"potential new and different architectural approach" to solve the Comcast - L3 dispute

Sat Dec 18 06:28:43 UTC 2010

On Sat, Dec 18, 2010 at 01:07:15AM -0500, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> 
> Note that Comcast has never said that the Level3/Netflix issue is 
> about users exceeding their allotted bandwidth (currently at about 
> 250GB/month for residential); presumably, were a Comcast user to use 
> 249GB of bandwidth downloading cute pictures of cats, Comcast would 
> have no objection.

I believe they want the cat people to pay too, it's just easier to go 
after Netflix first.

Lets say for a moment that Comcast's overall ratio with its customers is 
approximately the same as their ratio in the leaked Tata graphs (yes I 
know that this proves nothing, but lets just assume it for a moment), 
i.e. 5:1. They then ask that every network who sends them traffic, even 
their transit providers (in the case of Level 3) be under 2:1. What is 
the point of insisting on a ratio that is not supported by the traffic 
their customers actually request? Because it gives them a convenient 
excuse to demand payment from nearly everyone on the Internet for being 
out of ratio, and to restrict capacity to those who do not pay.

With so many transit ports running hot, and even peering ports running 
hot as in the recent example where they intentionally turned down Global 
Crossing capacity (which they claim is settlement free) and CAUSED 
congestion, the ISP who hosts the cute cat pictures may have little 
choice but to pay Comcast for access, or risk losing their cute cat 
hosting business to someone else who is willing to do so.

I've also seen Comcast ignore several offers to honor MEDs or accept 
more-specifics from networks who DO meet their published peering 
requirements in every way except ratios, so I don't think they're 
interested in technical solutions a potential transport cost imbalance 
either. If it was about anything other than trying to extract a toll 
from content providers, one of these technical solutions would clearly 
have been better for them then continuing to force the traffic into 
their congested transit ports, which they not only pay for, but then 
also do the backhaul for across their own network.

BTW, they rejected my very nice comment on their blog asking if they 
would be willing to share the graphs of their transit provider 
interfaces (which are NOT peering relationships, and not under NDA) to 
back up their claims that the published graphs are false, so I'm 
positive yours isn't going to get through. :)

-- 
Richard A Steenbergen <ras at e-gerbil.net>       http://www.e-gerbil.net/ras
GPG Key ID: 0xF8B12CBC (7535 7F59 8204 ED1F CC1C 53AF 4C41 5ECA F8B1 2CBC)