[ikeboy]

Let me ask you something else. How large should a company need to be to get free connections to last mile ISPs? If any company could do it, then instead of paying for hosting or internet, I'd just pay for one computer and hook it up directly to the ISP. That isn't possible for every website.

Why should Netflix be able to do that and not smaller sites?

[dpark]

I think you've misunderstood the scenario at play. Netflix did not want to connect to Comcast for free. Netflix did not want to connect directly to Comcast at all. They wanted to connect to their own ISPs, and they were paying to do so. Comcast didn't want to upgrade the peering links to Netflix's ISPs, though, because they'd then lose their leverage over Netflix. Comcast's refusal to upgrade peering links effectively forced Netflix to connect directly to Comcast.

Comcast sells asymmetric connectivity that's skewed as far as 10:1 download vs upload. And then they claim that peering should be symmetric as if they aren't a huge contributor to the asymmetry.

[msandford]

While we're asking each other silly questions, let me ask you this: if my ISP says that they're providing me with "internet access" but actually only provides me with "most of the internet minus a few people we'd like to shake-down access", this is OK?

[ikeboy]

No, and luckily nobody was doing that.

And my question was serious. If you think that what Netflix was asking for should be given as a matter of principle, then it shouldn't matter how large they are, and absolutely every website should never have to pay for bandwidth again. What exactly am I missing?

[tzs]

Netflix does pay for their bandwidth. They pay their ISP for it. What you are missing is that Comcast is not Netflix's ISP, and Netflix does not use any of Comcast's bandwidth.

When a Comcast customer uses their Comcast internet connection to use Netflix, or Google, or HN, or any other site, it is that customer who is using Comcast's bandwidth. It is not Netflix, Google, or HN using it.

[ikeboy]

Why should Comcast care whether Netflix pays their ISP or not? Either way, someone's trying to give them data for free.

And Netflix has its own CDN, which wants to connect directly to last-mile ISPs. In that setup, they aren't paying anyone other than the end ISP.

>When a Comcast customer uses their Comcast internet connection to use Netflix, or Google, or HN, or any other site, it is that customer who is using Comcast's bandwidth. It is not Netflix, Google, or HN using it.

This is pointless semantics. If I send you something, we can either call it me using the bandwidth, or you using it. Doesn't change my point here.

[msandford]

> This is pointless semantics.

Not really. If I mail something to you, I pay the postage. That's how mail works.

When I connect to the internet, if I request something from you, we both pay our respective ISPs to make it happen. That's how the internet works. And the limit to connection speed has historically always been the last mile on one side or the other.

So what Comcast did is pushed the congestion from the last mile to a peering point by purposefully not upgrading the peering point. And predictably, what happened is that the last mile wasn't the limiting factor anymore. According to 20-30 years of internet history, that's breaking the internet. Maybe not Comcast's contract with their customers (since they can unilaterally change that at any time) but definitely in terms of expectations.

That would be like gas stations suddenly advertising the pre-tax price on their signs only once you're done pumping $30 worth of gas they charge your card for $40 because of the taxes. Might not be explicitly illegal since so many other products are advertised on the pre-tax price. But it would be breaking with decades of convention. People might get really pissed as a result.

Sadly few of us have options to get internet aside from Comcast, where as in the gas station scenario we could easily stop patronizing BP or Texaco or Shell or whoever. That also gets people riled up. And rightly so!

[tzs]

> Why should Comcast care whether Netflix pays their ISP or not? Either way, someone's trying to give them data for free

The data was paid for by Comcast's customers. I pay Comcast for the service of transport of packets from my network to the internet, and from the internet to my network. That's the whole point of an ISP.

[dpark]

> Either way, someone's trying to give them data for free.

And why shouldn't it be free? I, the Comcast customer, requested this data. Why should Netflix have to pay for the last mile when that's what I pay for already?

Why does Comcast get to charge for both ends of the pipe when they only own one side?

[wmf]

The principled way to solve this is to give Comcast a choice of receiving traffic over transit or free peering, but either way they have to deliver customer traffic without congestion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9193591