Netflix And Comcast Strike New Deal To Improve Netflix Streams

Ya know.... I look at it as it was a smart move on Comcasts part... easily extract more money from a service provider.. Guess you guys laid the groundwork for double dipping eh.

Way to go to help start the killing of the spirit of the internet

Netflix paid cogent ! Comcast subs were drawing a crap ton of Cogents bandwidth... guess Comcast should have been heavily billed by cogent right ? Right this is how it should work ?

Or, Comcast could've just shut up, stopped crying, and put a Netflix caching server with ~70% of Netflix's total content inside their network for free (less the cost of powering and dedicating space to the server). Problem solved! You guys can wring your hands about how Netflix isn't the good guy in this scenario, and that's true; they're in it to make a profit, too, but every reasonable offer they've made ISPs has, for the most part, been rejected. Open Connect? Screw that, said Comcast and TWC. Caching servers sitting on our network? No way, said Comcast and TWC. Let's take a look at which ISPs did get on board with Open Connect: "Frontier, British Telecom, TDC, Clearwire, GVT, Telus, Bell Canada, Virgin, Cablevision, Google Fiber, Telmex, and more."

How odd. So, clearly, these ISPs saw value in adopting Open Connect and it was the most sane, rational thing to do considering Netflix's aggregate bandwidth requirements and considering the malevolent mismanagement of peering points Comcast and TWC have engaged in. But the ultimate goal is for the MSOs to degrade Netflix's value to the customer by making it look and stream like a pile of shit so they can push THEIR streaming option on you. Comcast "turning the other cheek" is just their way of hushing up customer outrage for the time being.

And thanks to Sunny too!

So that is a no !

Please feel free to answer the question instead of going around it.

A better answer would have been, No this deal does not involve a CDN Rack or any CDN gear, it is an interconnect deal.

Then in the sb panel for it you could have said that Comcast had no interest in hosting any netflix CDN gear and the interconnect made better financial sense for comcast.

If it means you're starting a video service and collocating in every IXP that Comcast has a presence, then it's fair to assume settlement-free.

Paid transit services are there for networks who don't want to build out their own backbone around the country. If a CDN like Netflix chooses to take the extra step to meet ISPs half-way, I don't see why they'd be expected to shell out more money for a peering arrangement.

How is Netflix NOT paying anything when they do settlement-free peering? Don't you think it costs them money to have their own ASN and be present in a number of IXPs around the world? How do you think they get their content to their clusters? Probably leasing wavelength service from another carrier.

So tell me, how are they doing this all for free?

It looks like you're a Comcast subscriber.

I really don't mean this to be an ass but I'm having a difficult time understanding why people don't think they've already paid for their traffic to the Internet?

If you didn't think you were paying them for access to the Internet and services like Netflix.... Why did you sign up with Comcast and what did you think you were paying them for?

Sir the internet is a global resource.. so yes almost everyone with an internet connection should be fearful of this and speak up.

Can't wait until french or Spanish providers start trying for this deal from netflix. It drives all our rates up.

No, since outside the regulations are different and thus not a fair comparison.

Since data from multiple servers is transiting Cogent back and forth to multiple providers (like Comcast), much of it was a relatively even trade and Settlement Free Peering was probably agreed upon in most cases. Once a single server, like Netflix, starts pushing much more data through Cogent to get to providers those SPI agreements are being broken by the traffic imbalance. How much constitutes and imbalance depends on the ISP and the agreement. ISPs started demanding payment for the imbalance, which Cogent has every right to pass on (with their markup of course) to the servers, AND servers, like Netflix, should pay from their collected subscriber or ad fees for the bandwidth.

Netflix should open their CDN to other video providers (like Comcast), then they could arrange to get payments or SPI in return.

Reasonable offer? Letting major ISPs join the OpenConnect CDN for "free" isn't reasonable when other CDNs (including Netflix's competitors) pay for that direct connection to ISPs. In order to get the caching servers, you have to peer with OpenConnect and cover the costs of operating the hardware appliances. That might be a good deal for small ISPs. Not so much for Comcast.

Netflix could've just shut up, stopped crying, and paid the price years ago instead of trying to use their customers as pawns to try to force Comcast into caving.

The spirit of the Internet has been dead for years. The wireless phone industry pretty much killed it.

I'm curious about your view here. When you watch a cable TV channel, are you paying Comcast for the picture on the screen or are you paying them for the costs to get that picture to your screen? Those costs do not directly include the satellite uplink from HBO (for example) to the Comcast headend, which in this case is paid by HBO and passed through to Comcast in retransmission fees. Why do you think the Internet works any different?

And I've got bad news for you...ISPs have NEVER worked for the consumer. They are for-profit businesses. When consumer interests happen to coincide with the business interest things work fine. Not sure how demanding everything for nothing fits into that.

Why not sue them for the terrible streaming problem many customers are having with Netflix? It seems the internet has become a big trolling business few years back everything was great with Netflix until they separated streaming and DVDs stupid move.

They want some weird AOL walled garden cable like experience. Very strange people. How to set the Internet back. Its this kind of greedy nonsense that will ruin the Internet.

Unfortunately, too many people have zero understanding of how the internet was developed and engineered and financed. They think because they pay Comcast for a last mile connection, that Comcast is responsible for paying for the whole end to end connection from server to home. And that their paying for that last mile connection means from then on and forever Comcast has to finance the whole internet. Somehow they think content companies have no responsibility for carrying there portion of the costs of everything between their end and the ISP end.

My ISP is happy to host Netflix's OpenConnect appliance and other local ISPs where possible do interconnect with Netflix without double dipping special deals. They're not THAT greedy assholes.

Let us know when you receive that 30% discount for Netflix paying for your capacity

How much is Netflix raising fee's to cover this secret deal?

There is zero logic to that at all.

We don't want some AOL walled garden experience... but this is the way the commercial internet has worked for the last 2 decades.

Traffic originator gets billed for distribution and has the responsibility for keeping the bandwidth use under control otherwise they get billed more or cutoff for breaking their agreement.

They've been working on raising fees to pay their costs for a couple years now.

They've already raised fees for new customers, dropping included DVD distribution in the process, and limited concurrent streams per customer unless you pay for a higher tier of service... but they've also been working on doing it again.
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I was wondering why my streaming has been great the last couple days! Though I can't say if it's just because I'm using a Roku3 now, as the Netflix app on my Samsung Smart TV has been broken for 3 weeks now. (that stupid TV has been buggy as hell, wifi issues and Netflix breaking too often)

To get Settlement Free Peering with the ISPs they want a BALANCE in the traffic. Right now all the traffic with Netflix is one way: Netflix to ISP, so the ISPs are demanding payment for the traffic. If Netflix had something to trade, namely an expense the ISP pays to another company like transit to another network or CDN host capacity for their own content (like TV Everywhere video streams), then Netflix has something to bargin with for Settlement Free Peering.

Comcast does own NBC Universal and they do have a lot of upstream traffic they push around... too bad Netflix can't do anything with that....

I'm paying a single party to coordinate content acquisition, delivery (license, infrastructure), and support. So it'd be both the picture on the screen (license) and the rest behind the scenes.

Why do I think the Internet is different than cable television? I can't imagine a much starker contrast than exists in these two models. On the Internet, the end user chooses the content and has a relationship directly with the content provider. By typing in a web address, etc. Anywhere on the Internet that hasn't gone through lengths to filter you out welcomes you and wants you to use their 'service' whatever it may be. The ISP hasn't generated content, licensed content or has any direct relationship with the content I request. (With the obvious exception of their own web sites.)

The only relationship I have with my ISP is for delivery. The 'dumb pipe' I want them to be. I pay them for bits and they deliver me bits. Now they're becoming gatekeepers. In addition to me wanting those bits, some third parties are getting payment demands. And if the service (e.g. Netflix) doesn't also pay my ISP I won't get those bits - or as fast. Now that Comcast and others have gotten so large they can erect a barrier between consumers and services. Barriers are bad, unless you're the one collecting the toll.

ISPs have worked for the consumer in the past. When ISPs weren't as large as they are now they were responsible for getting the right bits to the end user. And they'd typically have to buy bandwidth from a larger provider. Their job was getting you what you want. Now in addition to collecting very profitable rates directly from their users they're holding their user base hostage as leverage for third party agreements.

The idea that an end user ISP is getting money from a third party to allow their end users to connect the third party service is... extremely scary.

Now - Netflix. Netflix is bringing that direct consumer to content provider relationship to life not just with a web site, but video. And that is how I'd like television to work. (And these ISP/TV providers have obviously figured that out.) I'll pay for the content I want to watch. If I want ESPN I can sign up with ESPN just like I did Netflix, etc. Entertainment tailored to me without excessive and unnecessary bundles and can cater to any niche interest I have.

You're welcome. Here's some more pointing out: the price you pay Comcast is for unfettered access to Comcast's network. And you get that. You are incorrect that Comcast is gatekeeping or interfering in your access to other Internet services. They do not do this.

However, all ISPs do peering agreements so that traffic can flow between them. These agreements can be mutual/no money paid, or if one side is not providing as much value as the other across the link, money is used to make up the difference. There is nothing new about this. Traffic volume from one peered network to the other costs the other money, and they are not going to give it for free.

All this is is just a peering agreement between Netflix and Comcast so they have direct peering, increasing performance, instead of an indirect peering setup. Netflix probably paid Comcast for this. So they get better performance for their Comcast connected customers.

Nothing evil or new is going on. It's just business. You should be happy about it, as Netflix is now providing better service to you.

Instead, you are *assuming* that Comcast is evil and Netflix is good, and somehow the evil Comcast is extorting money from Netflix by somehow doing something in their network to interfere with your Netflix access. This is manifestly untrue. Thus my conclusion that you have been spun. Sadly you are not alone.

YOU. CAN. NEVER. HAVE. A. BALANCE. WITH. AN. END. USER. ISP.

Settlement free peering agreements (based on equal traffic) were designed for transit to other parts of the Internet. "Hey, I'll pass some of your data over to the next network if you pass some of mine to that network I don't have a good connection to okay?" That type of settlement free peering is NOT for ISPs.