It's very frustrating to see the moonbats and wingnuts take positions on this issue which are, at first glance, opposite of what one would expect.

It's because looking at a technology issue with a political eye makes you go completely in the wrong direction.

The left wants net neutrality not because they understand it, but because they want the government to control the Internet.

The right is against net neutrality not because they think they're protecting free enterprise, but they don't fully understand the antitrust implications of last-mile monopolies.

So really they're both wrong. They should just put me in charge and I'll have the problem solved in a week.

So here's how you end up with Netflix dealing directly with Comcast after they "already paid for" their transit:

http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/02/heres-comcast-netflix-deal-structured-numbers.html


"Remember, Netflix is the one paying Cogent and Cogent is selling Netflix on the principle that it can get all of Netflixbs traffic into an ISP like Comcast. As a result, Cogent has to take all the necessary business steps to make sure Cogent has enough capacity to pass Netflixbs traffic on from Cogentbs network to Comcast. But Cogent isnbt doing that. [...]

"Netflix is getting an install SLA, packet loss SLA and latency SLA from Comcast, which guarantees quality. This is very different from what Netflix was getting from Cogent because Comcast is providing fully dedicated capacity, unlike sending it through someone like Cogent where those connections are potentially over-subscribed if a transit provider over-sells their capacity, which Cogent has a history of doing.

"To date, Cogent has had peering disputes with AOL, Teleglobe, France Telecom, Level 3, TeliaSonera, Sprint-Nextel and Verizon. I find it interesting no one in the press mentioned how Cogent always seems to be the one major transit provider who continues to have disputes with so many other network providers, year after year."


Interesting, if true.


Also, if true, most of this whole debate is much ado about nothing.

Also, if true, most of this whole debate is much ado about nothing.

Or much ado about peering.
To a neophyte, or even to an experienced internet "civilian" peering may not sound like a big deal. However, in reality peering is **the** big deal.

You can co-locate in my NOC and pay me all the money you own, but if nobody *else* will "talk to you" then it does you absolutely no good to even be there.

I do plenty of peering. Settlement-free peering happens when both networks are on equal footing in terms of what they have to offer, either in the form of content or subscribers. Lopsided peering arrangements usually involve one party paying a settlement to the other. It really is that simple.

Greedy last-mile providers are looking to be paid twice to carry the same traffic, once from the subscriber and then again from the content provider.
This is the practice that needs to be stopped. But it needs to be stopped by people who don't have a hidden agenda of letting the government take over the Internet.

hmmmmm.... I can't believe people are ignorant of the issues.

Heh. In today's world, both online and off, stupidity and ignorance abound.
How *else* can one explain Barack Obama as POTUS? Even once, nevermind twice?

Ok. Why does it need to be stopped? In a world where customers don't want metered service, it still makes sense for network providers to charge the heaviest users for their usage. If that means they charge their end-users a more-flat or mostly-flat rate (perhaps tiered by bandwidth caps), and they turn around and charge Netflix (a HUGE bandwidth user) a bunch of $ which Netflix passses on to their customers, I don't see a huge problem with that.

I'd rather live in a flat-ish rate world, so I don't have to stress out about every little frigging packet I send.

Nov 12 2014 5:40am from rss @cascade in >
Subject: Dead California candidate leads in race
A candidate for a seat on a Central California board may win his
race, despite having died last month in a small plane crash.

http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/gTaH6no4KoM/

Now how about that!
If he should win, will they administer a Conditional Oath of Office at the gravesite? You know - ....

There's Conditional Absolution, and a few other conditional Rites in the Church, but this one would take the proverbial political cake! <evil liturgical grin!>

I forget where, but I think voters nearly voted a plant instead of a human for one political office.

This really should wake up our government to the fact that they do a terrible job of representing us, that we don't particularly care what goes into office.

ZOMG, BEING INELIGIBLE FOR THE JOB DIDN'T STOP OBAMAR SO THIS GUY IS A SHOO-IN!!!1

Assuming him to be a demoCrap (and here in California that's a rather safe assumption from Sacramento on south), he was probably elected by all those dead VOTERS!

Well, if you have more dead voters than living, it makes sense that they woudl vote for a dead candidate. So, it kinda sounds to me like the whole process went fairly.

Nov 12 2014 7:48am from rss @cascade in >
Subject: Obama fires latest salvo in war on coal
New emissions deal with China that industry says could cost U.S.
jobs deepens battle lines between the president and Congress over
Obama's climate change policy.

http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/EpwDpfR3ZI8/

1. Communist China is NOT a 'friend' of the United States.
2. Communist China has thermonuclear-armed ICBMs targeted on the US.
3. POTUS is over there treating them as friends. Offering "aid and comfort" to them.

#3 constitutes "treason" under the statutory definition of the term. The Communist Chinese are our enemy. Have been since 1949. Nothing has changed. They'd just as soon see us dead as anything else.

When that idiot is finally out of office he should be indicted and tried.
You only need TWELVE votes on a jury.

Does he even have the authority to unilaterally enroll the United States in a global warming treaty? I suppose since he can "legislate" through the EPA it carries the rule of law unless and until Congress legislates otherwise?

Jail is too good for him.

When you "co-locate" your machine in an internet provider's "machine

room", be it your local ISP or a Tier 1 provider, you pay for the
bandwidth you use, and if you exceed your allotted bandwidth, you pay

more - you do NOT get "throttled." It's included. Just by colocating,

Netflix (and any other such entity) is **buying** their bandwidth.

To charge SEPARATELY for TRANSPORTING the bandwidth for which they
have already paid is larcenous and anti-competitive. Period.

Netflix isn't colocating...they're spinning up and turning down on-demand compute and storage resources via Amazon EC2 (and maybe S3).

Netflix isn't colocating...they're spinning up and turning down
on-demand compute and storage resources via Amazon EC2 (and maybe S3).

That's not the whole story. Netflix runs much of their UI on EC2, yes--but you might call this just their "control plane."

All the bandwidth-heavy bits--the actual video files and most likely all the web static content as well--are hosted on various 1st- and 3rd-party CDN's.

This is not an uncommon arrangement for EC2 hosted sites, including my employer's. Actually it's becoming standard practice across the modern internet to have some sort of CDN partner, even if you have your own datacenter or already lease colo elsewhere.

EC2's metered bandwidth charges surely provide part of the explanation...