusted our routing to depreference 
TWT for reaching AS7922...which is kind of funny because Comcast clearly 
doesn't seem to want traffic via the route we're now sending it.


3356 7922 7922 7922

Don't want traffic via Level3...but can't take it via TWT?..I'll send it 
to you over Level3.  At least that path works.


--
 Jon Lewis, MCP :)   |  I route
 Senior Network Engineer |  therefore you are
 Atlantic Net|
_ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Seth Mattinen]

On 11/29/10 7:51 PM, Ben Butler wrote:
> In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would 
> happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did 
> with it.  2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone 
> otherwise.
> 

While this whole discussion was going on, I took a break to watch Tears
of the Sun on Netflix streaming via my Roku. The utilization looked like
this:

http://ninjamonkey.us/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/netflixonroku.png

~Seth

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Andrew Koch]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 22:17, William Herrin  wrote:

> So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp
> electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service,
> I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage.
>
> There are several problems transplanting that billing model to
> Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing
> activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem.

Not quite.  Look at mobile data plans.  A very few are unlimited, most
are per byte.

> Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable
> for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which
> consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving
> the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page?
> Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now
> it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being
> ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off.

Yep, sure seems that way when I get my mobile bill with roaming data
charges.  Consumers learn what it costs per byte, apps are created for
them to manage their download amounts.  Carriers send messages
alerting consumers of their usage.

> A third problem is the whole regulated monopoly thing. The electric
> company had to be slapped down hard by the government to make its
> billing process fair. Anything we can do to avoid that fate is money
> in the bank, even if it means allowing the occasional customer to get
> more than he paid for.
>
> So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't,
> then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working
> out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes.
> Bad plan!

If double billing is such a bad plan, what are your proposed alternatives?

Andy Koch

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[Ben Butler]

Hi,

I am all up for any service that is compelling enough to inspire end user to 
spend their $s to use it.  Where I get super pissy is when then content 
provider blame us for impairing their product innovation and how the network 
operators are the bad guys and should spend the money to give the service away 
for free when they launch it because they cant / wont push the value 
proposition.

I do wonder who and why we are collectively upgrading our networks.  At the end 
of the day we are in business to make money.

-Original Message-
From: christopher.mor...@gmail.com [mailto:christopher.mor...@gmail.com] On 
Behalf Of Christopher Morrow
Sent: 30 November 2010 04:46
To: Ben Butler
Cc: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Ben Butler  wrote:
> Ok, you have a point with SD vs HD which is encoded at 8 rather than 2 on our 
> digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasters in the UK.
>
> So why 24mb or 50mb access speeds, what is it actually being used for, I do 
> not believe that streamed video is the culprit here with most codecs doing 
> about ~700 kbits.

why NOT 24mb or 50mb or 500mb? what applications/innovations/ideas are
being left on the table because folk can't do them in a reasonable
period of time with <2mbps and longer queue times on their home
network? If you could provision, cheaply, more bandwidth to the
end-users in a community (or really several communities) do you think
there would be new applications or new services provided to these
folks?

Video HD or SD is just one application/service... they get lots of
hype today, but tomorrow what things may be possible?

-chris

 
 
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Ben Butler
Director Tel: 0333 666 3332 
Fax: 0333 666 3331
C2 Business Networking Ltd
The Paddock, London Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 7JL
http://www.c2internet.net/
 
Part of the Atlas Business Group of Companies plc 
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Re: Blocking International DNS

[Ken Chase]

as for the alt root servers idea, in case you didnt see this:

http://twitter.com/brokep/status/8779363872935936

(Nods to Richard Sexton :)

/kc
-- 
Ken Chase - k...@heavycomputing.ca - +1 416 897 6284 - Toronto CANADA
Heavy Computing - Clued bandwidth, colocation and managed linux VPS @151 Front 
St. W.

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Christopher Morrow]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 11:03 PM, Leo Bicknell  wrote:
> In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:22:34PM -0500, Christopher 
> Morrow wrote:
>> see craig's report from nanog47:
>> 
>>
>> not for a time has Comcast been solely an 'eye-ball' network... or so
>> they think.
>
> I think you are misreading the data.

s/you are/Craig is/

I was just passing along a study presented at a nanog meeting about
this kind of topic... I really do like to know next to nothing about
peering.

> I have no idea in Comcast's case specifically, or in any recent
> case as my skin isn't in the game right now.  However I am quite
> sure in the past I have delt with networks who wanted 2:1 on peering,
> but where I was nearly positive their customer base was 3:1 or 4:1.
> Basically the ratio became an excuse to depeer anyone they didn't
> like, it was all a sham.

sure, there are more variables (I gather) than just bits in/out...
like 'but my customers complain more if you are further
away/slower/more-lossy' etc. None of those factors are in peering
agreements I would bet, though clearly ratios are, so that stick is
used to whack the other-guy over the head.

> But I come back to my fundamental beef with cable and DSL providers,
> when you're selling 50/5 (10:1 ratio), 25/5 (5:1 ratio), 12/2 (6:1
> ratio) services, you can't expect to maintain a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio
> with your peers.

web traffic (as a measure) seems to be ~10:1 when I look at my
interface at home (vz-consumer-type), without packet-loss and over a
decent sample of time. As with all of the 'peering disputes' over the
last few years, it'll be a fun ride to watch from the outside :)

-Chris

Brocade FCX 624/648 experiences?

[Ulf Zimmermann]

Anyone with Brocade FCX 624/648 experience, please give me a shout off
the list. Looking any feedback, bad or good.

I am looking at a number of switches right now, the Brocade is one
which looks interesting and isn't too badly priced.

Thanks!

-- 
Regards, Ulf.

Ratios & peering [was: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions]

[Patrick W. Gilmore]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:34 PM, Seth Mattinen wrote:

> My take on this is that settlement free peering only remains free as
> long as it is beneficial to both sides, i.e. equal amounts of traffic
> exchanged. If it becomes wildly lopsided in one direction, then it
> becomes more like paying for transit.

Ratios were an excuse used by GTEi to try and force Exodus, Above.Net, and 
Global Center to pay for peering back in 1998.  It had a valid, technical 
reason behind it - the cost of bit-miles.[*]  Unfortunately, most people have 
forgotten this and simply claim one side is more 'valuable' than the other.  In 
reality, the "value" of a relationship is NOT related to the number of bits 
flowing in either direction.

More importantly, today large content providers & CDNs either carry the traffic 
longer, or deliver it close to the user, so the bit-mile argument is invalid.  
(For smaller providers, especially single-location hosting providers, the 
argument still holds.)  But people do not actually care why ratios were 
originally brought up, ratios are simply used as a reason to bludgeon other 
providers into paying.


Not that it ever mattered.  Business relationships are not predicated on equal 
value.  You do not refuse to buy copier paper unless the paper provider proves 
that he is not making more money off selling you paper than you are making off 
using the paper.  You may go to the next provider who sells paper, but if they 
all make more than you do, you don't decide to go without.  You buy paper and 
run your business.

Peering is a business relationship.  If your company can make more or spend 
less by peering with another company, you should do it.  If you do not 
consummate that relationship, you are hurting your business.  This should be 
the only reason to peer or not peer.


Of course, some people will tell you there is an opportunity cost.  Perhaps 
other networks would have bought from you for far more than you will save by 
peering this one network, and if you do peer those networks will expect it for 
free.  This may a valid point, for a very limited set of providers negotiating 
with a very limited set of customers.  The vast majority of the time, it is 
complete BS.  Mostly that is just someone's ego talking, not a true business 
decision.

Unfortunately, too many business decisions (not just on the Internet) are made 
for reasons more to do with ego than dollars.  Which is a shame.  The Internet 
is a business, and we would all do better to treat it as such.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick

[*] 10 second explanation for those who do not understand: I hand you a small 
HTTP GET request, you carry it across the country.  You had me a 1500 byte web 
page, I carry it across the country.  My costs are much higher than yours, you 
need to compensate me for the additional costs.

BTW: The attempt failed.  Dave @ Above got Exodus & Global Center to agree to 
pull a Cogent if GTEi pulled a Level 3.  GTEi blinked, and the rest is history.

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[Christopher Morrow]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 11:23 PM, Ben Butler  wrote:
> Ok, you have a point with SD vs HD which is encoded at 8 rather than 2 on our 
> digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasters in the UK.
>
> So why 24mb or 50mb access speeds, what is it actually being used for, I do 
> not believe that streamed video is the culprit here with most codecs doing 
> about ~700 kbits.

why NOT 24mb or 50mb or 500mb? what applications/innovations/ideas are
being left on the table because folk can't do them in a reasonable
period of time with <2mbps and longer queue times on their home
network? If you could provision, cheaply, more bandwidth to the
end-users in a community (or really several communities) do you think
there would be new applications or new services provided to these
folks?

Video HD or SD is just one application/service... they get lots of
hype today, but tomorrow what things may be possible?

-chris

Re: FUD: 15% of world's internet traffic hijacked

[Brett Watson]

On Nov 17, 2010, at 9:45 AM, Bob Poortinga wrote:

> My concern is that this "report" will be presented to the US Congress without
> being refuted by experts in the know.
> 
> My request is that someone with some gravitas please issue a press release
> setting the facts straight on this matter.  I have been in contact with Dan
> Goodin at The Register but I'm just a lowly grunt with a small network.

At the very least you might want to review:

http://www.renesys.com/blog/2010/11/chinas-18-minute-mystery.shtml

Renesys provides one data point but there are others that clearly show traffic 
routed *through* China (meaning they did indeed originate/hijack, and then pass 
data on to the original destination).

Just because there are people in the know (or with gravitas) that don't post on 
nanog doesn't mean it didn't happen.

-b

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Aaron Wendel]

You and I both know that.  I'll bet the vast majority of comcast customers  
don't.


Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless

-Original message-
From: William Warren 
To: 'NANOG list' 
Sent: Tue, Nov 30, 2010 01:24:40 GMT+00:00
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning	Comcast's	 
Actions


On 11/29/2010 6:45 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:




I think what this really boils down to is an effect of shoddy marketing.
Access providers want to offer "unlimited" everything and don't want to  

have
to go back to their customer base and say, "oh, sorry, we didn't really  

mean
unlimited.  We didn't think you'd really use that much." So they are  

looking

for ways of making up for the increased costs without having to look like
idiots to their customers.
Unlimited access is already NOT unlimited access.  A transfer cap isn't  
unlimited..while Comcast has a generous cap..it's still a transfer cap.



My problem is, what happens if this becomes the new model?  What if  

Comcast

comes to me and says, "Oh, we've noticed X Mbits originating from your
network coming through ours.  Here's the bill of $X per bit."  What  

happens

when I counter with, "Ok, and I see X bits originating from your network.
Here's my bill, too."  Do they agree to an exchange of money for an  

exchange
of bits or do I get an "F you.  Pay your bill to us and we're not giving  

you

crap."

Re: The i-root china reroute finally makes fox news. And congress.

[David Hiers]

This little border skirmish is a good reminder that we build and
operate one of the key battlegrounds on which all current and future
wars are, and will be, fought.

David







On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 9:08 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
 wrote:
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/11/16/internet-traffic-reportedly-routed-chinese-servers/
>
> --
> Suresh Ramasubramanian (ops.li...@gmail.com)
>
>

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Jared Mauch]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 11:17 PM, William Herrin wrote:

> And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now
> it should cost half as much?

Maybe for the parts that are electrical, but for the parts that are optical, 
they may have a longer span.  Also, not everyone swaps out those electrical 
parts every 18 months, business life-cycles typically dictate years.  You don't 
replace your car stereo every 18 months (or maybe YOU do, but we're talking 
about the average consumer)...

The issue here is cost of infrastructure.  The last mile generally is more 
valuable than the long-distance part.  Everyone can build a nationwide network 
for a nominal amount of money.  All the carriers can provide circuits at the 
same IXPs where you can public/private peer.  The question does become, who is 
in those smaller and mid-markets.  Not everyone is going to build fiber in 
Akron, Eugene, nor Madison.  It gets even more interesting if you look at what 
happened with Fairpoint in the northeast IMHO.  Verizon realized they would not 
make money there and sold it off.  The promises and costs consumed them and 
forced bankruptcy.

I'm not saying that will happen to Comcast, but it may cause them to divest the 
unprofitable parts as well, leaving some parts of the country worse-off than we 
would be today.

- Jared

(these are my personal opinions, and not those of any employers current, past 
nor future)

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Ben Butler]

Same hymn sheet, if they pay enough the cost averaging model works again and we 
don't have to worry about latency critical or transfer volume.  The problem is 
that they wont pay for it.

-Original Message-
From: wher...@gmail.com [mailto:wher...@gmail.com] On Behalf Of William Herrin
Sent: 30 November 2010 04:17
To: Ben Butler
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler  wrote:
> Then consumer broadband came along, the subs went
> down, the headline speeds went up, service delivery
> becomes impossible in the face of the marketing BS
>  and here we are.

Hi Ben,

So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp
electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service,
I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage.

There are several problems transplanting that billing model to
Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing
activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem.

Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable
for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which
consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving
the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page?
Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now
it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being
ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off.

A third problem is the whole regulated monopoly thing. The electric
company had to be slapped down hard by the government to make its
billing process fair. Anything we can do to avoid that fate is money
in the bank, even if it means allowing the occasional customer to get
more than he paid for.

So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't,
then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working
out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes.
Bad plan!

Regards,
Bill Herrin




-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

 
 
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Ben Butler
Director Tel: 0333 666 3332 
Fax: 0333 666 3331
C2 Business Networking Ltd
The Paddock, London Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 7JL
http://www.c2internet.net/
 
Part of the Atlas Business Group of Companies plc 
Registered in England: 07102986 Registered Address: Datum House, Electra Way, 
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Companies may be recorded for the purposes of training, monitoring of quality 
and customer services.
 
 
 

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[Ben Butler]

Ok, you have a point with SD vs HD which is encoded at 8 rather than 2 on our 
digital terrestrial and satellite broadcasters in the UK.

So why 24mb or 50mb access speeds, what is it actually being used for, I do not 
believe that streamed video is the culprit here with most codecs doing about 
~700 kbits.

Part of the problem is the content providers do not encode properly, we have 
seen this all along with images on webs sties as access speeds have increased.  
There is no penalty on the content provider for lazy programming, cpu cycles or 
codec licensing to stop them making the access network carry larger streams 
than nessacery.

And before we get too much into HD vs Codecs vs 720P vs 1080p vs "true HD" 
marketing BS, I capture out of my camera's HDMI port at 3Gbit/s and I am not 
running 4:4:4 color.  So what is HD and what it the allowable compression for 
it still to be considered as such.



-Original Message-
From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net] 
Sent: 30 November 2010 04:04
To: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler wrote:

> In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would 
> happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did 
> with it.  2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone 
> otherwise.

I say otherwise.

So do many customers who want 720 or 1080 lines on their TV.

So do many content providers who want to satisfy their customers.

But it is your network, your rules.  If your customers do not want "HD 
quality", and are happy with 1.5 Mbps streams per DSL line, that's between you 
& your customers.  Of course, if your customers want more, that's between your 
customers and your competitors

-- 
TTFN,
patrick



 
 
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Ben Butler
Director Tel: 0333 666 3332 
Fax: 0333 666 3331
C2 Business Networking Ltd
The Paddock, London Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 7JL
http://www.c2internet.net/
 
Part of the Atlas Business Group of Companies plc 
Registered in England: 07102986 Registered Address: Datum House, Electra Way, 
Crewe CW1 6ZF Vat Registration No: 712 9503 48
This message is confidential and intended for the use only of the person to 
whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient you are strictly 
prohibited from reading, disseminating, copying, printing, re-transmitting or 
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information expressed in this message are not given or authorised by the 
Company unless otherwise indicated by an authorised representative independent 
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interception or amendment to any e-mail or the consequences thereof.Emails 
addressed to individuals may not necessarily be read by that person unless they 
are in the office.Calls to and from any of the Atlas Business Group of 
Companies may be recorded for the purposes of training, monitoring of quality 
and customer services.
 
 
 

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 11:08:53PM -0500, Joe Provo wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 08:03:27PM -0800, Leo Bicknell wrote:
> [snip]
> > If the FCC wanted to do something useful they would look at the
> > combined ratio of all /customers/ of an ISP, and then require their
> > peering policy to allow for around 2x of that.
> [snip]
> 
> ...or maybe not get involved in peering policies at all?  DO we 
> really want regulatory oversight here, happily driving traffic away 
> from the US?

I will be the first to advocate the government use minimal to no
regulation where there is active competition and consumer choice,
and thus folks can "vote with their dollars".

Broadband in the US is not in that boat.  Too many consumers have
a "choice" of a single provider.  The vast majority of the rest
have the "choice" of two providers.  We make these monopoly or
duoploies come begging to local government to get approval for rate
increases and channel lineup changes, they appear to be demonstrating
that we need to do the same on the Internet side.

I also fail to see how this drives traffic away from the US, it's
not like Ma Citizen in Des Moines Iowa is going to move to Tokyo
to get Gigabit service for $18.  The only reason it looks like
traffic is going away from the US is the rest of the world is leaving
us behind, more bandwidth for less money.

The current experiment going on in Australia is very interesting to
watch

-- 
   Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440
PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/


pgpfDPKARrGLT.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[William Herrin]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler  wrote:
> Then consumer broadband came along, the subs went
> down, the headline speeds went up, service delivery
> becomes impossible in the face of the marketing BS
>  and here we are.

Hi Ben,

So you're saying: treat it like electrical service. I have a 200 amp
electrical service at my house. But I don't pay for a 200 amp service,
I pay for kilowatt-hours of usage.

There are several problems transplanting that billing model to
Internet service. The first you've already noticed - marketing
activity has rendered it unsalable. But that's not the only problem.

Another problem is that the price of electricity has been very stable
for a very long time, as has the general character of devices which
consume it. Consumers have a gut understanding of the cost of leaving
the light on. But what is a byte? How much to load that web page?
Watch that movie? And doesn't Moore's Law mean that 18 months from now
it should cost half as much? If I can't tell whether or not I'm being
ripped off, I'm probably being ripped off.

A third problem is the whole regulated monopoly thing. The electric
company had to be slapped down hard by the government to make its
billing process fair. Anything we can do to avoid that fate is money
in the bank, even if it means allowing the occasional customer to get
more than he paid for.

So if we can't bill you by usage, and at a consumer level we can't,
then we have to find another way. Statistics and prayer isn't working
out as well as we'd hoped so we're looking at double-billing schemes.
Bad plan!

Regards,
Bill Herrin




-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Joe Provo]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 08:03:27PM -0800, Leo Bicknell wrote:
[snip]
> If the FCC wanted to do something useful they would look at the
> combined ratio of all /customers/ of an ISP, and then require their
> peering policy to allow for around 2x of that.
[snip]

...or maybe not get involved in peering policies at all?  DO we 
really want regulatory oversight here, happily driving traffic away 
from the US?


-- 
 RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Patrick W. Gilmore]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:51 PM, Ben Butler wrote:

> In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would 
> happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did 
> with it.  2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone 
> otherwise.

I say otherwise.

So do many customers who want 720 or 1080 lines on their TV.

So do many content providers who want to satisfy their customers.

But it is your network, your rules.  If your customers do not want "HD 
quality", and are happy with 1.5 Mbps streams per DSL line, that's between you 
& your customers.  Of course, if your customers want more, that's between your 
customers and your competitors

-- 
TTFN,
patrick

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 10:22:34PM -0500, Christopher 
Morrow wrote:
> see craig's report from nanog47:
> 
> 
> not for a time has Comcast been solely an 'eye-ball' network... or so
> they think.

I think you are misreading the data.

From googling around it appears there are somewhere between 90 and
100 million "broadband subscribers" in the united states.  Comcast
claims to have somewhere between 15 and 17 million broadband
subscribers, and they are the largest cable company in the US.

With around 18-20% of all broadband end-users in the US Comcast,
if you believe Arbor's numbers, generate 3.12% of all Internet
traffic.  Comcast also sells business service (not cable modem, but
like GigE to the prem) which is propping that up a bit.

If the FCC wanted to do something useful they would look at the
combined ratio of all /customers/ of an ISP, and then require their
peering policy to allow for around 2x of that.

For instance, if you summed all Comcast customers and did the ratio
of out:in and got 3:1, they should at a minimum be required to peer
with someone at 6:1 IMHO.

I have no idea in Comcast's case specifically, or in any recent
case as my skin isn't in the game right now.  However I am quite
sure in the past I have delt with networks who wanted 2:1 on peering,
but where I was nearly positive their customer base was 3:1 or 4:1.
Basically the ratio became an excuse to depeer anyone they didn't
like, it was all a sham.

While I think ratio requirements are just plain stupid, I do think
it needs to be considered when looking at peering.  If you do hot
potato routing the person on the "wrong end" of the ratio ends up
carrying the traffic longer distances.  If you look at long haul
bandwidth on a bit-mile basis this can be unfair in some circumstances.
The thing is though it's easy to fix.  Networks could use MEDs (yes,
they work on Internet scale routing), selective leaking (w/no-export),
peering with regional ASN's (many of the large eyeball networks are
subdivided internally) or any number of other very simple configurations
to balance this issue.

But I come back to my fundamental beef with cable and DSL providers,
when you're selling 50/5 (10:1 ratio), 25/5 (5:1 ratio), 12/2 (6:1
ratio) services, you can't expect to maintain a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio
with your peers.

If you look at the TV side of the business the eyeball network is the
whipping boy 99 times out of 100.  Look at the recent Fox v Cable Vision
dispute, Cable Vision caved.  Users want content, users pay Cable
Vision, Cable VIsion gets millions of angry calls, Fox runs a few ads
how Cable Vision is the big bad guy and they have deals with everyone
else.  Go back to previous cases, almost always the eyeballs cave.

Provides are trying to change this in IP space, because they don't like
it.  They want Netflix/Amazon/Apple/RIAA/MPAA to pay, and not be in
charge.  For the moment this works, if Netflix can't deliver via the
Internet their users just request DVD's in the mail; a peering spat
hurts Netflix more than Comcast.

But, as users cut the cord, and get more of their content over the
Internet I think we'll see the same shift.  Outside of Nanog Ma and Pa
Citizen don't even know what the word peering means.  All they know is
when they can't get their Netfix streaming to work they call their
provider and complain, possibly going as far as to switch services.

Now, while it may seem I'm taking Level 3's side of this dispute I am
not.  Sadly when these things spill out in public like this it is
generally because both sides have been acting like idiots with each
other in private for months or years.  Maybe Level 3's been a model
citizen in this case and has been wronged, but I doubt it.  The problem
is it all happened in private, and nice press releases from both parties
aside we really have no idea what happened behind closed doors, who
asked for what, who's egos got out of control, etc.  I'm not going to
call a winner or a loser, just point out how broken some of the
arguments put forth are.

-- 
   Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440
PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/


pgpCp0OnDDCJO.pgp
Description: PGP signature

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[George Bonser]

> It would be bad form, IMO, for the state to come back to Mc'D's and
say
> "hey...you guys are doing a thriving business here...we want a bigger
cut,
> and if we don't get it, we'll barracade the exits and you'll do NO
business
> in these shops you've stood up.  Furthermore, we don't care if our
customers
> (drivers on the highway) have bought the McD's meal plan for their
frequent
> trips up and down the road...they can't do business here."

But it is worse than that.  It is as if the Connecticut transportation
authority opened their own burger joints and *then* threatened to block
the exits if McDonald's doesn't pay up.  

I am a great fan of markets and I am sure economics will "route around
the damage" in this case, but it will take a while. 

I hope Comcast comes up with a better answer in the long run.

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Ben Butler]

In the Uk, we used to have 2MB DSL, and business providers like myself would 
happily provide it on the basis of CBR 2Mbit and we did'nt care what you did 
with it.  2Mbit is more than enough for streaming and I challenge anyone 
otherwise.

Then consumer broadband came along, the subs went down, the headline speeds 
went up, service delivery becomes impossible in the face of the marketing BS 
 and here we are.

If the subs pay £30 to £45 rather than £10 to £15 then this entire issue 
disappears.  I don't give a frig what my hosted clients do or my access clients 
do, they can run at line rate, I want then to get every paid for bit in the 
best fashion it can be delivered.  The problem is the access industry has 
allowed their sales and marketing people to put them in a point of no return.



 
 
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Director Tel: 0333 666 3332 
Fax: 0333 666 3331
C2 Business Networking Ltd
The Paddock, London Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 7JL
http://www.c2internet.net/
 
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RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[George Bonser]

> Heck, if I were Level3, I might even drop the level of traffic in my
> own network bound for Comcast and have a note on the site that Comcast
> users can expect poor performance.  Something like "Comcast is too poor
> to upgrade their network and has attempted to extort payment from us
> under threat of disconnection from their internet users.  Though we
> have refused to pay the "eyeball ransom", we have decided to help
> Comcast out anyway by bandwidth limiting traffic to their poor wittle
> network.  As a result, Comcast users might experience reduced
> performance."
> 

Note that was tongue in cheek.  I actually support the notion of making it more 
expensive to deploy more bandwidth intensive applications as it *does* place an 
unfair burden on the delivery network.  The problem I have in this case is the 
conflict of interest when the delivery network is also a content provider and 
discriminates against content competitors.

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Steven Fischer]

OK...as I was driving up and back on I-95 through Connecticut up toward
Boston, I noticed that at all the rest/gas-up stops, there was a single
restaurant - McDonalds. No Burger Kings, Wendy, etc...just McDonalds.  Now
I'm relatively certain that McD's had to pony up significant coin to be the
restaurant of choice for the I-95 corridor through Connecticut.  That
commercial agreement was made with the owners of the infrastructure (in the
case, the state of Connecticut) prior to McDonald establishing a presence on
the highway.

It would be bad form, IMO, for the state to come back to Mc'D's and say
"hey...you guys are doing a thriving business here...we want a bigger cut,
and if we don't get it, we'll barracade the exits and you'll do NO business
in these shops you've stood up.  Furthermore, we don't care if our customers
(drivers on the highway) have bought the McD's meal plan for their frequent
trips up and down the road...they can't do business here."
Comcast has essentially quarantined off part of the 'net.  The point was
made earlier - does Comcast take the same stand against Google?  Are they
going to tax Amazon (Holiday traffic, you know) for their traffic, or any
other online merchant that may not use Comcast as a primary provider?
Comcast's infrastructure is getting overrun by legitimate traffic requested
by their own customers - I'm not a NetFlix subscriber, but the way I
understand it is that the customer requests content in the form of movies
over the net - content is not arbitrarily provided by the content provider.
Instead of rasing the tarriffs for the true consumers in this case - being
their customers, they're going after the content provider.  Anti-competitive
at best.  The truth is, given today's media-rich content, Comcast can't
deliver a 15mb constant stream of traffic (or whatever it is they claim to
offer), at $19.95/month - they've made a business decision to over-subscribe
their infrastructure, and had a formula for the level to which they were
going to over-subscribe their network.  That formula either wasn't accurate
then, or didn't take into account the media-rich content that would be
delivered over the net.  Now, the second explanation really doesn't hold
water in light of the fact that Comcast also offers premium content similar
to NetFlix.  A significant portion of the Comcast subscriber base has
decided the content available from NetFlix either in content or delivery,
superior to that offered by Comcast.  So Comcast is now saying ..."wait...to
get your content to our customers, your traffic has to traverse our
backbone, therefore, we should be able to extract a tarriff for said
traffic."  But the NetFlix subscription is a fully "opt-in" model.  L3, via
NetFlix, is simply delivering the content Comcast customers have requested,
and using the Internet to delivery it.

Comcast has truly handled this all wrong...they should either a) charge
their customers a more realistic monthly fee  - one more in line with what
it takes to deliver what their level-of-service claims they offer, or b)
improve the quality and/or delivery of their premium content, or make it
more cosst-effective to their customers, so their customers don't have to go
"off-net" to get the premium content they desire.  What they did is take the
easy route, which is/was to try to get into the pockets of the successful
content provider, because their network is ill-equipped to handle their own
level-of-service claims.
On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 9:44 PM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

>
> On Nov 29, 2010, at 9:03 PM, Steven Fischer wrote:
>
> > Trying to follow this - so, if I have followed it correctly, L3 hosts
> high-bandwitdh services (namely NetFlix) to which an abundance of Comcast
> users subscribe?
>
> That is my understanding.
>
> >  And Comcast is crying foul, and claiming a portion of L3's revenue is
> rightfully theirs, for being "last mile" to a significant portion of the
> CDN/NetFlix customer base?
>
> That is my reading of these diplomatic notes.
>
> >  Does L3 even service a home user market, in the same vein as Comcast or
> Verizon?
> >
>
> Not as far as I know, although they made enough acquisitions I wouldn't be
> surprised if they had the
> odd neighborhood.
>
> Regards
> Marshall
>
> > On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Marshall Eubanks 
> wrote:
> >
> > On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote:
> >
> > > Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?
> >
> > You bet.
> >
> >
> http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/
> >
> > • NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET
> >
> > Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally
> >
> > Regards
> > Marshall
> >
> > >  Netflix has become a large source of
> > > traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one
> if
> > > the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's
> customers,
> > > but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme
> of
> >

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[George Bonser]

> I know the content providers hate this, I know the consumers will not
> pay more for their access

Yes they will.  They are going to have to.  To expect end user traffic to 
increase by an order of magnitude without any corresponding upgrade of the 
infrastructure to support that is living in a fantasy world.  Comcast believes 
they are big enough to force the content providers to pay.  If the content 
providers say "no", then Comcast will be forced to increase subscription fees 
in order to finance that upgrade.  That will, in turn, allow their competitors 
to also increase subscription rates and upgrade their infrastructures to 
support today's traffic demands.

If Comcast can force the providers to pay, they are betting that their 
competitors won't and Comcast will be able to undercut the subscription rates 
of their competition or force them into sub-standard service from the traffic 
loads.  It is basically an economic game of "chicken".  If the providers simply 
say "no" and disconnect, Comcast loses.  

There is a compromise solution but the politicians have neutered that idea.  
The idea would be to simply continue to carry the traffic but prioritize it 
down if you don't pay.  Basically two levels of service ... standard and 
sub-standard (no "premium").  If a content provider pays, their traffic stays 
as it is.  If a content provider doesn't pay, their stuff gets QoS second tier. 
 This is a little different than the model of selling "premium" level access to 
a network.

Heck, if I were Level3, I might even drop the level of traffic in my own 
network bound for Comcast and have a note on the site that Comcast users can 
expect poor performance.  Something like "Comcast is too poor to upgrade their 
network and has attempted to extort payment from us under threat of 
disconnection from their internet users.  Though we have refused to pay the 
"eyeball ransom", we have decided to help Comcast out anyway by bandwidth 
limiting traffic to their poor wittle network.  As a result, Comcast users 
might experience reduced performance."

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[William Herrin]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 9:29 PM, Ben Butler  wrote:
>  It is not double billing, it is shared billing.

Hi Ben,

Nice try, but no.

There are a couple forms of shared billing. The one you're probably
talking about is The Dance. Everybody pays to get in to the dance. The
organizer provides a ballroom and a DJ. And then you dance with
whoever else pays.

One key criteria for The Dance is that all participants are on an
equal footing. If the DJ never gets around to playing my song because
someone else gave him a list and a fifty then I've been ripped off.

Netflix and John Residential Doe are not on equal footing. Netflix
will always be the controlling voice in that partnership. Hence
Dance-style shared billing is inappropriate -- from John's perspective
he should have to pay Netflix or you but not both.

Another form of shared billing is when two parties pool resources to
deal with a third. For example, you and your insurance company at the
pharmacy. Or my neighbor and I buying a jointly-owned snow-blower. I
don't think that's the kind of shared billing you meant.

Roommates appears to be shared billing but it isn't. In one version, a
particular roommate is responsible for the entire rent whether the
others cough up their share or not. That's called "subletting." In
another, all roommates are responsible for the entire rent regardless
of whether the others do what they're supposed to. Never sign the
latter rent contract. Just don't. When it goes bad you get royally
screwed.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Christopher Morrow]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 6:59 PM, Leo Bicknell  wrote:

> No one will ever be in ratio compliance with an eyeball dominant
> network.  Ever.   Period.  It's not possible via technology and
> TOS.  Enforcing it as an eyeball network just forces content providers
> to aquire eyeballs, e.g. compete with you.  That's bad business.

see craig's report from nanog47:


not for a time has Comcast been solely an 'eye-ball' network... or so
they think.

-chris
(I don't disagree with leo's stance, though I'm not a peering person
so I really try never to know how all of that magic works)

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Jeff Kell]

http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html says:

> "Now, Level 3 proposes to send traffic to Comcast at a 5:1 ratio over
> what Comcast sends to Level 3, so Comcast is proposing the same type
> of commercial solution endorsed by Level 3."

So, Comcast users like other provider's content 5 times more than the
rest of the world cares for Comcast's content...? 

Jeff

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Justin M. Streiner]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2010, Leo Bicknell wrote:


When you have users and no content how can the traffic be equal?

When you have content and no users how can the traffic be equal?

Ratio is horribly outdated.  Cable and DSL providers enforce out
of ratio at the edge with technology and policy.  My cable modem
is 8 down 2 up, yet my traffic profile is supposed to be equal?  I
can't host any "servers" by my TOS, but aggregated up the ratio is
supposed to be 1:1?

No one will ever be in ratio compliance with an eyeball dominant
network.  Ever.   Period.  It's not possible via technology and
TOS.  Enforcing it as an eyeball network just forces content providers
to aquire eyeballs, e.g. compete with you.  That's bad business.


Amen.  Ratios are an artifact of the '90s.

I am a service provider and I have lots of eyeballs on my network.  You 
are a content provider with content that many of my eyeballs want to 
access.  It makes sense to peer, so that traffic has the 'best' path 
between content and eyeballs, though there are many interpreations of 
'best' in this sense.


The argument that Netflix, Youtube, or any other bandwidth-heavy content 
provider is forcing eyeball providers to invest in infrastructure upgrades 
and not receiving any return on that investment is complete BS.  What is 
happening is that the tipping point of the stat-mux model that just about 
every service provider in the world lives and dies by is changing as a 
result of customers with fatter pipes now having uses for those pipes 
other than (or in addition to) P2P downloads.


The content provider either pays an upstream service provider to haul 
their bits toward their intended destination, or in the settlement-free 
model, they agree to hand off at a given point/points at a given maximum 
rate.  *Both* sides of that relationship have infrastructure and operating
costs related to supporting that settlement-free peering arrangement, and 
that applies whether the peering happens through private interconnects, 
or happens at an exchange point.  Comcast's assertion ignores that point, 
and essentially asks Netflix to pay twice for the same traffic, either 
directly or indirectly.


In the scenario above, I would expect to see lopsided traffic 
distribution as my eyeballs download/stream content from you.  Whether 
the bits flow from me to you or vice versa really doesn't change the costs 
associated with moving the bits.


AFAIC, Comcast really doesn't have a leg to stand on by doing this. 
Unfortunately L3 set a very bad precedent by caving into Comcast's 
pressure.


jms

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Marshall Eubanks]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 9:03 PM, Steven Fischer wrote:

> Trying to follow this - so, if I have followed it correctly, L3 hosts 
> high-bandwitdh services (namely NetFlix) to which an abundance of Comcast 
> users subscribe?

That is my understanding.

>  And Comcast is crying foul, and claiming a portion of L3's revenue is 
> rightfully theirs, for being "last mile" to a significant portion of the 
> CDN/NetFlix customer base?

That is my reading of these diplomatic notes.

>  Does L3 even service a home user market, in the same vein as Comcast or 
> Verizon?  
> 

Not as far as I know, although they made enough acquisitions I wouldn't be 
surprised if they had the 
odd neighborhood. 

Regards
Marshall

> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Marshall Eubanks  wrote:
> 
> On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote:
> 
> > Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?
> 
> You bet.
> 
> http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/
> 
> • NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET
> 
> Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally
> 
> Regards
> Marshall
> 
> >  Netflix has become a large source of
> > traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one if
> > the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
> > but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
> > things.
> >
> > Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
> > would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it
> > along to their customers.  I think they probably just took a stab and L3
> > complied.
> >
> > Phil
> >
> >
> >
> > On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, "Patrick W. Gilmore"  wrote:
> >
> >>  >> concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp>
> >>
> >> I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects
> >> operational aspects of the 'Net.
> >>
> >> Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay
> >> to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product
> >> which has content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on
> >> this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for
> >> settlement free peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to
> >> claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are
> >> competing and L3 is putting up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would
> >> they?)
> >>
> >> --
> >> TTFN,
> >> patrick
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his 
> glorious presence without fault and with great joy

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Ben Butler]

Hi,

Agreed if they are cost recovering in full for end to end delivery of the 
packet.  But I suspect that market forces haven driven things to a point where 
there business models depend on peering ratios and SFI.  It is not double 
billing, it is shared billing.  The simple fact is that consumers do not pay 
enough and are unwilling to pay enough for their access circuit.  This cost 
disparity between access, packet delivery and content / advertising / 
subscription revenues is highlighted in high bandwidth services that break the 
cost averaging utilization model.

I know the content providers hate this, I know the consumers will not pay more 
for their access, but the money pie is a certain size and the costs need to be 
born by all parties for end to end service delivery.  Sorry content providers, 
you need to suck it up and come up with a more compelling commercial offer, or, 
if you already have one you need to start spreading the love.

Sorry but this is a shared problem that needs to be collectively and 
collaboratively addressed rather than the normal ill informed commercial 
winning that I hear repeatedly about how it all not fair.

-Original Message-
From: William Herrin [mailto:b...@herrin.us] 
Sent: 30 November 2010 02:19
To: Patrick W. Gilmore
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore  wrote:
> 
>
> I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational 
> aspects of the 'Net.

Patrick,

The way I explain it to folks is this:

It's a question of double-dipping. If company A has a customer B who
pays A for a particular service, company C should not be able to pay
company A to meaningfully change the character of B's service. Such a
pay-to-play interference in A's contract with B is unfair to customer
B at a very fundamental level.

Now, you guys have to get paid. There is no acceptable end result
where C comes along, busts your oversubscription model and blows you a
raspberry. But you can't do it by double-billing the service. That's
usually unethical and in many forms of commerce it's illegal too. IMO,
Comcast is cruising for a bruising here.

So try something else.

Maybe you'll openly peer with all comers but only at 100 mbps in any
single location. You'll open as many locations deep in the network as
they want, but it's the peer's problem to connect there. Naturally
you'll sell a convenience service to backhaul all those connection
points to a convenient location for the peers... or they can make
their own arrangements but either way they don't get to massively
consume your backbone for free. There's probably enough separation
there between what you sell customer B and what you sell customer C to
eke over to the "good" side of the ethics line. And by the way an open
peering policy with those parameters would make you the Chamber of
Commerce's new best friend, enabling small business to vend innovative
products directly to your customers (and then pay you for the
convenience of aggregation once they build up a customer base).

Or maybe you'll just enforce the oversubscription ratio. X bandwidth
for the light users. The same X bandwidth for the heavy users. If
you're in the top 2% you're grouped with the heavy users. But oh by
the way you can buy the Video package for $10 more and we'll put you
in group Y instead where you have a clear shot at Netflix that
consumes a different channel. If the remainder of your usage is
outside the top 2% you can go back to the light users group. Netflix
can't pay us for that; it would interfere with our contract with you.
But you can pay us.

I don't know the final answer here, but it isn't some kind of
ethically-challenged double-dipping the till.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


P.S. I'll see your off-topic politics and raise you an ethics lecture.


-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004


 
 
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Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[William Herrin]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:28 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore  wrote:
> 
>
> I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational 
> aspects of the 'Net.

Patrick,

The way I explain it to folks is this:

It's a question of double-dipping. If company A has a customer B who
pays A for a particular service, company C should not be able to pay
company A to meaningfully change the character of B's service. Such a
pay-to-play interference in A's contract with B is unfair to customer
B at a very fundamental level.

Now, you guys have to get paid. There is no acceptable end result
where C comes along, busts your oversubscription model and blows you a
raspberry. But you can't do it by double-billing the service. That's
usually unethical and in many forms of commerce it's illegal too. IMO,
Comcast is cruising for a bruising here.

So try something else.

Maybe you'll openly peer with all comers but only at 100 mbps in any
single location. You'll open as many locations deep in the network as
they want, but it's the peer's problem to connect there. Naturally
you'll sell a convenience service to backhaul all those connection
points to a convenient location for the peers... or they can make
their own arrangements but either way they don't get to massively
consume your backbone for free. There's probably enough separation
there between what you sell customer B and what you sell customer C to
eke over to the "good" side of the ethics line. And by the way an open
peering policy with those parameters would make you the Chamber of
Commerce's new best friend, enabling small business to vend innovative
products directly to your customers (and then pay you for the
convenience of aggregation once they build up a customer base).

Or maybe you'll just enforce the oversubscription ratio. X bandwidth
for the light users. The same X bandwidth for the heavy users. If
you're in the top 2% you're grouped with the heavy users. But oh by
the way you can buy the Video package for $10 more and we'll put you
in group Y instead where you have a clear shot at Netflix that
consumes a different channel. If the remainder of your usage is
outside the top 2% you can go back to the light users group. Netflix
can't pay us for that; it would interfere with our contract with you.
But you can pay us.

I don't know the final answer here, but it isn't some kind of
ethically-challenged double-dipping the till.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


P.S. I'll see your off-topic politics and raise you an ethics lecture.


-- 
William D. Herrin  her...@dirtside.com  b...@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. .. Web: 
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Ben Butler]

And what happens when the content providers have multicast to the BGP edge and 
the access provider has to carry it from there on in their network.

This is solely about money and the brokenness of the current ISP / access / 
carrier / content provider commercial model.  This has been coming for years 
once access speed (long since) got upto a sufficient speed to sustain 1 to 2 
Mbit and they sorted out their copyright issues on the content.

Now all the access providers who spoke big in marketing and delivered little in 
service are being exposed and trying to fudge the issue.  This has been coming 
for at least five years with video, and the next one is SIP with call revenues.

Show me the money!

-Original Message-
From: Steven Fischer [mailto:sfischer1...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 30 November 2010 02:03
To: Marshall Eubanks
Cc: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

Trying to follow this - so, if I have followed it correctly, L3 hosts
high-bandwitdh services (namely NetFlix) to which an abundance of Comcast
users subscribe?  And Comcast is crying foul, and claiming a portion of L3's
revenue is rightfully theirs, for being "last mile" to a significant portion
of the CDN/NetFlix customer base?  Does L3 even service a home user market,
in the same vein as Comcast or Verizon?

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

>
> On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote:
>
> > Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?
>
> You bet.
>
>
> http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/
>
> * NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET
>
> Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally
>
> Regards
> Marshall
>
> >  Netflix has become a large source of
> > traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one if
> > the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
> > but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
> > things.
> >
> > Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
> > would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing
> it
> > along to their customers.  I think they probably just took a stab and L3
> > complied.
> >
> > Phil
> >
> >
> >
> > On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, "Patrick W. Gilmore"  wrote:
> >
> >> <
> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-
> >> concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp>
> >>
> >> I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects
> >> operational aspects of the 'Net.
> >>
> >> Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay
> >> to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product
> >> which has content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on
> >> this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying
> for
> >> settlement free peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to
> >> claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are
> >> competing and L3 is putting up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would
> >> they?)
> >>
> >> --
> >> TTFN,
> >> patrick
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>


-- 
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his
glorious presence without fault and with great joy

 
 
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RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Ben Butler]

Hi,

This is nothing to do with technology, it never is, it is about cap-ex, money, 
sales, market share, dominance, internal products, hurting the competition.

While I have delusions about technical people putting agenda aside to work in a 
co-ordinate fashion on IPv6 I have no such delusions the second a commercial 
interest enters the fray.

Cogent made Level3 bend over years ago, it will be interesting to see if 
Comcast can do the same or if Level3 will grow a pair and refuse to be bullied 
despite the commercial loss.

Ben

-Original Message-
From: Seth Mattinen [mailto:se...@rollernet.us] 
Sent: 30 November 2010 01:47
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

On 11/29/10 3:59 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote:
> 
> But this isn't a technology problem, or a ratio problem.


Comcast's blog specifically mentions unbalanced ratios as an issue.

~Seth


 
 
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TEXT-DECORATION: none}
Ben Butler
Director Tel: 0333 666 3332 
Fax: 0333 666 3331
C2 Business Networking Ltd
The Paddock, London Road, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 7JL
http://www.c2internet.net/
 
Part of the Atlas Business Group of Companies plc 
Registered in England: 07102986 Registered Address: Datum House, Electra Way, 
Crewe CW1 6ZF Vat Registration No: 712 9503 48
This message is confidential and intended for the use only of the person to 
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and customer services.
 
 
 

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Steven Fischer]

Trying to follow this - so, if I have followed it correctly, L3 hosts
high-bandwitdh services (namely NetFlix) to which an abundance of Comcast
users subscribe?  And Comcast is crying foul, and claiming a portion of L3's
revenue is rightfully theirs, for being "last mile" to a significant portion
of the CDN/NetFlix customer base?  Does L3 even service a home user market,
in the same vein as Comcast or Verizon?

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:55 PM, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

>
> On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote:
>
> > Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?
>
> You bet.
>
>
> http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/
>
> • NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET
>
> Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally
>
> Regards
> Marshall
>
> >  Netflix has become a large source of
> > traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one if
> > the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
> > but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
> > things.
> >
> > Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
> > would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing
> it
> > along to their customers.  I think they probably just took a stab and L3
> > complied.
> >
> > Phil
> >
> >
> >
> > On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, "Patrick W. Gilmore"  wrote:
> >
> >> <
> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/level-3-communications-issues-statement-
> >> concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp>
> >>
> >> I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects
> >> operational aspects of the 'Net.
> >>
> >> Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay
> >> to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product
> >> which has content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on
> >> this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying
> for
> >> settlement free peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to
> >> claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are
> >> competing and L3 is putting up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would
> >> they?)
> >>
> >> --
> >> TTFN,
> >> patrick
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>


-- 
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his
glorious presence without fault and with great joy

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Marshall Eubanks]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Phil Bedard wrote:

> Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?

You bet.

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2010/11/11/level-3-signs-deal-to-be-a-primary-netflix-cdn-shares-rally/

• NOVEMBER 11, 2010, 9:13 AM ET

Level 3 Signs Deal To Be A Primary Netflix CDN; Shares Rally

Regards
Marshall

>  Netflix has become a large source of
> traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one if
> the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
> but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
> things.  
> 
> Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
> would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it
> along to their customers.  I think they probably just took a stab and L3
> complied. 
> 
> Phil  
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, "Patrick W. Gilmore"  wrote:
> 
>> > concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp>
>> 
>> I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects
>> operational aspects of the 'Net.
>> 
>> Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay
>> to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product
>> which has content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on
>> this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for
>> settlement free peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to
>> claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are
>> competing and L3 is putting up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would
>> they?)
>> 
>> -- 
>> TTFN,
>> patrick
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Seth Mattinen]

On 11/29/10 3:59 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote:
> 
> But this isn't a technology problem, or a ratio problem.


Comcast's blog specifically mentions unbalanced ratios as an issue.

~Seth

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[William Warren]

On 11/29/2010 6:45 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:




I think what this really boils down to is an effect of shoddy marketing.
Access providers want to offer "unlimited" everything and don't want to have
to go back to their customer base and say, "oh, sorry, we didn't really mean
unlimited.  We didn't think you'd really use that much." So they are looking
for ways of making up for the increased costs without having to look like
idiots to their customers.
Unlimited access is already NOT unlimited access.  A transfer cap isn't 
unlimited..while Comcast has a generous cap..it's still a transfer cap.



My problem is, what happens if this becomes the new model?  What if Comcast
comes to me and says, "Oh, we've noticed X Mbits originating from your
network coming through ours.  Here's the bill of $X per bit."  What happens
when I counter with, "Ok, and I see X bits originating from your network.
Here's my bill, too."  Do they agree to an exchange of money for an exchange
of bits or do I get an "F you.  Pay your bill to us and we're not giving you
crap."

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Owen DeLong]

In summary:
Level3 is crying foul while their CDN competitors have quietly bought
into Comcast's racket.

I applaud Level3 for calling attention to this matter.

Owen
(Speaking strictly for myself)

On Nov 29, 2010, at 4:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote:

> http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html
> 
> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKER  wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 11/29/2010 2:40 PM, Rettke, Brian wrote:
>> 
>>> Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to
>>> support
>>> the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming
>>> ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of
>>> the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans
>>> spewed
>>> out regarding "Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as
>>> a
>>> term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining.
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I find it helpful to distinguish "participant neutrality" from "service
>> neutrality".  The first says that you and I pay the same rate.  The second
>> says the my email costs the same as my voip.
>> 
>> As described, it appears that Level3 is being singled out, which makes for
>> participant non-neutrality.  On the other hand, if Comcast were charging
>> itself for xfinity traffic, this might qualify as service non-neutrality
>> (assuming there is a plausible meaning to "charging itself"...
>> 
>> d/
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> Dave Crocker
>> Brandenburg InternetWorking
>> bbiw.net
>> 
>> 

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[William Pitcock]

On Mon, 2010-11-29 at 20:02 -0500, Bret Clark wrote:
> On 11/29/2010 07:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote:
> > http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKER  wrote:
> >
> >
> Okay's let's say L3 gives in to Comcast and pays them.

L3 gave into Comcast and paid them already according to a press release
they issued.

William.

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Bret Clark]

On 11/29/2010 07:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote:

http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKER  wrote:

   
Okay's let's say L3 gives in to Comcast and pays them. L3 then turns 
around and charges us (providers) more to cover the additional money 
they have to pay Comcast now. In the meantime Comcast continues to 
undercut the market it sells into making it harder for me as a service 
provider to compete...that just isn't right. Maybe Comcast should raise 
their prices to their customers to cover the cost of upgrading there 
network, but then they wouldn't be able to undercut me 
anymore...monopolies are a dangerous thing!

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Valdis . Kletnieks]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:11:18 CST, Jack Bates said:
> I agree. This type of maneuver is no different than ESPN3 charging the 
> ISP for the ISP customers to access the content. Both are unscalable 
> models that threaten the foundation of an open Internet.

Oddly enough, cable channels like ESPN asking for a per-subscriber fee
from cable delivery networks like Comcast has been a mostly-scalable
model for the cable-TV arena for three or four decades now



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Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Valdis . Kletnieks]

On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:34:52 PST, Seth Mattinen said:

> My take on this is that settlement free peering only remains free as
> long as it is beneficial to both sides, i.e. equal amounts of traffic
> exchanged.

Equal *value* of traffic exchanged.  A network that has a lot of eyeballs
may be willing to accept some imbalance to connect to a popular source
of content, and that content source is equally motivated to cut some
slack on the ratio to get good access to more eyeballs.



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Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Ren Provo]

http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKER  wrote:

>
>
> On 11/29/2010 2:40 PM, Rettke, Brian wrote:
>
>> Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to
>> support
>> the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming
>> ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of
>> the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans
>> spewed
>> out regarding "Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as
>> a
>> term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining.
>>
>
>
> I find it helpful to distinguish "participant neutrality" from "service
> neutrality".  The first says that you and I pay the same rate.  The second
> says the my email costs the same as my voip.
>
> As described, it appears that Level3 is being singled out, which makes for
> participant non-neutrality.  On the other hand, if Comcast were charging
> itself for xfinity traffic, this might qualify as service non-neutrality
> (assuming there is a plausible meaning to "charging itself"...
>
> d/
>
> --
>
>  Dave Crocker
>  Brandenburg InternetWorking
>  bbiw.net
>
>

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Dave CROCKER]

On 11/29/2010 2:40 PM, Rettke, Brian wrote:

Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support
the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming
ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of
the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed
out regarding "Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as a
term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining.



I find it helpful to distinguish "participant neutrality" from "service 
neutrality".  The first says that you and I pay the same rate.  The second says 
the my email costs the same as my voip.


As described, it appears that Level3 is being singled out, which makes for 
participant non-neutrality.  On the other hand, if Comcast were charging itself 
for xfinity traffic, this might qualify as service non-neutrality (assuming 
there is a plausible meaning to "charging itself"...


d/

--

  Dave Crocker
  Brandenburg InternetWorking
  bbiw.net

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Jeff Kell]

Now we know what "Xfinity" means :-)

Jeff

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Jack Bates]

On 11/29/2010 5:59 PM, Leo Bicknell wrote:


No one will ever be in ratio compliance with an eyeball dominant
network.  Ever.   Period.  It's not possible via technology and
TOS.  Enforcing it as an eyeball network just forces content providers
to aquire eyeballs, e.g. compete with you.  That's bad business.



The NSPs generally don't do non-transit peering unless traffic loads are 
high enough to justify it. That said, CDNs are the same. Google doesn't 
want to peer privately with someone who doesn't do enough traffic to 
justify the cost of the port, haul, support, etc.


The ratio of which way bits are flying are really irrelevant when 
peering, and as you say, tends to be more ego than anything. The key, 
and what everyone wants is "Someone paying me talks to someone I don't 
have to pay." Doesn't matter if it's CDN talking transit to an eyeball 
network or eyeballs paying for transit to access a privately peered CDN. 
What you don't want is 2 entities talking to one another through you 
without you making a dime.



Jack

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[Owen DeLong]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 3:42 PM, George Bonser wrote:

> 
> 
>> From: Rettke, Brian 
>> Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 2:41 PM
>> To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list
>> Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning
>> Comcast'sActions
>> 
>> Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to
>> support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming
>> streaming ventures. 
> 
>> From a cultural standpoint, we in the US are used to a model where the
> sender pays the postage for unsolicited content and the requestor pays
> the shipping for requested content.  So asking an ad network to pay
> Comcast for shipping their ads is valid but in a request where the end
> user specifically asked for a movie, the user should be expected to pay
> for that.  What Comcast appears to be doing is subsidizing "flat rate"
> customer rates by charging the providers "metered" access (assuming the
> fee charged the provider isn't also a "flat rate").  If so, that really
> isn't fair because:
> 
On the internet, how would you tell these apart?

First, as I have said in a previous message, I think Comcast's actions
here are deplorable. However...

Generally speaking, most (legitimate) ads are delivered as content on
web pages at various sites. As a result, they are "requested" specifically
by the user's browser right alongside all the other content the end user
actually asked for.

Perhaps part of the problem here is that Comcast comes from a culture
where advertisers pay to deliver their advertising which is delivered
directly alongside the content that the consumer actually wants.
Perhaps Comcast is having a hard time realizing that the internet
is not broadcast television, or, perhaps they think they can convert
the rest of us to thinking of the internet along those lines.

Certainly the ad-delivery method on the web is actually more in line
with that of broadcast television than it is in line with postal delivery
of advertising.

> 1.  The provider has no control over the size of or number of requests
> that are made.  The provider is essentially agreeing to an unknown
> quantity in advance.
> 2.  There is no way to ensure that a request is legitimate and not a
> request generated simply to generate revenue (sort of like click fraud
> ... stream fraud).
> 3.  It opens the provider up to a "denial of sustainability" attack
> where a bot net requests many copies of various streams, sends them to
> the equivalent of /dev/null and the provider is presented with a huge
> bill.
> 4.  The only way a provider could mitigate increases in fees is to meter
> access causing a sub-optimal user experience.
> 
All valid points. In fact, this points out that while the approach
Comcast is taking appears to resemble the "sponsor pays"
model of broadcast television, the metered aspect is a major
difference which changes the game significantly.

I suspect that Comcast is operating from the assumption that
every request for content to the provider is money flowing to
the provider so that the money collected by Comcast for the
corresponding traffic is merely "their cut" of the revenue.
Of course we all know this is a flawed assumption on Comcast's
part, but, if you look at it from that mind set the belief can
be rationalized, even if it is misguided.

> Shouldn't Level3 turn around and charge Comcast for distributing
> NBC/Universal content?
> 
Seems like a reasonable response, but, hopefully Level 3 will not
surrender the high ground since they have it for the moment.

> The whole thing is like a movie theater charging the studios to show
> movies while selling tickets to the public to watch them.  Actualy, it
> is like Universal opening their own movie theaters and charging
> competing studios to show their movies while still charging the public
> to see them.  Comcast is simply imposing a tariff on competing content.
> If I were level3, I would have denied the request. Customers on Comcast
> would then discover they have sub-optimal Internet service and gone to a
> competitor (AT&T Uverse or Verizon FIOS, for example).
> 
That's great in areas where that is an option. There are many areas served
by Comcast where Uverse, FIOS, etc. are not available. I live in San Jose,
California, the so called Capitol of Silicon Valley. In my neighborhood,
Comcast is the only cost effective alternative for more than 1.5mbps/384kbps.
(A residential DS-3 circuit is not cost effective).

> As owner of NBC Universal, Comcast is a producer as well as a
> distributor of content.  That puts them in direct competition with other
> producers regardless of the distributor.  Level3 should deny the request
> and Comcast users will have "Internet" access instead of Internet
> access.  Comcast doesn't have the captive audience they once had in many
> places and when customers discover their choices are limited when they
> choose Comcast, they will go elsewhere.  
> 
> I hope Level3's acquiescence is temporary or the FTC puts a s

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Leo Bicknell]

In a message written on Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 03:34:52PM -0800, Seth Mattinen 
wrote:
> My take on this is that settlement free peering only remains free as
> long as it is beneficial to both sides, i.e. equal amounts of traffic
> exchanged. If it becomes wildly lopsided in one direction, then it
> becomes more like paying for transit.

When you have users and no content how can the traffic be equal?

When you have content and no users how can the traffic be equal?

Ratio is horribly outdated.  Cable and DSL providers enforce out
of ratio at the edge with technology and policy.  My cable modem
is 8 down 2 up, yet my traffic profile is supposed to be equal?  I
can't host any "servers" by my TOS, but aggregated up the ratio is
supposed to be 1:1?

No one will ever be in ratio compliance with an eyeball dominant
network.  Ever.   Period.  It's not possible via technology and
TOS.  Enforcing it as an eyeball network just forces content providers
to aquire eyeballs, e.g. compete with you.  That's bad business.

But this isn't a technology problem, or a ratio problem.  Peering
spats like this are ego problems.  It's one VP/SVP/CTO/CFO deciding
that "my sandbox is more important than your sandbox", or "I'm going
to get revenue even if the world hates me for it and I'm going to
burn all my bridges in the process."  If they actually wanted to
equalize the costs, they could do that.  Decide on better peering
locations, use cold potato routing, locate caching/cdn things inside
the other network, etc.

-- 
   Leo Bicknell - bickn...@ufp.org - CCIE 3440
PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/


pgpkS4JPwFRWX.pgp
Description: PGP signature

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Owen DeLong]

As a Comcast customer, I find it very interesting that they think they have
the right to reject bits from other providers I may request them from.

The first time I encounter Comcast actually blocking bits I want as a
result of this policy, it will result in a technical support call. If the bits
don't start flowing within a reasonable time after that call, you can
bet that I will be pursuing regulatory and judicial relief.

Ordinarily, I would simply vote with my feet and switch to another
broadband provider, but, if you want more than 1.5Mbps/384kbps
in my neighborhood, Comcast is currently the only game in town.

I encourage other Comcast customers to make it clear to Comcast
that this attempt to extort money from other providers at the potential
cost of degraded service to Comcast's own customers is deplorable
and certainly violates the spirit if not the letter of the service agreements
for their high speed internet service products.

Owen

On Nov 29, 2010, at 3:42 PM, Guerra, Ruben wrote:

> 
> It seems that Comcast(AS7922) peers directly with Netflix(AS2906)?
> 
> 
> -Original Message-
> From: Phil Bedard [mailto:bedard.p...@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:24 PM
> To: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's 
> Actions
> 
> Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?  Netflix has become a large source of
> traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one if
> the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
> but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
> things.  
> 
> Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
> would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it
> along to their customers.  I think they probably just took a stab and L3
> complied. 
> 
> Phil  
> 
> 
> 
> On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, "Patrick W. Gilmore"  wrote:
> 
>> > concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp>
>> 
>> I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects
>> operational aspects of the 'Net.
>> 
>> Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay
>> to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product
>> which has content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on
>> this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for
>> settlement free peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to
>> claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are
>> competing and L3 is putting up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would
>> they?)
>> 
>> -- 
>> TTFN,
>> patrick
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

[George Bonser]

> 
> I hope Level3's acquiescence is temporary or the FTC puts a stop to
it.
> It is sort of like FedEx owning the freeway and charging UPS to use
it.

Note that I would have no problem with Comcast's demand for payment if
they didn't also own NBC/Universal.  If they were to divest themselves
of NBC/Universal and charge NBC/Universal the same distribution fee,
then I say fine.

The problem here is the fact that Comcast isn't charging more to pay for
the cost of viewing streaming content, they are charging more for
viewing COMPETING streaming content. 

Re: experience with equinix exchange

[Mehmet Akcin]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 1:39 PM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:

> Even combined, no.  It's north of 700 Gbps though.  I am assuming they have 
> combined S&D into the graph, though:
> 
>   
> 
> Given that Any2 is in the 200 range, Equinix is clearly more - more than all 
> four combined.
> 
> But all the traffic on every Equinix and PAIX switch combined, is still lower 
> than the traffic on any one of the three large exchanges in Europe.  It 
> really is all about the PNIs.
> 

I wonder how is NOTA like, do they ever make the traffic info public?

Mehmet

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Aaron Wendel]

Netflix pays someone to get access to "the internet" and that someone has
some sort of relationship with Comcast, or gets to Comcast through a third
party who has that relationship.   No one is getting anything for free.

 

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect customers to bear the cost of
their provider doing business.  If that business calls for the buildout of
additional infrastructure to remain competitive then so be it.  Comcast
customers pay their provider, Netflix pays its provider.

 

I think what this really boils down to is an effect of shoddy marketing.
Access providers want to offer "unlimited" everything and don't want to have
to go back to their customer base and say, "oh, sorry, we didn't really mean
unlimited.  We didn't think you'd really use that much." So they are looking
for ways of making up for the increased costs without having to look like
idiots to their customers.

 

My problem is, what happens if this becomes the new model?  What if Comcast
comes to me and says, "Oh, we've noticed X Mbits originating from your
network coming through ours.  Here's the bill of $X per bit."  What happens
when I counter with, "Ok, and I see X bits originating from your network.
Here's my bill, too."  Do they agree to an exchange of money for an exchange
of bits or do I get an "F you.  Pay your bill to us and we're not giving you
crap."

 

Aaron

 

 

 

From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] 
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:21 PM
To: Jack Bates; Aaron Wendel
Cc: 'Patrick W. Gilmore'; 'NANOG list'
Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's
Actions

 

On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:
> A customer pays them for access to the Internet.  If that access demands
> more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and
> pass on the costs to the customers demanding it.

I'd change this to "A customer pays for SHARED access to the Internet."
Unless your customer is paying for a direct fiber or internet circuit (~$500
- $10,000 per month) they aren't paying for independent and sole access to
the internet. It's another term that I think has lost its actual meaning,
"Unlimited access."  I don't have a problem, as a customer or as a Service
Provider, passing along the bill to the top 5% that are using a
disproportionate amount of bandwidth.

I can see the Internet reaching a fair-use model, as opposed to a free-use
model that is unsustainable, as was previously said.

Here's one specific example I can think of to discuss:

Netflix uses about a third of Internet bandwidth, in some cases going over
the HTTP traffic use for most customers. Netflix charges customers a fee to
use their service, but they don't pay the providers required to supply the
bandwidth for the customer leg.  I don't think ISPs charging Netflix is a
sustainable model either. A mutual endeavor involving shared interconnect
costs and intelligent placement of proxies would be something I could think
of to make the process beneficial for all parties. The end goal would be
that the "Shared Media Customer" has no idea what we are doing, but does not
see performance degradation in their HTTP or Netflix traffic, and that it
does not pass along additional cost to them. After all, to both Netflix and
the ISP, it is in their best interests to keep that customer a happy and
paying customer.

Sincerely,

Brian A . Rettke
RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP
Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services


-Original Message-
From: Jack Bates [mailto:jba...@brightok.net]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:11 PM
To: Aaron Wendel
Cc: Rettke, Brian; 'Patrick W. Gilmore'; 'NANOG list'
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's
Actions

On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:
> A customer pays them for access to the Internet.  If that access demands
> more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and
> pass on the costs to the customers demanding it.
>

I agree. This type of maneuver is no different than ESPN3 charging the
ISP for the ISP customers to access the content. Both are unscalable
models that threaten the foundation of an open Internet.

As an ISP, I could care less what is in the packets my customers send
and receive. The exception to this, of course, is malicious packets but
they keep refusing to set the evil bit.


Jack 

  _  

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1170 / Virus Database: 426/3287 - Release Date: 11/29/10

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[George Bonser]

> From: Rettke, Brian 
> Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 2:41 PM
> To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list
> Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning
> Comcast'sActions
> 
> Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to
> support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming
> streaming ventures. 

>From a cultural standpoint, we in the US are used to a model where the
sender pays the postage for unsolicited content and the requestor pays
the shipping for requested content.  So asking an ad network to pay
Comcast for shipping their ads is valid but in a request where the end
user specifically asked for a movie, the user should be expected to pay
for that.  What Comcast appears to be doing is subsidizing "flat rate"
customer rates by charging the providers "metered" access (assuming the
fee charged the provider isn't also a "flat rate").  If so, that really
isn't fair because:

1.  The provider has no control over the size of or number of requests
that are made.  The provider is essentially agreeing to an unknown
quantity in advance.
2.  There is no way to ensure that a request is legitimate and not a
request generated simply to generate revenue (sort of like click fraud
... stream fraud).
3.  It opens the provider up to a "denial of sustainability" attack
where a bot net requests many copies of various streams, sends them to
the equivalent of /dev/null and the provider is presented with a huge
bill.
4.  The only way a provider could mitigate increases in fees is to meter
access causing a sub-optimal user experience.

Shouldn't Level3 turn around and charge Comcast for distributing
NBC/Universal content?

The whole thing is like a movie theater charging the studios to show
movies while selling tickets to the public to watch them.  Actualy, it
is like Universal opening their own movie theaters and charging
competing studios to show their movies while still charging the public
to see them.  Comcast is simply imposing a tariff on competing content.
If I were level3, I would have denied the request. Customers on Comcast
would then discover they have sub-optimal Internet service and gone to a
competitor (AT&T Uverse or Verizon FIOS, for example).
  
As owner of NBC Universal, Comcast is a producer as well as a
distributor of content.  That puts them in direct competition with other
producers regardless of the distributor.  Level3 should deny the request
and Comcast users will have "Internet" access instead of Internet
access.  Comcast doesn't have the captive audience they once had in many
places and when customers discover their choices are limited when they
choose Comcast, they will go elsewhere.  

I hope Level3's acquiescence is temporary or the FTC puts a stop to it.
It is sort of like FedEx owning the freeway and charging UPS to use it.

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Guerra, Ruben]

It seems that Comcast(AS7922) peers directly with Netflix(AS2906)?


-Original Message-
From: Phil Bedard [mailto:bedard.p...@gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:24 PM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's 
Actions

Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?  Netflix has become a large source of
traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one if
the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
things.  

Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it
along to their customers.  I think they probably just took a stab and L3
complied. 

Phil  



On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, "Patrick W. Gilmore"  wrote:

>concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp>
>
>I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects
>operational aspects of the 'Net.
>
>Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay
>to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product
>which has content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on
>this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for
>settlement free peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to
>claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are
>competing and L3 is putting up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would
>they?)
>
>-- 
>TTFN,
>patrick
>
>

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Ingo Flaschberger]

I'm a hosting provider - and I have to pay for upstream.
Perhaps I should setup a rule counting comcast traffic and send them a 
bill, because their customers download stuff at my site and generate 
costs?


Kind regards,
Ingo Flaschberger

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Seth Mattinen]

On 11/29/2010 15:24, Phil Bedard wrote:
> Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?  Netflix has become a large source of
> traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one if
> the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
> but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
> things.  
> 
> Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
> would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it
> along to their customers.  I think they probably just took a stab and L3
> complied. 
> 

My take on this is that settlement free peering only remains free as
long as it is beneficial to both sides, i.e. equal amounts of traffic
exchanged. If it becomes wildly lopsided in one direction, then it
becomes more like paying for transit.

Perhaps this is the "cost" of acquisitions and mergers, like acquiring a
CDN product that dramatically screws with your peering ratios.

~Seth

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Jack Bates]

On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:

A customer pays them for access to the Internet.  If that access demands
more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and
pass on the costs to the customers demanding it.



I agree. This type of maneuver is no different than ESPN3 charging the 
ISP for the ISP customers to access the content. Both are unscalable 
models that threaten the foundation of an open Internet.


As an ISP, I could care less what is in the packets my customers send 
and receive. The exception to this, of course, is malicious packets but 
they keep refusing to set the evil bit.



Jack

Re: experience with equinix exchange

[Fredy Kuenzler]

Am 29.11.2010 20:44, schrieb Richard A Steenbergen:

Uhh... Reality check, with the S&D acquisition Equinix controls the VAST
majority of the IX traffic in the US. [...]


I was actually quite surprised that, when the merger of Equinix and S&D was
announced, no competition commission woke up and regulated it. An order
could have been for example the independence of the former PAIX exchanges.

I don't think in Europe a merger of AMSIX, LINX and DECIX would be accepted
by the EU competition commission. Though these three exchanges are not for
profit, which is, of course, another background.

Fredy Künzler
Init7 / AS13030

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Phil Bedard]

Is L3 hosting content for Netflix?  Netflix has become a large source of
traffic going to end users.  L3 likely could have held out on this one if
the content they were hosting is valuable enough to Comcast's customers,
but maybe what Comcast was asking for wasn't much in the grand scheme of
things.  

Obviously someone has to pay for the access infrastructure and Comcast
would much rather get the content provider to pay for it versus passing it
along to their customers.  I think they probably just took a stab and L3
complied. 

Phil  



On 11/29/10 5:28 PM, "Patrick W. Gilmore"  wrote:

>concerning-comcasts-actions-2010-11-29?reflink=MW_news_stmp>
>
>I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects
>operational aspects of the 'Net.
>
>Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay
>to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product
>which has content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on
>this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for
>settlement free peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to
>claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are
>competing and L3 is putting up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would
>they?)
>
>-- 
>TTFN,
>patrick
>
>

Re: Jumbo frame Question

[Douglas Otis]

On 11/29/10 1:18 PM, Jack Bates wrote:

 On 11/29/2010 1:10 PM, John Kristoff wrote:
> In a nutshell, as I recall, one of the prime motivating factors for
> not standardizing jumbos was interoperability issues with the
> installed base, which penalizes other parts of the network (e.g.
> routers having to perform fragmentation) for the benefit of a
> select few (e.g. modern server to server comms).

 Given that IPv6 doesn't support routers performing fragmentation, and
 many packets are sent df-bit anyways, standardized jumbos would be
 nice. Just because the Internet as a whole may not support them, and
 ethernet cards themselves may not exceed 1500 by default, doesn't
 mean that a standard should be written for those instances where
 jumbo frames would be desired.

 Let's be honestly, there are huge implementations of baby giants out
 there. Verizon for one requires 1600 byte support for cell towers
 (tested at 1600 bytes for them, so slightly larger for transport gear
 depending on what is wrappers are placed over that). None of this
 indicates larger than 1500 byte IP, but it does indicate larger L2
 MTU.

 There are many in-house setups which use jumbo frames, and having a
 standard for interoperability of those devices would be welcome. I'd
 personally love to see standards across the board for MTU from
 logical to physical supporting even tiered MTU with future proof
 overheads for vlans, mpls, ppp, intermixed in a large number of ways
 and layers (IP MTU support for X sizes, overhead support for Y
 sizes).


The level of undetected errors by TCP or UDP checksums can be high.  The 
summation scheme is remarkably vulnerable to bus related bit errors, 
where as much as 2% of parallel bus related bit errors might go 
undetected.   Use of SCTP, TLS, or IPSEC can supplant weak TCP/UDP 
summation error detection schemes.   While Jumbo frames reduce serial 
error detection rates of the IEEE CRC restored by SCTP/CRC32c for Jumbo 
frames, serial detection is less of a concern when compared to bus 
related bit error detection rates.  CRC32c solves both the bus and Jumbo 
frame error detection and is found in 10GB/s NICs and math coprocessors.


-Doug

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Rettke, Brian]

On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:
> A customer pays them for access to the Internet.  If that access demands
> more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and
> pass on the costs to the customers demanding it.

I'd change this to "A customer pays for SHARED access to the Internet." Unless 
your customer is paying for a direct fiber or internet circuit (~$500 - $10,000 
per month) they aren't paying for independent and sole access to the internet. 
It's another term that I think has lost its actual meaning, "Unlimited access." 
 I don't have a problem, as a customer or as a Service Provider, passing along 
the bill to the top 5% that are using a disproportionate amount of bandwidth.

I can see the Internet reaching a fair-use model, as opposed to a free-use 
model that is unsustainable, as was previously said.

Here's one specific example I can think of to discuss:

Netflix uses about a third of Internet bandwidth, in some cases going over the 
HTTP traffic use for most customers. Netflix charges customers a fee to use 
their service, but they don't pay the providers required to supply the 
bandwidth for the customer leg.  I don't think ISPs charging Netflix is a 
sustainable model either. A mutual endeavor involving shared interconnect costs 
and intelligent placement of proxies would be something I could think of to 
make the process beneficial for all parties. The end goal would be that the 
"Shared Media Customer" has no idea what we are doing, but does not see 
performance degradation in their HTTP or Netflix traffic, and that it does not 
pass along additional cost to them. After all, to both Netflix and the ISP, it 
is in their best interests to keep that customer a happy and paying customer.

Sincerely,

Brian A . Rettke
RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP
Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services


-Original Message-
From: Jack Bates [mailto:jba...@brightok.net]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:11 PM
To: Aaron Wendel
Cc: Rettke, Brian; 'Patrick W. Gilmore'; 'NANOG list'
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's 
Actions

On 11/29/2010 4:49 PM, Aaron Wendel wrote:
> A customer pays them for access to the Internet.  If that access demands
> more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and
> pass on the costs to the customers demanding it.
>

I agree. This type of maneuver is no different than ESPN3 charging the
ISP for the ISP customers to access the content. Both are unscalable
models that threaten the foundation of an open Internet.

As an ISP, I could care less what is in the packets my customers send
and receive. The exception to this, of course, is malicious packets but
they keep refusing to set the evil bit.


Jack

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Scott Berkman]

Unless I am missing something, Level3 is just the transit provider.  Level 3
(via one of their acquisition a few years back) does have a very popular CDN
product, but even if they are the source from an IP perspective, they still
do not own the content, that is still primarily the networks and studios.

Also as to GoogleTV, from what I have seen so far they are simply providing
an interface (via an OS for 3rd party hardware) to access already available
content, so yes they would be affected.

-Scott

-Original Message-
From: Seth Mattinen [mailto:se...@rollernet.us] 
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 6:02 PM
To: nanog@nanog.org
Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's
Actions

On 11/29/2010 14:40, Rettke, Brian wrote:
> Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to
support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming
ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of
the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed
out regarding "Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as a
term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining.
> 


Is Level3 the content provider though? Or did Comcast just decide they don't
want to do the settlement free peering thing anymore for traffic transiting
via Level 3?

~Seth

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Brandon Galbraith]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 4:57 PM, William Warren <
hescomins...@emmanuelcomputerconsulting.com> wrote:

> On 11/29/2010 5:46 PM, Mark Wall wrote:
>
>> Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to:
>> ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net
>> neutrality
>>  making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to
>> complain...
>>
>> Not the worse angle we've seen
>>
>>
>>
>>>  I think Karl Denninger has this one called right:
> http://market-ticker.org/post=173522
>
>
I'd have to disagree with his viewpoint. If customer is using resource X and
you're not able to remain profitable, than you're not charging customer
enough for the resource in question. This is just a backdoor attempt to
raise the cost to the customer without them seeing it.

If Comcast were to raise the price to the customer directly, I think you'd
see defection to other services (if available in the area, like DSL or
Clearwire).

Doesn't Verizon FIOS provide 50-150Mb/s to the home now for the same cost as
Comcast? Exhorting a carrier of content to your customer can't be a good
business decision.

-- 
Brandon Galbraith
US Voice: 630.492.0464

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Joe Provo]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 04:49:48PM -0600, Aaron Wendel wrote:
> A customer pays them for access to the Internet.  If that access demands
> more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and
> pass on the costs to the customers demanding it.

s/Comcast/Level3/

> I think it sets a very bad precedent that Level3 agreed to their terms.  How
> long would it have lasted with Comcast subscribers asking why they couldn't
> download their movies?

Considering L3 was recently skating the border of the pink sheets, 
it should be no wonder that it is a very different response than 
the one given to Cogent, for example.  Then again, who blinked first 
there?  It is amusing that the once-disruptive L3 is seeking to 
defend its position in the so-called "tier 1 " carte^Wcabal by running 
to the regulators.  I wonder how its fellow members of the club will 
like the idea of feds poking into their business when both sides of
the equation are examined...


-- 
 RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Seth Mattinen]

On 11/29/2010 14:49, Aaron Wendel wrote:
> A customer pays them for access to the Internet.  If that access demands
> more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and
> pass on the costs to the customers demanding it.
> 

But then Comcast might have to raise prices on their customers. This way
they don't.

~Seth

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Seth Mattinen]

On 11/29/2010 14:40, Rettke, Brian wrote:
> Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support 
> the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming 
> ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of 
> the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed 
> out regarding "Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as a 
> term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining.
> 


Is Level3 the content provider though? Or did Comcast just decide they
don't want to do the settlement free peering thing anymore for traffic
transiting via Level 3?

~Seth

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[William Warren]

On 11/29/2010 5:46 PM, Mark Wall wrote:

Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to:
ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net neutrality
  making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to
complain...

Not the worse angle we've seen





I think Karl Denninger has this one called right:
http://market-ticker.org/post=173522

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Thomas Donnelly]

"On November 19, 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 that, for the first time,  
it will demand a recurring fee from Level 3 to transmit Internet online  
movies and other content to Comcast's customers who request such content."


If the issue is bandwidth, then why not charge for bandwidth? Picking a  
specific service says we are trying to squash the competition.



On Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:48:06 -0600, Guerra, Ruben  
 wrote:


I'd have to agree with Brian. There is no simple answer to this one...  
If the ultimate cause is the abuse of bandwidth, I can understand  
this... BUT if the underlying motive is to squash competition then shame  
on you!




-Original Message-
From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:41 PM
To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list
Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning  
Comcast's Actions


Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to  
support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming  
streaming ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and  
the side of the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as  
the slogans spewed out regarding "Net Neutrality", which has become so  
misused and abused as a term that I don't think it has any credulous  
value remaining.


I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some  
sort of collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government  
regulations I fear no one will like the result.


Sincerely,

Brian A . Rettke
RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP
Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services

-Original Message-
From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's  
Actions




I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects  
operational aspects of the 'Net.


Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay  
to deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product  
which has content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on  
this list are happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying  
for settlement free peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers  
to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other content services provided by L3 are  
competing and L3 is putting up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would  
they?)


--
TTFN,
patrick







--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Brandon Galbraith]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 4:46 PM, Mark Wall  wrote:

> Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to:
> ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net neutrality
>  making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to
> complain...
>
> Not the worse angle we've seen
>
>
> >
> >
>

Is L3 really pushing more streaming traffic than LLNW? Is ending
settlement-free peering with Google (Youtube) coming down the pipeline?

-- 
Brandon Galbraith
US Voice: 630.492.0464

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast'sActions

[David Hubbard]

Wonder if comcast will try that with google's tv
service; would like to see them explain to their
users why they can't get to google.  Level 3's
unfortunately a much easier target. 

> -Original Message-
> From: Mark Wall [mailto:ospfisi...@gmail.com] 
> Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 5:47 PM
> To: Patrick W. Gilmore
> Cc: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement 
> Concerning Comcast'sActions
> 
> Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering 
> agreements (due to:
> ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to 
> net neutrality
>  making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to
> complain...
> 
> Not the worse angle we've seen
> 
> 
> >
> >
> 
> 

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Aaron Wendel]

A customer pays them for access to the Internet.  If that access demands
more infrastructure then Comcast needs to build out the infrastructure and
pass on the costs to the customers demanding it.

 

I think it sets a very bad precedent that Level3 agreed to their terms.  How
long would it have lasted with Comcast subscribers asking why they couldn't
download their movies?

 

Aaron

 

 

From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] 
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:41 PM
To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list
Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's
Actions

 

Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to
support the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming
ventures. I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of
the content provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed
out regarding "Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as a
term that I don't think it has any credulous value remaining.

I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort
of collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations
I fear no one will like the result.

Sincerely,

Brian A . Rettke
RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP
Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services

-Original Message-
From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's
Actions



I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational
aspects of the 'Net.

Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to
deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has
content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on this list are
happy to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free
peering tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or
CDN or other content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting
up a "toll booth" on the Internet, would they?)

--
TTFN,
patrick



  _  

No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 10.0.1170 / Virus Database: 426/3287 - Release Date: 11/29/10

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Guerra, Ruben]

I'd have to agree with Brian. There is no simple answer to this one... If the 
ultimate cause is the abuse of bandwidth, I can understand this... BUT if the 
underlying motive is to squash competition then shame on you!



-Original Message-
From: Rettke, Brian [mailto:brian.ret...@cableone.biz] 
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 4:41 PM
To: Patrick W. Gilmore; NANOG list
Subject: RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's 
Actions

Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support 
the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. 
I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content 
provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding 
"Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't 
think it has any credulous value remaining.

I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort of 
collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations I 
fear no one will like the result.

Sincerely,

Brian A . Rettke
RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP
Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services

-Original Message-
From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions



I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational 
aspects of the 'Net.

Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to 
deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has 
content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy 
to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering 
tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other 
content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a "toll 
booth" on the Internet, would they?)

--
TTFN,
patrick

Re: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Mark Wall]

Between the lines: Comcast wants to end mutual peering agreements (due to:
ratios, politics , greed) but we are going to spin it due to net neutrality
 making it main stream media and hoping we can get comcast clients to
complain...

Not the worse angle we've seen


>
>

RE: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Rettke, Brian]

Essentially, the question is who has to pay for the infrastructure to support 
the bandwidth requirements of all of these new and booming streaming ventures. 
I can understand both the side taken by Comcast, and the side of the content 
provider, but I don't think it's as simple as the slogans spewed out regarding 
"Net Neutrality", which has become so misused and abused as a term that I don't 
think it has any credulous value remaining.

I'm hoping that there is an eventual meeting of the minds wherein some sort of 
collaboration takes place. If this gets additional government regulations I 
fear no one will like the result.

Sincerely,

Brian A . Rettke
RHCT, CCDP, CCNP, CCIP
Network Engineer, CableONE Internet Services

-Original Message-
From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patr...@ianai.net]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2010 3:28 PM
To: NANOG list
Subject: Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions



I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational 
aspects of the 'Net.

Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to 
deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has 
content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy 
to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering 
tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other 
content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a "toll 
booth" on the Internet, would they?)

--
TTFN,
patrick

Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

[Patrick W. Gilmore]

I understand that politics is off-topic, but this policy affects operational 
aspects of the 'Net.

Just to be clear, L3 is saying content providers should not have to pay to 
deliver content to broadband providers who have their own product which has 
content as well.  I am certain all the content providers on this list are happy 
to hear L3's change of heart and will be applying for settlement free peering 
tomorrow.  (L3 wouldn't want other providers to claim the Vyvx or CDN or other 
content services provided by L3 are competing and L3 is putting up a "toll 
booth" on the Internet, would they?)

-- 
TTFN,
patrick

Re: experience with equinix exchange

[Patrick W. Gilmore]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 4:26 PM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 04:03:21PM -0500, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
>> The only thing I would change is that Any2 has at least one exchange 
>> with traffic (Los Angeles) and is distributed throughout the country.
>> 
>> But the vast majority of traffic exchange over IXes in the US is over 
>> Equinix/PAIX switches.  And a very large amount of traffic over 
>> private interconnects is also done in their buildings.
> 
> Woops, yes I forgot Any2 (how'd that happen? :P). Like Telx they've 
> recently deployed a bunch of new exchanges "all over", but there is 
> really only the one that does any traffic. :)
> 
> For comparison purposes:
> 
> http://www.seattleix.net/agg.htm
> http://www.nyiix.net/index.php?core=statistics.php
> http://tie.telx.com/usage.pl
> http://www.coresite.com/peering-any2charts.php
> 
> I don't think the combined Equinix / S&D numbers are published publicly 
> anywhere, but I'm sure it's north of a terabit. :)

Even combined, no.  It's north of 700 Gbps though.  I am assuming they have 
combined S&D into the graph, though:

   

Given that Any2 is in the 200 range, Equinix is clearly more - more than all 
four combined.

But all the traffic on every Equinix and PAIX switch combined, is still lower 
than the traffic on any one of the three large exchanges in Europe.  It really 
is all about the PNIs.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick

Re: experience with equinix exchange

[Richard A Steenbergen]

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 04:03:21PM -0500, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
> The only thing I would change is that Any2 has at least one exchange 
> with traffic (Los Angeles) and is distributed throughout the country.
> 
> But the vast majority of traffic exchange over IXes in the US is over 
> Equinix/PAIX switches.  And a very large amount of traffic over 
> private interconnects is also done in their buildings.

Woops, yes I forgot Any2 (how'd that happen? :P). Like Telx they've 
recently deployed a bunch of new exchanges "all over", but there is 
really only the one that does any traffic. :)

For comparison purposes:

http://www.seattleix.net/agg.htm
http://www.nyiix.net/index.php?core=statistics.php
http://tie.telx.com/usage.pl
http://www.coresite.com/peering-any2charts.php

I don't think the combined Equinix / S&D numbers are published publicly 
anywhere, but I'm sure it's north of a terabit. :)

-- 
Richard A Steenbergenhttp://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)

Re: Jumbo frame Question

[Jack Bates]

On 11/29/2010 1:10 PM, John Kristoff wrote:

In a nutshell, as I recall, one of the prime motivating factors for not
standardizing jumbos was interoperability issues with the installed
base, which penalizes other parts of the network (e.g. routers having
to perform fragmentation) for the benefit of a select few (e.g. modern
server to server comms).



Given that IPv6 doesn't support routers performing fragmentation, and 
many packets are sent df-bit anyways, standardized jumbos would be nice. 
Just because the Internet as a whole may not support them, and ethernet 
cards themselves may not exceed 1500 by default, doesn't mean that a 
standard should be written for those instances where jumbo frames would 
be desired.


Let's be honestly, there are huge implementations of baby giants out 
there. Verizon for one requires 1600 byte support for cell towers 
(tested at 1600 bytes for them, so slightly larger for transport gear 
depending on what is wrappers are placed over that). None of this 
indicates larger than 1500 byte IP, but it does indicate larger L2 MTU.


There are many in-house setups which use jumbo frames, and having a 
standard for interoperability of those devices would be welcome. I'd 
personally love to see standards across the board for MTU from logical 
to physical supporting even tiered MTU with future proof overheads for 
vlans, mpls, ppp, intermixed in a large number of ways and layers (IP 
MTU support for X sizes, overhead support for Y sizes).



Jack

Re: experience with equinix exchange

[Patrick W. Gilmore]

On Nov 29, 2010, at 2:54 PM, Bill Woodcock wrote:
> On Nov 29, 2010, at 11:44 AM, Richard A Steenbergen wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 28, 2010 at 04:09:55PM -0600, Aaron Wendel wrote:
>>> According to pch they don't run most of them.  I would say they run 
>>> very few compared to how many there actually are.
>> 
>> Uhh... Reality check, with the S&D acquisition Equinix controls the VAST 
>> majority of the IX traffic in the US. The only other IX's doing anything 
>> even approaching interesting traffic are NOTA (in Miami), NYIIX (in New 
>> York), SIX (in Seattle), and the former AtlantaIX (now Telx TIE) in 
>> Atlanta. All are regional players, with very incomplete coverage of the 
>> important regions in the US, so if you're peering in the US you're 
>> almost guaranteed to be dealing with Equinix. 
> 
> I might not state things quite as strongly as RAS, but yes, in essence, 
> that's how things stand.  There's a very long tail to the IXP curve, but 
> nearly all of the traffic volume in North America is going through 
> Equinix-operated facilities, at this point.  RAS has mentioned the main other 
> ones, and I'd probably only add Toronto and CoreSite to the list.

The only thing I would change is that Any2 has at least one exchange with 
traffic (Los Angeles) and is distributed throughout the country.

But the vast majority of traffic exchange over IXes in the US is over 
Equinix/PAIX switches.  And a very large amount of traffic over private 
interconnects is also done in their buildings.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick

Re: Conclusions? - Introducing draft-denog-v6ops-addresspartnaming

[Doug Barton]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

On 11/29/2010 11:59, Joel Jaeggli wrote:
| Since 11/18/10 this discussion has generated something like 66 messages
| across five threads on this list, on nanog and elsewhere.
|
| While some suggestions are entertaining, I would think of this criticism
| and commentary on the document as useful if it winnowed the number of
| options down to fewer rather than more. e.g. the positive result and the
| path to advancement of this draft would be when the document produces a
| solid recommendation on address part naming rather than several of them.
|
| Several recomendations do not get us further down the road to a common
| set of terminology.

If you're looking for serious feedback:
1. Any term using > 1 word is out
2. Any word using > 2 syllables is out
3. I've never had a problem calling it "field," I think that 5952 is a
perfectly good normative ref for that, and I don't understand what the
fuss is about. :)


hth,

Doug

- -- 


Nothin' ever doesn't change, but nothin' changes much.
-- OK Go

Breadth of IT experience, and depth of knowledge in the DNS.
Yours for the right price.  :)  http://SupersetSolutions.com/

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Conclusions? - Introducing draft-denog-v6ops-addresspartnaming

[Joel Jaeggli]

Since 11/18/10 this discussion has generated something like 66 messages
across five threads on this list, on nanog and elsewhere.

While some suggestions are entertaining, I would think of this criticism
and commentary on the document as useful if it winnowed the number of
options down to fewer rather than more. e.g. the positive result and the
path to advancement of this draft would be when the document produces a
solid recommendation on address part naming rather than several of them.

Several recomendations do not get us further down the road to a common
set of
terminology.

thanks
joel