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Journal: Content Companies Paying ISPs Covertly
In Order to Speed Up Their Own Data Delivery

The Wall Street Journal has offered up a rather strange story claiming that content companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft are paying the nation's large ISPs covert cash in order to "get faster and smoother access to their networks." That is, of course, the very concern many network neutrality supporters have had as ISPs get more and more powerful. However, the Journal's story rather lacks in the hard technical specifics, only saying that these payments generate ISPs a significant amount of additional revenue.

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The story also simultaneously tries to argue that such connections are legal under the FCC's neutrality rules, but none of the companies involved want to talk about them for fear of the public results:
quote:
These kinds of payments long have been shrouded in secrecy, largely because the companies involved are wary of discussing unregulated territory where contract negotiations can be contentious. Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Verizon Communications AT&T and Comcast declined to comment on the specifics of such arrangements....Some Web companies feel they have little choice, people close to the companies say.

If Microsoft stopped paying Comcast "tomorrow," said a person familiar with the matter, its Web performance would "go downhill and the pages wouldn't load as fast." Google's decision came down to whether the Internet giant would put advertising revenue amounting to "tens of billions at risk" for the "millions" Google would have to pay Comcast, some of the people said.
Granted this is the future we chose when real network neutrality protections died back in 2010 in a cloud of partisan bickering and disinformation. Getting content companies to fund network upgrades was always the goal. Surely nothing will go wrong under this gatekeeper scenario where the biggest companies get preferential treatment for the right price?

Most recommended from 40 comments



SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

2 recommendations

SpaethCo

MVM

Money is exchanged either way

Only this ends up working out to be cheaper.

An ISP like Comcast offers connectivity to 18+ million subscribers. So a company like Microsoft can pay a network operator like Level(3) for transit to deliver bits to Comcast endpoints, or Microsoft can decide that Comcast is big enough that it's worthwhile to connect directly as a customer and end up paying less than using an intermediate transit carrier.