Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions

Tue Nov 30 06:13:58 UTC 2010

On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 5:02 PM, Bret Clark <bclark at spectraaccess.com> wrote:
> On 11/29/2010 07:55 PM, Ren Provo wrote:
>>
>> http://blog.comcast.com/2010/11/comcast-comments-on-level-3.html
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Dave CROCKER<dhc2 at dcrocker.net>  wrote:
>>
> Okay's let's say L3 gives in to Comcast and pays them. L3 then turns around
> and charges us (providers) more to cover the additional money they have to
> pay Comcast now. In the meantime Comcast continues to undercut the market it
> sells into making it harder for me as a service provider to compete...that
> just isn't right. Maybe Comcast should raise their prices to their customers
> to cover the cost of upgrading there network, but then they wouldn't be able
> to undercut me anymore...monopolies are a dangerous thing!

>From the spectator sport perspective...I would have loved to see what
would have happened had Level3 said essentially "your customers want
more data from me, go bill them for it."  Would Comcast really de-peer
Level3?  Where would that 500Gbps of traffic try to flow?  I rather doubt
the TATA pathway would be able to take more than 20% of it before
melting down; and it's pretty clear that Comcast has been working to
phase out their previous relationship with GlobalCrossing, or at least
to depreference it over other pathways, so I doubt it could pick up the
slack.  And, at the end of the day, if Comcast *did* try to call Level3's
bluff, and depeered them...whose support phone lines would be likely
to melt down first?  Would the Comcast customers call Level3 to
complain, or would they call Comcast to say "what the hell, I pay
$8.99/month to be able to stream Netflix, and now I can't reach them
anymore--go fix it!"

It would be an ugly, ugly day for the US bits of the Internet...but
it would be fun to watch from the sidelines.  ^_^

Matt