Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Tue Dec 14 16:24:45 UTC 2010

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 1:53 AM, Rettke, Brian <Brian.Rettke at cableone.biz>wrote:

> I don't see anything listed that indicates operation that is at all
> different from any other service provider network.
>

Yeah, the 30 day looks like a classic uptick in traffic toward the holidays.
Some bellhead beancounter maybe
took out capacity in the summer lull and ignored the engineers. Or they just
have stupidly-slow install intervals.
Same crap I've seen on loads of provider networks.

> The "capacity" issue listed is not an issue at all. It's simply inciting
> anger and the same rhetoric that pollutes the legitimate discussion of
> backbone network constraints.
>
> When you shout "conspiracy" without offering verifiable facts, and not
> accounting for the cost (and time) it takes to upgrade networks (much less
> the fact that it requires capacity upgrades on both sides, in this case
> between TATA and Comcast), it makes the whole argument invalid in my
> opinion.
>

If they wanted to be tru to the  claim of "wikileaks style" in the subject
line, they'd have an actual memo from
some executive stating the policy of purposefully starving traffic. Never
attribute to malice* *that which is
adequately explained by stupidity.

> That and the "backdoor santa" thing makes me believe the whole thread is
> designed to flame rather than promote the discourse that is the hallmark of
> NANOG. I really hope that there are moderators about to verify this: With
> these kinds of people about I'm less likely to post anything of substance.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Brian
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mikael Abrahamsson [mailto:swmike at swm.pp.se]
> Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 11:45 PM
> To: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
>
> On Mon, 13 Dec 2010, Backdoor Santa wrote:
>
> > Another thing to notice is the ratio of inbound versus outbound. Since
> > Comcast is primarily a broadband access network provider, they're going
> > to have millions of eyeballs (users) downloading content.
>
> Actually, there are plenty of access providers with 2:1 ratio (more ul
> than dl). It's not a matter if you're access provider or not, it's a
> matter if you offer decent upstream speed or not.
>
> In my experience, someone with 10/10 megabit/s ETTH compared to someone
> with 24/1 ADSL will download the same amount of data on average, but the
> 10/10 will have four (4) times more upload usage, bringing the ratio from
> 2:1 (Dl:Ul) on ADSL to 1:2 (Dl:Ul) on ETTH.
>
> So because Comcast is offering low upload speeds, they'll have low
> outgoing amount of traffic compared to incoming. With more and more ISPs
> offering more symmetric dl/ul speeds, we'll approach 1:1 ratio more and
> more...
>
> --
> Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se
>
>
>