Level3: Comcast Feud Not Simple Peering Dispute > Netflix traffic or not.. Level3 appears right to me

Netflix traffic or not.. Level3 appears right to me

Well in the days of unlimited/free long distance nobody. But in theory, the person Requesting the phone call, the person doing the dialing would get with long distance charges. That means Comcast customers are paying for there bandwidth, and its up to Comcast to provide the service they are selling. In order to provide this service its up to comcast to either pay for bandwidth, or arrange peering agreements.

No that's not how it works. L3 is sending the traffic. Think of it as how a callback service works.

reply to fifty nine
not sure what you were getting at, but the person placing the call pays for it, usually - this issue is similar, Comcast subscribers are "calling up" Netflix/Level3's network, Comcast subscribes are putting the demand there and you'd think Comcast would want to continue to keep things running smoothly for them. What they're trying to do is use their massive subscriber counts to say to Netflix/Level3 "a large amount of people who uses your service gets to it through us, if you want it to continue to have it operating smoothly, pay up" - Comcast is only in a position to do this because of their size, it could hurt Netflix's ability to sell their product potentially if Comcast subscribers weren't able to access it due to performance problems. A lot of people also aren't in a position to switch to other providers, Comcast being the dominate broadband ISP provider for a large amount of the country. Netflix also just so happens to be a major competitor to Comcast's video/cable and other media services...

reply to w0g
That is a very consumerist but inaccurate way to look at the situation.

Those who want their traffic terminated pay, unless there's an agreement otherwise. That's how it has been for a long time.

reply to Phatty
The way I see it both sides should be paying, so what makes the most since is for both sides to not pay and just let the data flow.

It is Comcast Paying customers who are making the data request. But it also Level 3 hosting/servicing data directly that is being sent to Comcast. So either they should both pay each other, or just call it even and remember that its the paying customers Comcast has that benefit the most by having a direct peering arrangement with Level3. Otherwise those customer would be stuck making additional hops to get to their destination which would slow things up.

reply to Phatty

reply to Phatty
Thing is, they already call it even, when it's even. In fact even when it's 2:1.

The problem was that L3 bumped 2:1 to 5:1 meaning they'll be sending 5 times the amount of traffic they receive.

reply to fifty nine
You're comparing apples and oranges there. POTS is a completely different animal that cannot be compared to transit providers in a situation like this.

reply to Linklist

reply to fifty nine
Completely different arrangement. Of course the caller in the US. So, the caller would be the Comcast customer, here, since they requested the Netflix traffic.

reply to sonicmerlin

reply to fifty nine

reply to w0g
The way the old POTs network and the internet work are VERY different. The way the economics evolved are linked directly to those differences.

POTS: When you make a call a dedicated 2-way circuit was opened between you and your party. Because this was a 2 way circut, the originator was charged by the party who terminated the call. (This old rate structure, and the way it was set up to balance costs vs income is what prompted all those problems a while back from the free conference call services awhile back)

Internet: There is no dedicated circuit and each packet of data can go an entirely different path than the previous one. As such, all communication is 1 way. When you send a netflix request, you basically are telling the hosting servers "Hey! Gimme this! I can be found at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. I look forward to hearing from you." The Servers then send a new message to you saying "Hey! I heard you asked for this. Here you go!". Then occasionally you'll just respond back, "Hey thanks! I got x part of it. keep it coming!"

going back to the wonderful postal system analogy which works so well in describing network packets. You are putting a stamp on each packet of data you send on the net, along with the address you want it delivered too. If you requested data....such as a newsletter.... The party who would send that back to you would then need to put a stamp on their packet with your return address. To the postal system, they have no way economical way to easily keep track of the entire conversation to know who started it or it's status. (short of DPI...aka... opening every letter). There is no such thing as a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope in the internet world.

Now keeping with the root cause of this problem as I see it, in easy postal/package delivery metaphor.... and let's shrink the scale down a bit too just to make things slightly easier to understand. (and get rid of some of the extra muddiness.)

Think of as Comcast as a company that handles packages in the state of NY. You live in NY, and pay Comcast a monthly fee for a mailbox and unlimited postage so you can send and receive packets whenever you want.

Level3 is a distribution/trucking company that traditionally has been a company that handles getting packages from Comcast in NY, and Delivering them to AT&T in California, as well as other package delivery companies. They primarily deal with package delivery companies and not the actual package deliveries or orgination themselves.

A CDN, such as Akiami and Limelight are 3rd party distribution centers. They store the items people want sent to them in big warehouses closer to the end users who are requesting packages.

So Comcast has this nice facility they use at the edge of their package delivery network to interface with other package delivery and distribution companies to help sort and efficiently move these packages around. Within this facility, they have a ton of trailer bays for incoming and outgoing packages. Akiami has leased 5 of the bays so they can quickly move packages from their warehouse directly into Comcast's system.

Comcast also has 5 bays for trucks from Level 3 which they use when they need to get packages outside their local system, and to bring packages into their system from other package companies. Everything moves smoothly.

Now Netflix was contracting with Akiami to store thier product in Akiami's warehouses for delivery. But Level 3 decides "Well, We have our trucks, we have our bays, Why not just attach a warehouse into our network and our existing deals for bays t do the same job." So in prep for Netflix moving all their packages from Akiami to Level3, Level3 beefs up their delivery network. They get some new trucks, and they add some bays to their facility.

Level 3 then contacts Comcast and says hey! we need 5 more bays so we can move all our trucks in and out effeciently. Comcast looks at their facility and sees they have a total of 15 bays in the building. 5 currently belong to Akiami (they haven't moved out), 5 are currently Level 3's, 3 are for lease (they were built and budgeted for another paying client), and 2 are open and there are not any current plans for them. Comcast tells Level 3, you can use these 2 since they aren't in use, but these other 3 are for rent. you can use them, but I posted them on criagslist with a first come first served and can't hold them if someone else expresses interest.

Level 3 still gets a total of 7 bays under their existing contract they can use, but would need to pay for 3 of them if them want them. If They have 10 truckloads of data coming into the system and didn't want to pay for the extra 3 bays, then 3 trucks would have to wait for a bay to open up....slowing down the ability to quickly move them back and forth. (lag.).

From comcast's side, the number of packages coming into their system is still the same, but the issue is how they get into the system. They can't just take away Akiami's bays even if they may not be using them fully anymore. I'm also betting one reason for the proposed flat rate charge on those ports/bays is because with the existing "free" bays under the existing contract, it's easier and cheaper from a billing, management, and legal standpoint to keep the existing contract active, write a new one for the new ports, and not worry about trying to figure out the usage of the existing "free" ports and the new "paid" ports for a usage based system.

As for peering agreements. Comcast charges a stamp to deliver a package in it's system. Level 3 charges a stamp to deliver a package in their system. Obviously, Comcast makes more money if they deliver stamps between their own customers since it doesn't cost them anything. If a package needs to go to Level 3 however, they need to give that stamp to Level 3 instead of keeping it. And Visa Versa, Level 3 wants to deliver a package in Comcastland, they need to give them a stamp.

Now, if the 2 sides are trading the same number of packages back and forth between each other, ultimately what would be the point in trading stamps back and forth since you'd end up with the same number you started with in the first place. "Relatively equal" stems from the idea that to keep track of the number of packages going back and forth, you'll have to pay someone to count them, draw up the billing.... loose some to taxes/overhead... etc. so if you factor in that overhead, Figure Comcast would pay $100 for all their packages to Level 3, Level 3 would pay $200 for their packages into Comcast, but Comcast would then have to pay $100 to cover the overhead in billing level 3. End result is that Comcast didn't make any money, so why not just save the hassle/trouble in seperate billing.

Thats why assymmetrical settlement free peering makes sense.

Sorry for the ramble.... but I'm hoping I at least made some sense since people in every thread on this subject i've read seem to have some problems with understanding how all this works.