Level 3 Communications Issues Statement ConcerningComcast'sActions

Tue Nov 30 03:32:57 UTC 2010

> Heck, if I were Level3, I might even drop the level of traffic in my
> own network bound for Comcast and have a note on the site that Comcast
> users can expect poor performance.  Something like "Comcast is too poor
> to upgrade their network and has attempted to extort payment from us
> under threat of disconnection from their internet users.  Though we
> have refused to pay the "eyeball ransom", we have decided to help
> Comcast out anyway by bandwidth limiting traffic to their poor wittle
> network.  As a result, Comcast users might experience reduced
> performance."
> 

Note that was tongue in cheek.  I actually support the notion of making it more expensive to deploy more bandwidth intensive applications as it *does* place an unfair burden on the delivery network.  The problem I have in this case is the conflict of interest when the delivery network is also a content provider and discriminates against content competitors.