[noxxten]

> Why is Comcast obligated to do this for free?

Because of a hundreds of thousands of people paying them already over-priced networking fees? Comcast wouldn't be doing it for free... I'm already capped at 300Gb per month on my Comcast internet... If I choose to spend that 300Gb in a week on streaming netflix, fucking let me; That's why I pay for it. At this point not only are ISPs trying to limit how much of their service I can use, but when, where, and how.

This isn't how free-flowing information works.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> Because of a hundreds of thousands of people paying them already over-priced networking fees?

1. Those people are free to stop paying. 2. Why are they obligated to give something to party A for free, because they overcharged party B?

You're not really offering any sort of logical point here. You're not thinking, you're just reacting.

> If I choose to spend that 300Gb in a week

If you chose to use that 300gb downloading from my website, would Comcast be obligated to let me put a server in their data center for free?

No.

You're just being absurd.

> That's why I pay for it.

Nothing in your contract with Comcast says anything remotely resembling the claims that you're making. If you are mistaken and think you're paying for this, then perhaps you should end your relationship with Comcast. Or, if that is too uncomfortable to consider, then perhaps you should realign your expectations with those laid out in the contract.

No judge would ever listen to some juvenile whining for very long, and god help us all if you get the politicians to do so. We'll be in real trouble then.

[jbooth]

>If you chose to use that 300gb downloading from my website, would Comcast be obligated to let me put a server in their data center for free?

No, but they're obligated to get those GB to the consumer in some frickin way, because they have a signed contract with the consumer obligating them to get them their damn bytes. Who cares if it's netflix or 1,000 myriad other sites. The only reason netflix is an issue is because they're a big enough target to extort.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

> No, but they're obligated to get those GB to the consumer in some frickin way, b

No, they're not obligated.

Not legally.

Not contractually.

Not morally.

Consumer internet is a "best effort service". If Netflix refuses to acquire sufficient connectivity, then it's not Comcast's fault.

This is really simple. You should get it after I repeat it a few dozen times.

> because they have a signed contract with the consumer obligating them to get them their damn bytes.

It's an implied contract, but the problem's still the same: you never read it.

> Who cares if it's netflix or 1,000 myriad other sites. The only reason netflix is an issue is because they're a big enough target to extort.

The only reason it's an issue because only Netflix is so big that the existing connection is insufficient. When you subtract the Netflix traffic, the link's not saturated.

[jbooth]

So your argument is that internet providers are perfectly within their rights to cash your check and then not provide internet service, and that's all perfectly ok and the way things should be? I'm not talking about the lack of an SLA when temporary outages happen, or temporary service degradation as they roll out new infrastructure to cope with traffic growth, I'm talking about consistently and systemically not living up to their end of the bargain and no intention to fix it. Complete lack of "best effort".

Subtract netflix traffic and more traffic will come from someplace else. The internet's not going away, usage is growing across the board, and netflix is just (one of) the first to hit our current traffic peaks, which will themselves look small in a few years.

If ISPs can't deliver that bandwidth at current prices, they should A) look at whatever korea, japan and northern europe are doing right, and B) failing that, increase prices until they can deliver the service they're charging for. This is really simple. You should get it.. well, you won't, probably. But the rest of us won't stand for it.

[nsxwolf]

> If you chose to use that 300gb downloading from my website, would Comcast be obligated to let me put a server in their data center for free?

That's not what peering is, though, right? Nobody's asking for anything like this. They're asking for building a couple links between a small number of large networks, or have I got this wrong?

Nobody's saying build out huge infrastructure that belongs to a particular website for free.