[signet]

Level3 is dropping packets because $BIG_CABLE_ISP doesn't want to upgrade their cross-connects at the exchange points. Level3 sounds happy to increase this capacity, they are saying that the cable ISPs aren't negotiating with them to provide more bandwidth at these choke points. It's not Level3's job to pay for $BIG_CABLE_ISP's infrastructure, when it's their own customers who are requesting the traffic over these links.

[diminoten]

But isn't that the point? Level3 is capable of handling more traffic but the ISPs are not. So what?

It sounds like Level3 wants to enter into bigger-money contracts with the ISPs but the ISPs don't want to, so Level3 is appealing to the masses to help them rake in extra cash (to justify the expenses they've incurred upgrading their equipment).

Why does Level3 get the benefit of being David here? IT just seems like they're trying to leverage the net neutrality debate to get themselves more favorable peering contracts with ISPs, which in a twist of irony, is exactly the kind of thing which goes against net neutrality in the first place (why are Level3's packets so special anyway?).

[CocaKoala]

What? Level3 isn't appealing to the masses to help them rake in extra cash. They don't need to.

Do you think Level3 just throws data at Comcast nonstop, and Comcast is helpless to stop it? Customers of Comcast ask for data that Level3 is trying to provide; Comcast can't handle the bandwidth. But the only reason the data is flowing is because the customers of Comcast want it; it's not like Level3 is forcing Comcast to accept it.

Why is Level3 obligated to pay for upgrades to Comcast's infrastructure to satisfy demands placed on Comcast by Comcast's customers?

[diminoten]

You've got to ask yourself why Level3 is writing blog posts about this in the first place. It'd be like a bread making company calling out the sandwich shop it sells bread to for not having enough stores.

BUT WE'VE MADE ALL THIS BREAD WHY WON'T YOU BUY MORE?! JUST OPEN UP 100 NEW STORES I KNOW YOU HAVE THE MONEY TO DO IT!

Level3 invested money in their infrastructure, but Comcast, et. al. have not (yet). Level3 is losing money by having all this additional capacity, are they not? So clearly it's in their best interest to light a fire under the ISP's collective ass to try to get them to upgrade quickly.

Oh hey look, a political issue has appeared that does precisely that. Why wouldn't Level3 latch onto that movement and attempt to use it for financial gain in the form of more favorable peering agreements?

[CocaKoala]

>It'd be like a bread making company calling out the sandwich shop it sells bread to for not having enough stores.

No. It isn't. It's like a bread making company calling out the grocery stores for not having enough shelf space to stock all the bread that customers of the grocery store are asking to buy, saying "People keep on asking us for bread and you can't stock enough of it".

edit to add: You keep on not understanding that the only reason the demand exists is because the customers of the ISPs want it. This isn't a scenario where L3 is just trying to push data at Comcast; it just isn't. You keep on acting like it is, and it isn't, and I can't think of another way to phrase it so that you'll understand. Level3 is not just pushing data at comcast that nobody wants, and whining that comcast can't handle it. Customers of Comcast are asking for the data, Level3 is trying to provide it, and Comcast is blocking that transaction.

edit again: It's also worth noting that in this scenario, people are paying a monthly subscription fee to the grocery store that says they can come in and get certain amounts of bread (or UP TO certain amounts of bread whatever) and yet because there is not enough shelf space customers are going hungry. And yet despite the fact that people are going hungry, the grocery stores are insisting that the bakery provide, in addition to the bread, the shelves on which to store the bread. And you're arguing that since the bakery has already spent money upgrading their ovens, their proofing rooms, and their mixers, they should also upgrade the grocery store's shelves.

[diminoten]

The demand is not for L3, the demand is for Netflix. Level3 is pushing itself on "Comcast" (which is really a stand-in for the 5 ISPs who aren't playing ball with L3, and may not actually be Comcast at all).

Why must these ISPs play ball with L3, and not try to find competitors to do what L3 does? Isn't competition good?

Edit: People aren't going hungry (I know it's an analogy, but come on), people are watching Netflix at 480p instead of 720p/1080p. Let's try to keep things in perspective here.

[CocaKoala]

L3 is not pushing. I cannot stress that enough. L3 is not pushing. L3 does not push. Pushing is not something L3 does. In the Game of Pushing, L3 is not a player. If you navigate to wikipedia.org/things_which_push, L3 is not on that list. If all the entities of the universe were put into two groups, one labeled "pushers" and one labeled "not pushers", L3 would be in the second group.

The ISPs must play ball with L3 because their customers are asking for content that L3 is trying to provide. If the customers ask for different content from somebody else, then somebody else would be providing the data.

And excuse me? Don't blame me for the crappy analogy; you're the one who brought it up. I thought it was a stupid analogy too, but I thought that speaking in your own terms might help you understand the situation.

[thedufer]

> It sounds like Level3 wants to enter into bigger-money contracts with the ISPs

As the article points out, peering rarely involves money (and shouldn't ever; as the word peer implies, its a largely symmetric relationship).

The ISPs' customers are paying the ISPs for bandwidth and then requesting traffic. Level3 is providing said traffic and then the ISP drops it because they don't have enough bandwidth. How can a reasonable person possibly interpret this as being Level3's fault?

If an ISP isn't willing to supply its customers with the bandwidth that is being paid for, they need to either fix that or stop promising things they aren't willing to deliver on.

[jsz0]

> stop promising things they aren't willing to deliver on.

Very few ISPs offer residential Internet access with SLAs that guarantee performance or even availability. They mostly promise only a 'best effort' class of service.

[Spooky23]

"Best effort" doesn't mean "Here's your dinner, take it or leave it."

ISPs have been successfully managing aggregate network bandwidth growth for over twenty years.

I work at a place that has transformed it's utilization of the internet via cloud services -- utilization going from 80-120MB/s to multi-gigabit. Adapting to that change was relatively easy and cheap. With the economies of scale that a large Telco has, it's a drop in the bucket.

[BWStearns]

I've been speed testing my shitty (Time Warner, yay) internet lately and am getting fully 50% of my 15m/s that I pay a whopping $80+/mo (hard to disambiguate between the 'packaged' cost with TV). I once got a Comcast rep to admit that they basically were unconcerned with providing anything which is at least %60 of the level that they advertise. Unless the entire company is both mentally and physically challenged I seriously doubt that this represents a "best effort" class of service. This is go-fuck-yourself service that a dive bar would be embarrassed by.

[thedufer]

That's a good point. I meant promise in the sense that that's how customers often interpret a bandwidth claim - legally, they're making no such promise (otherwise they'd be in a lot of trouble).

[army]

Right, and the problem is that their version of best effort doesn't involve trying very hard at all, since they have minimal competition in most local markets.

[diminoten]

If Level3 can't give Netflix what it promised Netflix it would deliver, maybe Netflix should use a different CDN.

Other CDNs aren't having this problem, because they're willing to work with the ISPs.

[thedufer]

Yes, let's encourage people to pay ransoms. That's going to end in a rational system.

Netflix switching would, in the short term, give them more bandwidth. In the long term, encouraging ransoms will cause them to go up and Netflix will be forced to keep raising their prices. This is exactly what Netflix does not want to happen, and they are wisely refusing to play ball.

[pdonis]

> Other CDNs aren't having this problem, because they're willing to work with the ISPs.

Do we know this?

[diminoten]

You asked this question in like 3 places, but yes, if you read the blog post written by Level3, you'll see them mention that other backbone providers are making deals with the ISPs, but that they're refusing to.

[pdonis]

> if you read the blog post written by Level3, you'll see them mention that other backbone providers are making deals with the ISPs, but that they're refusing to

Where in Level3's blog post does it say this? I'm not seeing it. Certainly at least one other transit provider, Cogent, doesn't seem to be making ISP deals; if it did, the Netflix-Comcast deal wouldn't have happened

(Also, in the post I was responding to in this subthread, you said CDN's, not transit providers. They're not the same.)