Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Thu Dec 16 18:58:08 UTC 2010

On Dec 16, 2010, at 1:37 PM, Paul Stewart wrote:

> Pardon my ignorance here but what does Comcast do for the NANOG community?
> I know they attend many conferences and share their experiences with a lot
> of us which is very much appreciated...

I'm sure the concern is that Comcast signed up to return NANOG (newNOG?) to philly.

I think they may be overly sensitive to some of the comments, just as if people were posting similar comments about my employer, I would likely be sensitive.  (Also there are a lot of people who post stuff but don't actually attend NANOG meetings.  There is this overlap but disjoint as well between the two in my experience.  Hope everyone is wearing their teflon pants).

Aside from the 'public comments', the leaked graphics (which I personally would believe are accurate, but the motives of the leakers not obvious), I don't directly have a role here.  I understand comcast has a lot of infrastructure and costs.  Likely more fiber than the incumbent telcos, and they are constrained by a variety of local business conditions from doing what may be a more optimal solution for themselves.

All that said, the whole issue of 'local content' is going to continue to rage on for years to come.  Getting the content closer to the end user is going to be a key to reducing costs for the long-tail providers to homes and businesses. Should it be incumbent on the CDNs to pay for colo at the headend?  That's a business decision that will entirely be driven by these ongoing disputes.

It surely feels like we are slowly going down the road of telco-style settlement based on call direction.  I've observed some trends that point at this happening when someone has a fortress they wish to defend, monetize or subsidize further.  Will it win out?  I'm not entirely sure.

	- Jared