Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Thu Dec 16 17:22:23 UTC 2010

  On 16/12/10 8:52 AM, Jack Bates wrote:
> On 12/16/2010 9:17 AM, Mikel Waxler wrote:
>> Comcast can now charge its customers only for upkeep of its network 
>> and use
>> the income they get as an "end point delivery network" to offset 
>> customer
>> cost. Comcast's cost, which are upkeep and expansion of its physical
>> network, now scale proportionally with its customer base.
>
> The problem with your layout is that, as a netflix user, I pay more to 
> netflix so that you can have their service over comcast, and my 
> provider doesn't get income from the netflix streams as it is sub 100k 
> users (so I still have to pay for my provider's upgrades to handle the 
> netflix which percentage wise will be higher than comcast due to less 
> ideal bandwidth discounts and the locality which may even drive up the 
> overall percentage of netflix streams per customer base).

Problem?  For Comcast, none of this is a problem.  (Do you see the 
problem now?)

Again, I predict that things ARE heading in this direction, and that 
market forces and the current regulatory climate encourages it.  Dire 
news for small providers.  Saying you "want" it to be different[1] won't 
change anything.  I don't know what the solution is (if there is a 
solution) but so far all I see are people complaining "but if that 
happens, it's bad for me and for others".  Yes, it's bad.  What are you 
going to do to stop it?  If Comcast can continue to force other networks 
to pay it to carry data to Comcast's users, it will create a tidal wave 
of momentum in their favor for lowering rates and pushing other eyeball 
networks aside, buying them up or just taking over their territory and 
customers.

jc

[1]  I want a pony, etc.